Pumpkin

Cool summer means smaller, greener local pumpkins 

Ah, the onset of autumn. Time for scarecrows, haunted houses, hay rides. And, of course, fields of green pumpkins.

Green? Despite this last sizzling week, the uncommonly cool summer has delayed the pumpkin growing season in the Bay Area -- leaving fields of pumpkins more green than orange on Friday, the first day of fall.

"Pumpkins are about as late as they've ever been in our 41 years," said Hank Pastorino of Pastorino's Pumpkin Farm along Highway 92 in Half Moon Bay, which welcomes tourists each year to its pumpkin patch and bat cave train rides. "The pumpkins will probably be smaller than normal -- 10 to 20 percent smaller."

In this land of the fabled Giant Pumpkin contest, held each year in downtown Half Moon Bay, the cool weather could mean local contenders will be lightweights. It won't help that temperatures are expected to return to normal conditions for this time of year, gradually dropping from the mid-80s Friday to the high 70s by Sunday and Monday.

Slow-growing gourds

Along the big pumpkin circuit, there are reports of stem splits and blossom blowouts. But giant-pumpkin growers are notorious for being coy -- or flat out bluffing -- until the Oct. 10 weigh-in that determines the winner.

"There's always the hidden gossip that, 'Well, all my plants died,' " said John Muller, a Half Moon Bay farmer with a pumpkin patch along Highway 1. "Then they'll show up with a 1,200-pounder."

But this year, those rumors might have some truth -- especially for local growers. Muller, who beat all local competitors a few years back with a 1,200-pound pumpkin, says his contender this year is closer to 500 pounds -- thanks in part to the cool weather.

"For the last two years, we've had unusually cool summers. For us on the coast, we've had tremendous overcast and dripping fog," Muller said. "It was like that back in the 1940s and '50s."

In San Jose alone, it was the coolest August since 1976, with temperatures in the high 70s.

It has been so cool that two varieties of his field pumpkins didn't even produce -- including the most profitable variety, he said. But his farm is open for business, with rows and rows of pumpkins coming in trendy, designer shades from bright white to butter yellow. And while he has a crop of jack-o-lantern orange ones to sell, many of his front porch variety are still green around the gills. (A few days in Silicon Valley sunshine, however, should orange those right up.)

Central Valley shines

Half Moon Bay's weather handicap, however, is the Central Valley's advantage. This summer's cool temperatures have meant milder days inland, which actually help the pumpkin crop there that often has trouble in the normally searing heat.

Vince Zunino, who grows his own giant pumpkins in Los Altos Hills, keeps track of his inland competitors.

"When it's too cold here, it's just right there," said Zunino, who has been growing giant pumpkins for the past 12 years. Using special seeds with parental provenances, he has a thousand-pounder growing this year, he said, but believes it would have been much bigger had the weather been warmer.

He expects a Central Valley farmer to take the blue ribbon -- and the $6-per-pound purse -- at the Half Moon Bay weigh-in for the second year in a row.

Tricks of the trade

That hasn't stopped local growers from trying -- and defying Mother Nature.

John Szabo has been growing giant pumpkins in the backyard of his Half Moon Bay home for four years and has learned all the tricks of the trade. He keeps a warming light on the biggest pumpkin, a tent on top and a vibrating gizmo in the soil to keep the gophers away. He also runs a heating cable under the dirt to keep the soil at a constant 74 degrees. At about 500 pounds, it's his biggest yet -- but far from the local record books.

With pumpkin growing season just about over, there is little more farmers can do to increase their gourds' size by the October weigh-in. But Zunino continues to care for his big pumpkin, just as he has throughout the chilly summer.

With blankets in his backyard, he said, "I tuck the pumpkin in at night."