Drought means higher pumpkin prices

Growers have been forced to jack up the price of your jack-o-lantern this year.
Be prepared to spend more than last year when you head out to buy a pumpkin. Dry conditions across the Southeast have caused widespread shortages according to Clay Slaughter, who sells pumpkins at the Macon State Farmers Market.
He says he had to travel far to get his pumpkins with the added cost of fuel hiking prices.

"I had to go really north to get good pumpkins out of the State of Michigan. Tennessee pumpkins are not any good because of the drought. Georgia didn't have any pumpkins. Alabama, north Alabama normally grows a lot of pumpkins and the drought killed them too."

Pumpkins are normally planted around the Fourth of July and need temperatures below 90 degrees, and plenty of rain to grow. According to farmers the few pumpkins that did survive in Georgia this year are going to be very small.