# Price of pumpkins where you live?



## Madame Leota (Sep 19, 2005)

Last year, pumpkins were around $3 at wal mart and grocery stores. Last week I paid $4.78 for one at wal mart. Tonight I was at Sam's Club and saw them for $6.88! And they were NOT large! Sheesh! Must have been a bad growing season.
How are they in your area?


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## jdubbya (Oct 4, 2003)

I haven't looked at them or priced them yet but was wondering myself. I got some beautiful large pumpkins last year at Walmart for $5.00. Another grocery chain had them for about the same price. There is a large commercial farm that has nice ones but charges a lot for them. I guess I don't mind shelling out some money for nice pumpkins once a year, but given that we carve around 6 or 7 of them, I like to get a bargain.


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## Tish (Aug 5, 2008)

I got some mini pumpkins tonight from Trader Joe's. They were 4 to a bag and $2.99. At a local pumpkin farm, I heard a friend of mine got a bargain, 30 pumpkins for $50.


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## Scottish Scarer (Jan 5, 2008)

I beleive they were £3.00 here last year, which works out at just under $6.00


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## digbugsgirl (Aug 15, 2007)

Food Lion has them for $4.99


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## a witch from canada (Jul 13, 2005)

where i am in in the Quebec province smalls are 3$ , mediums are 5$ or so and the large one are 10$ and 12$ ..... we had lots of rain here this summer and lots of flooded fields so alot of crops wore ruined in alot of areas ....


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## creepy crawler (Jul 31, 2008)

I have heard that it was a bad season for pumpkins... depending on location.
Here in Pennsylvania its not so bad one of the farm stands have $12.00 all you can carry.
We went to Country Junction and they had any pumpkin for $3.00 any size no limit 
so we got 3 pumpkins about 35lbs each nice size for $9.00


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## VNOMISS (Jul 16, 2008)

I just bought 4 so far from Lowe's...2 large that were $6 each and 2 medium sized that were $4 each...


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## Macabre1 (Jan 13, 2004)

Krogers has them for $4.99 a piece and they aren't large at all.


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## spookifyKN (Jun 25, 2008)

my wal-mart had them for $5 and they were medium to large sized pumpkins.


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## HauntedPumpkin (Nov 4, 2006)

The farms and orchards around my area charge twice what the large grocery chains charge ($5-6).


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## Madame Leota (Sep 19, 2005)

So is everybody seeing a jump in price this year or is this pretty normal for you? Is it just something else we can blame on rising fuel cost?


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## Junit (Sep 1, 2008)

I live out in the country and there's tons of people selling them on backroads. I've always been able to get them for a dollar or 150. Last year they were 350-4 and I was shocked. This year I haven't seen yet how much they will be. Hopefully not any higher than last year or I won't be able to do as many


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## 3SpookyChicks (Jan 20, 2006)

I bought some white pumpkins when we went apple picking for .55 per pound and the regular were .49.


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## malibuman (Oct 13, 2005)

They are around 5 dollars in my area.


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## Halloeve55 (Sep 25, 2008)

at sams club where i live theyare 7.99 and they are huge.i paid $10 last year for one that was half the size of the ones at s.c.


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

The price of fertilizer has more than doubled, so you'll see an increase in the cost of the pumpkins this year. A farmer friend told me the prices he gets so I can compare to what people are getting retail. Unless you're going to go to the farmer's field and pick up a hundred pumpkins at once, you'll pay retail. Thankfully, a little shopping around reveals that there are places that have very little mark-up on pumpkins.

I've seen pumpkins in my area selling for as little as $5 (Lowes) to as much as $14.99 (a main line flower shop). Wholesale is pretty close to $4 each for a medium to large pumpkin in my area. 

Small gourds sell retail in a range from 2 for $1 to $5/pound (which makes each one $1-$2, depending upon size). Median seems to be around 75 cents. Wholesale is around 40 cents each, regardless of size.

Some farmers in my area had a bumper crop this year. Others had so much rain that it all rotted in the fields. The difference between the two farmers could have been as little as 20 miles. Shop around for your pumpkins. Just a little driving could save you a heap of money.

