Canned pumpkin may be hard to find after Oct.
 

DH read this in one of his business reports. The pumpkin crop was almost wiped out this last year so canned pumpkin and other pumpkin products may not be available after Nov. Many grocers won't be able to have it in stock. If you use canned pumpkin or pumpkin products then you may want to stock up until next growing season. I give my dog a spoonful of pumpkin puree everyday. I made sure to stock up for her. LOL I tried cutting and using fresh grown pumpkins. It took me hours to cut, peel, cook, vacuum seal and freeze and made a complete mess in my kitchen. ;)

nice to know this. and may i ask why you give your dog a spoonful of pumpkin puree. just curious. thank you for sharing.

I canned my own pumpkin one year too. Way too watery result. Nothing better than Libbey's! I made Rob a pumpkin (his favorite) pie a few days before he left to Australia. I have one can in the cupboard for Thanksgiving, will leave the hoarding to someone else :)

Remember when Johnny Carson make a joke about shortage of toilet paper? It took years for my grandparents to use up what they'd cleared the shelves of.

just googled pumpkin puree.. now i know.. i didnt know this was helpful for all kinds of problems dogs have. upset stomach etc.. time to stock up

So....I will eat pecan pie instead. ;)
Sany

Thanks for sharing the info. My family loves pumpkin pie and pumpkin roll. I will certainly stock up.

The new young vet that took over the office of my regular vet seems to know much more about nutrition for pets then the one that just retired. He said a little pumpkin everyday is much better then any bought treat I could give her.

I did not look at the link provided...is it just another 'hoax' that the canners/manufacturers are sending our way to get folks to stock up now??? so they can improve their sales levels? Find that to be the case in many other 'not going to be available' situations. Sorry for the jaded opinion...just my experience.

Stocking up on items I know I will use on a regular basis is not hoarding to me. When I find a great sale on non perishable items or ones with a long shelf life I buy enough to last for six months. I have a large walk in pantry so storage is not a problem. I don't have to buy that item again until the supply get low. After a few years of buying this way, all I have to buy each week is fresh foods and dairy and any item to restock that needs it. I learned how to shop this way from a Mennonite neighbor when I was a newlywed. She kept a year's supply of non perishables all the time.

I had heard about the shortage on the news. There will be enough pumpkins for Halloween but not for Thanksgiving.

Why do they say this EVERY year??

News reports in central PA showed almost all the crops suffered due weather issues. What we have seen local is much smaller pumpkins than normal. The corn crops were mostly harvested early this year as well & sweet corn was not near as good. Tomatoes did not fair well either. We did not have very many warm summer nights that help many crops grow. Some farmers could not get fields planted on time due to being too wet & ended up being a month behind. As our weather seems to be changing, & not for the better, crops are suffering. Wal-Mart only had 1 can of pumpkin on it's shelves. I did find some at another store. I make pumpkin muffins & pumpkin custard thru out the year. Leaves have fallen off the trees without changing color. First is was too wet, then too dry. We haven't had a frost yet. I also stock up & keep a good 6 months or more of canned goods on my shelves. I also have 2 freezers full of meat/frozen fruits/veggies & berries. We put everything in brown paper bags, which keeps stuff from getting freezer burnt. I try to buy in bulk to save on costs.

Our vet told us to feed canned pumpkin to our long haired cats as it would help 'bind' the fur from grooming themselves and take it out the 'correct' end instead of having hairballs on the carpet! It worked.
Years later, with a new kitty who didn't adjust well to her first home, another vet told us to use canned pumpkin with any changes in wet food. Worked.
As to stocking up, we don't use it all that often. There are a lot of 'alarmists' out there these days.

Pumpkin with out the spices is what is good for dogs with upset tummies, but to get my Yorkie to eat it is impossible. Other Yorkie parents have no problem getting their puppy to eat it. I'm a pumpkin lover, cookies, pie, etc, maybe he would eat it if I doctored the pumpkin up, but that might negate the good effect of just pure pumpkin.

I bought a can of pumpkin at the local Kroger last week and there were only 3 cans on the shelf. Hopefully, they will get more in but that was definitely telling.

