October 11, 2012 (ROCKFORD) -- "The pumpkin crop this year was really a pleasant surprised," said owner of Curran's Orchard Pat Curran.
He said, "The quality of the pumpkins seem to be much better this year than in the past."
There are plently of pumpkins to go around this halloween at Curran's Orchard in Rockford.
The owner said, his patch is seeing quite the crop this year and there's a reason why.
"The pumpkins that we had in the field are what we call clean pumpkins. They're not diseased. We stayed ahead of that and I think some of that was due to the fact that we didn't have a lot of rain," he said.
The extreme heat and drought killed off a number of different crops in the midwest-- costing Illinois farmers millions of dollars and forcing federal agencies to step in to help.
But pumpkin farmers in Northern Ilinois said, they got just the right amount of rain.
He said, "The quality of the pumpkins seem to be much better this year than in the past."
There are plently of pumpkins to go around this halloween at Curran's Orchard in Rockford.
The owner said, his patch is seeing quite the crop this year and there's a reason why.
"The pumpkins that we had in the field are what we call clean pumpkins. They're not diseased. We stayed ahead of that and I think some of that was due to the fact that we didn't have a lot of rain," he said.
The extreme heat and drought killed off a number of different crops in the midwest-- costing Illinois farmers millions of dollars and forcing federal agencies to step in to help.
But pumpkin farmers in Northern Ilinois said, they got just the right amount of rain.
"We didn't have a lot of rain. We were fortunate to get two-tenths of an inch of rain every couple of weeks, but it was just barely enough to keep those guys alive and moving," said Curran.
Because of that many pumpkin patches in Rockford will be thriving this Halloween season.
"You call it a miracle if you want, but it's close to that compared to the drought that we had," he said.
