Fall festivals in full swing across the South

AccuWeather

Southern fall traditions may differ a little from what others are used to. We check in with AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson to see what kind of fall fun she's having in the South.

Transcript

00:00from sunflowers to winter strawberries southern farms run on a different calendar than northern

00:06farms now accuweather's leslie hudson is live at southern hills of farm uh southern hill farms in

00:14claremont florida with how the season shows up down south and what can we can steal for our fall

00:22bucket lists hey good morning to you bernie yeah you know we we're trying to uh do what we can here

00:31in florida i do feel a little guilty when you guys are talking about how cold it is up there and you

00:36feel like it's going to snow when it's absolutely gorgeous here and lower humidity than we've seen

00:40here in a while and as you mentioned i'm at the southern hill farms here in florida who really

00:46does fall festivals just about better than anyone in the state so over my shoulder you can see the

00:51all of the farmland out there they have about 120 acres and most of that is blueberries strawberries

00:59and their sunflowers it is brisk business for the these folks here at southern hill farms and down

01:04way down there is where my shot was uh last hour that is their pumpkin patch so we mentioned that

01:11you know one of the caveats when you live in the south is we don't grow uh the pumpkins we have to

01:16get them not from charlie brown but from actual vendors that are outside of the state who ship

01:21them here into florida but really you know we we try and get into the fall spirit just like everybody

01:27else and one of the big differences between southern states and the northern states is that our growing

01:32season for many crops is just now starting and a lot of the growing season here in florida is year

01:38round or nine months so we have some video of some of the farming here in florida strawberry again is

01:45one of the biggest farm uh farm crops here in the state of florida it is a huge business for not

01:53only florida but for the country in fact this farm that i'm at southern hill farms actually has a

01:58commercial several commercial crops and they sell a huge amount of their strawberries to the commercial

02:03industry in the winter and in the spring when the strawberries are so popular but here in the south

02:09the autumn again starts in the field those northern farms are already kind of closing up business

02:14or close to closing up business for the year but we're just getting started here in the southern

02:19states uh usually folks are you know scraping off frost or talking about when is the first snow coming

02:24up in the northern states and here uh we're just hitting our stride because the farmers are really

02:29starting to get very busy uh with our longer growing seasons and many parts of the southeastern states

02:34are just now getting down to business

02:37one of our main crops um that we actually grow um that will grow year round down here in central florida

02:48is sunflowers up north that's a summertime thing they love the sun they they love the heat

02:53um we have learned that they can survive in the colds our harvest season for strawberries is december

02:59through the end of march we plant in late september early october and then we start harvesting in december

03:06so what we do is the the fields you see right there with the irrigation running they were planted last week

03:12so as david hill mentioned uh he they just started uh to plant their strawberry crops and so uh they are

03:24all over the place here and again they are big exporters here commercially uh one of the biggest

03:29differences between those northern and southern fall festivals again are the pumpkins as i mentioned

03:34we have to import our gourds here in the southern states we cannot grow them here you can't actually

03:41grow a pumpkin i found this out yesterday i didn't know this you can grow them in florida they just take

03:45a really long time and they're usually pretty small so to get those big giant pumpkins that everybody

03:50wants for those photo ops we tend to uh get those imported and they of course make for great carving

03:56uh the sunflowers again uh kind of steal the show here in the southern hill farms they're absolutely

04:01uh beautiful they're uh way over my shoulder if you can see out live again uh they're starting to bloom

04:06we're going to do our last live shot down there so you guys can see those sunflowers and again those are

04:10huge business here in the state of florida and again uh where we sell them not just here in the southern states

04:15but sell them around the country so the ones that you see in your grocery store or your local floors

04:19there's a pretty decent chance they came from a crop here in florida or in one of those southern

04:24states so fall is all about food and friends and places to gather in the kitchen uh here in the

04:30south it's sweet potato pies and blueberry lemonade it's still hot here in the afternoon i was looking

04:35for some shade for sure yesterday but it really is a great time to get in the fall spirit florida style

04:41and we're trying to do that in spades reporting live in claremont florida i'm leslie hudson

04:46you gave me the chills leslie even though it's warm there it's so sweet yeah it's a really good

04:52story uh we appreciate you sharing that all right

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