By TIM UNRUH, Salina Journal

If you want a pumpkin to carve for Halloween or to use for some other form of fall decoration, there are plenty to be plucked in these parts.

For those who like baking with pumpkin and like the convenience of opening a can, it's been a rough year.

Grocers have had trouble getting enough of the popular holiday puree to meet customer demand.

"Pumpkin pie filling is hard to find. My understanding is that it was a bad pumpkin harvest," said Ken Noonan, manager of the Salina Walmart, 2900 S. Ninth.

Last week, the store had only large cans of pumpkin pie filling on the shelf.

"If someone sees it now, they'd better buy it," Noonan said.

The shortage isn't because of a lack of supply of pumpkins. In fact, Walmart has oodles of real pumpkins for sale, he said.

It's just that producers didn't can enough supply last year, said Rod Imhoff, owner of Rod's Thriftway Food Store, Concordia.

"They just didn't pack enough, so it ran out early. We're waiting on new pack (from this year's harvest)," he said.

Within the past week, Rod's has received national brand Libby's pumpkin pie filling, but those supplies are limited. His store has begun receiving pumpkin pie filling from Best Choice, a private label.

"Right now, I have it on my shelf," Imhoff said. "I also have plenty of locally grown pumpkins, so I haven't had a problem."

There is an ample supply of locally produced pumpkins in the raw, unprocessed form. They're available at retail stores. More adventurous types can pluck them from fields.

A strange growing season produced some peculiar results in Grant Nurnberg's Sunny Side Pumpkin Patch, 11500 S. Hopkins, but an average harvest is meeting demand.

Same goes for the Smoky Hill Bison Co., south of Assaria.

Both businesses in southern Saline County use pumpkins as a staple attraction every October, for visitors to carve, decorate, even shoot, sling and smash.

"I have a pretty good selection," Nurnberg said.

But he is aware of the canned conundrum.

"My aunt in Emporia was going to the store to get canned pumpkin and couldn't get any," Nurnberg said. "I've heard that pumpkins didn't do so good in many parts of the United States."

A wet and mild summer caused some of his crop to mature early and there were pressures from insects. Other pumpkins are still green.

"It's definitely a strange year. Some years, I don't have any orange pumpkins until the end of September," Nurnberg said. This year, some of his pumpkins turned orange in early August.

It's been a wet season, said Linda Hubalek, owner of Smoky Hill Bison Co.

"If they're sitting in puddles, they might rot, but we don't have that problem here," she said. "For the start of the season, we had a good crop. We still have about 1,500 school kids coming in. I think we're still good on the quantity that we'll be needing."

Most pumpkins sold here are for decorating, Hubalek said, but occasionally she sells to cooks.

"I had a lady (last week) who bought some to make pumpkin pies," she said.

At Sunny Side, Nurnberg said some pumpkins are processed to make pies that are sold to customers. Two customers purchased pumpkins for baking last week.

But not many bakers are interested in starting with a raw pumpkin, Imhoff said.

"Today's people don't want to go to the trouble," he said. "It's too easy to open the can."

Starting with a raw pumpkin -- cleaning it, removing seeds and fibers, then baking, peeling and pureeing it, will at least double the time to bake a pie, said Leah Robinson, family and consumer sciences agent at the Central Kansas Extension District, Salina. Fresh pumpkin has a milder flavor than canned, she said.

"There's more steps involved, more time involved, and a bigger area. It's very messy," Robinson said. "It's a lot easier to do the canned."

n Reporter Tim Unruh can be reached at 822-1419 or by e-mail at tunruh@salina.com.

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