Last week, The Washington Post reported that the wet spring and heavy rains and flooding of late summer may cause a pumpkin shortage this year, especially in the northeast. It was a little hard for me to believe this report when I saw the huge crates of pumpkins lining the sidewalks in front of my local grocery stores. But reading deeper into the story explained why I should buy my pumpkin, now.

The bad weather has adversely affected the pumpkin crop this year and where we'll see it is in the length of time pumpkins are available. Traditionally we see an abundance from mid-September all the way through the end of October. But this year, the closer Halloween gets the fewer pumpkins will come to market as the flooding along the east coast due to hurricane Irene washed away many of the late harvests.

The good news is that a pumpkin cut from the vine and stored on a dry surface will keep for over a month. Once carved, it will keep for less than a week. So buy your pumpkins now and wait until a few days before the Halloween celebration to carve them.

A fact sent to me from the folks at Willis Communications, for Ihop, encouraged me not to worry about my canned pumpkin supply: "Fun fact: The top pumpkin producing states—Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California—grow more than 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins each year, for a value of more than $140 million. Most pumpkins are grown for processing, with only a small percentage sold ornamentally through retail outlets and pick-your-own farms."