Craig


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## bonemanB (Sep 30, 2006)

Wow. You guys are high compared to hear. All we do is head north towards the Adirondack park and there are small farms and houses everywhere to pick and choose from. You can pick up ones as big as you can carry for 2 bucks. This is a typical patch from last year. They are everywhere up here.


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## Madame Leota (Sep 19, 2005)

I wish I lived where you can see pumpkins growing in the fields and buy them direct from the grower! Sadly, we have to rely on parking lots and grocery stores for our pumpkin picking. No sitting in the pumpkin patch waiting for the great pumpkin with Linus for us I'm afraid...


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## icetross911 (Aug 8, 2008)

Pumkins are out all over the place here in Western New York and it looks like prices for a decent sized pumkin that you can carve into is going for anywhere from $4 to $7 depending on where you buy them. I don't believe the season, at least around here, was that bad for growing pumkins. Although, it seems like they may have grown a bit too fas, as they have been by the sides of the road for sale for over a month now.

I got lucky about 5 years ago and made a deal with a local farmer that has a little antique shop and fresh veggie building in my local town. Two days before Halloween, she will sell me whatever pumkins she has left for a $1 a piece. Great deal, especially when I am carving 30 pumkins each year. The pumkins are for the kids, and the lady loves to come and see what we carve each and every year.


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## BooBerrie (Jan 1, 2008)

I bought 1 from Wal-Mart about a month ago for $ 2.78 or so. I went back last weekend and they were almost $5 each for the same size. Glad I got at least one at a good deal.


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## LadyAlthea (Sep 11, 2008)

they are 5 bucks up here in Maine for a decent size to carve. They are just starting to be out too. i tried my hand growing one squash plant this year. i managed to get three squash. If i did that with pumpkins i could save money.


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## ChrisW (Sep 19, 2006)

We take a drive up to the Lancaster (PA) area and buy our pumpkins from a mennonite farmer's stand. Last year we paid between 1 and 3 dollars for all of our pumpkins - the $3 were quite large. Haven't gone up yet this year to see what they are running.


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## Madame Leota (Sep 19, 2005)

ChrisW said:


> We take a drive up to the Lancaster (PA) area and buy our pumpkins from a mennonite farmer's stand. Last year we paid between 1 and 3 dollars for all of our pumpkins - the $3 were quite large. Haven't gone up yet this year to see what they are running.


Wow! I guess it pays to live in pumpkin growing country! I'll bet that's a beautiful drive too...


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## Gothikren (Aug 17, 2008)

I think they are about 4 dollars each here at walmart, but I had to post and say that on my way to Nashville yesterday to goto Vanderbilt we passed a truck broke down on the side of the road that had a flatbed trailer behind it, and the entire back end and trailer were filled with pumpkins. I was already terribly late to my son's dr's appointment. It took all the willpower I had not to pull over and ask if he'd sell me some


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## Junit (Sep 1, 2008)

Holy cow! I went to a farm just through the biggest nearby town. They wanted 7 dollars for an average sized pumpkin!!! The little pumpkins, no bigger than my fist were even outrageous, 2.50. Damn. The patch I always go to have them for 1/2 that much. I was shocked at how many people were buying pumpkins for that price. If my patch has gone up that much this year I am only going to buy one pumpkin.

That angers me! You'd get 3 pumpkins for 20 bucks. I used to fill up my trunk and backseat for $20!!


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## EvilMel (Dec 6, 2007)

I managed to score one of the giant pumpkins for $10 the other day! I was to psyched!

I kept telling the people with me that they had no idea how expensive those things are!

I even carved it. It was glorious!

Otherwise...at my little farmer's market store I saw that medium ones were like $12. At Kroger they are about $6-7. At Wal-mart they are less than $5, I believe. Another grocery store around here (Food City) had them for $6, I think.

What I do is to try to spread it around...I buy a few from Wal-mart, one or two from the pumpkins patches/farm stores (at least one from each), one from each grocery store. I end up with at least a dozen usually.


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## Halloweeeiner (Sep 20, 2007)

here is the chicagoland areas, I purchased a 28lb & an 18lb pumpkin @ .40 cents a lb at a pumpkin farm... I ended up paying a little over 20$ for 2 descent size pumpkins


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## lonerogue2 (Sep 30, 2008)

Yup, same thing around where I live (Pittsburgh Pa) close to 5 bucks for 1 pumpkin at walmart! i was surprised

*Edited for spelling


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## Laurie S. (Dec 4, 2007)

To &*%# with Wal Mart. Their pumpkins are $4.98 for a medium size here, but I wouldn't give a flyin' turd if they were free--last year, the ones I bought from that place rotted in 2 days after they were carved, probably 'cause they'd been frozen. This Wednesday, the kids and I are going to our local farmer's market to try and get some there..have no idea how much they'll be. But if we don't luck out, we'll visit the church pumpkin patch and pick up a couple of big 'ole pumpkins for about $10 a piece. Kinda pricey, but quality is important when you want your carvings to last and the proceeds from either place would be helping a group of folks more worthy than the Sam Walton empire.


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## EvilMel (Dec 6, 2007)

Frozen? Really?


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## Frankie's Girl (Aug 27, 2007)

I've seen medium/small sized (the minimum size you'd want to carve) for around 4-6 dollars around my area (Houston, TX)

I have a pumpkin patch nearby that we're going to hit this coming weekend, so we'll see if they have anything better.


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## DeadTed (Aug 12, 2007)

I haven't really been looking diligently, but I've only seen one place with pumpkins so-far (though this week will probably see a heavy influx) - that was at Publix (supermarket). Medium sized were all they had... $8.

I'll be helping my church's youth group unload a few thousand this Thursday. Money goes to them and they're pretty well priced.

We seem to have a problem down here because of the heat/humidity. If you don't take care of them by either rotating them or putting them on pallets (instead of the ground), they rot superduper quick. Dang heat/humidity stinks.


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## Laurie S. (Dec 4, 2007)

EvilMel said:


> Frozen? Really?



Yeah, I remember inquiring about the stems of ours last year, asking why they'd be so flimsy & kinda dry-rotted feeling, and somebody told me it was most likely because they'd been frozen for a while before shipments...

I agree DeadTed, heat/humidity doesn't help our pumpkins one bit down here. We keep ours on the porch railing to keep them off the ground until Halloween night, then we set them on the concrete walkway..with 300 tot'er's that can barely see through their masks coming by, those poor jol's wouldn't last 3 mins. on that rail.


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## GhostlyWhitePumpkins (Jul 27, 2008)

At Home Depo they are selling the small ones for $2.99 here in Utah.


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## rnrkid (Jun 3, 2008)

I just got two 35 pounders @ .59/lb. Not much more then I usually pay. It's worth it at any price to not have them invade my yard growing my own!


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## The Real Joker (Sep 8, 2008)

wow. I remember back in the 70's pumpkins were 10 cents a pound. Now that has gone upto 45-50 cents per pound. And here in the south they will rot fast once you carve them. I keep it in the fridge before and after I carve it. If it starts to dry out, I place the whole pumpkin in an large tub or sink, with ice water for 3 to 4 hours. Afterward it will be good as new. 
Just dry it out well before you light it


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## OMGDan (Sep 28, 2006)

Just bought mine from the local farm yesterday, they've gone up to 4GBP for a 'large' here. Which is 7 bucks.

But the 'large' isn't exactly what large used to mean.


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## DeadTed (Aug 12, 2007)

The Real Joker said:


> wow. I remember back in the 70's pumpkins were 10 cents a pound. Now that has gone upto 45-50 cents per pound. And here in the south they will rot fast once you carve them. I keep it in the fridge before and after I carve it. If it starts to dry out, I place the whole pumpkin in an large tub or sink, with ice water for 3 to 4 hours. Afterward it will be good as new.
> Just dry it out well before you light it


Hmm.. The tub thing works then? Good idea, I'll probably try that this year. I like hearing ideas from folks who have the same issues. 

When do you carve your? I've been waiting later and later in the month to carve mine, for the same reason you mentioned.


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## JohnnyAppleseed (Sep 17, 2008)

Got 170 lbs of pumpkins this weekend from a local farm (10 pumpkins) for $36. Heaviest is a 40 pounder. So that puts them at about $3.60 each, we are very happy future Jack-O-Lantern owners!


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## Junit (Sep 1, 2008)

I went to get pumpkins Saturday. 2$. Any size - except for the little decorative bitty pumpkins, those were 1. I love local farmers


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