I can remember a canned pumpkin "shortage" about 10 or 15 years ago. As I recall, there was plenty to go around. If it comes to that, I will use pie pumpkins (like Tartan says) and be just fine. Done it before when we had a few extra in the garden. Easy to do.

Thanks for info I give my dog pumkin at meals too, she has is and has helped plus her coat is so silky soft!!! Good for humans too high in fiber. Better stock up😊

I started using butternut squash from the garden for pies. Milder than pumpkin but tastes almost the same.

No pumpkin shortage here. People have hay wagons full of pumpkins for sale in their yards. They will never sell all of them.

For too much liquid in the pumpkin, bake as suggested instead of boiling in water. And when you make the pie, add about two tablespoons of flour to the filling. Takes care of the extra moisture.

And be sure to plant or buy "pie" or "sugar" pumpkins. They have less liquid.

Most canned pumpkin isn't really pumpkin anyway. They use a lot of butternut squash.

I'm with Onebyone as far as stocking my pantry. And now is the time that I stock my second fridge freezer too. That is where all the single serve's go--chili, lasagne, chicken curry, dump soup, baked beans etc etc. So much easier to make double or triple batches and freeze. That way I have more time for quilting over the winter :)

I have a friend who grows pumpkins for sale. One year she made a mistake and planted the wrong kind (they were a pale silver yellow instead of orange) so she was giving them away. Mother and I hated to see anything go to waste so we took 2 or 3. Ugh!!! Cooking pumpkin smells awful, plus peeling, cutting, etc is a BIG job. I couldn't cook it on the stove top without it sticking so ended up cooking it in the microwave. NEVER AGAIN! ! ! ! I'll eat pecan or coconut pies instead.

My neighbor uses her slow cooker for her pumpkin canning. She bought an ex-large roaster size. Another puts pumpkin in a roaster in the oven and cooks up like any other squash. She then freezes hers. She also dries the seeds and seasons them. Great for snacks and her grands love them.

Would love your recipe for the pumpkin custard, I freeze my pumpkin, never buy the can stuff, although may get couple of cans since crop here was terrible with just about everything, agree with you on that, lost more tomato planets then I got tomatoes off the vine

I often pick up pumpkins for free after Halloween. I use it instead of oil in zucchini bread and with dark colored caked mixes.( chocolate,, spice etc) The best way to cook it is to wash it and cut it into 1/4. Clean out the seeds and bake it at 350 for about an hour or so. Cool it and the skin will fall off. Then I run it thru thr food mill or the blender. I usually freeze it.

I saw the report on the nightly news, and according to the news
this is a story that resurfaces EVERY year for the last several.

I'll have to let my sister know about this. She also gives it to her dogs. As for making your own pumpkin puree - my Mother did when we were kids, but after a while she decided it just wasn't worth the trouble. Way too much work and entirely too messy. She really only ever made pumpkin pies on Thanksgiving and for Christmas. My father always said he thoroughly enjoyed the pies at that time of the year.

I did pumpkin down one year I cut it up into chunks...did not peel it and roasted it slowly. When done I put the chunks ,yes peel too in a blender and pureed it. If you look at canned pumpkin you will see that there is peel in theirs also..they do no peel, plus some also has squash in it too. I washed the seeds and roasted them to snack on...yummy!

They said the exact same thing last year. There was no shortage!

All of my stores are chock a block full of canned pumpkin. No limits on purchase.

I put my pumpkin or squash into the oven for 45 minutes; whole, uncut. After 45 minutes, they are much easier to cut in half. Then the outside is a little soft, but the inside is still hard. After they are cut in half, I scoop out the seeds and stuff, then put the halves back into the oven in a glass cake pan or such with the cut side down. Add a little water to keep it from sticking to the pan and bake at least another 45 minutes. Then you can scoop the cooked pumpkin from the peel quite easily.

I take what I scooped out of the pumpkin and put it into the blender with a cup or so of water. Blend well and add this to bread dough. If I'm not making bread right now, it goes into the freezer until I want it. I blend up everything I scoop out of the pumpkin. Seeds and all the stuff that comes with them! It's all good food. I tried using the peel once, but didn't like the flavor. Maybe I had too much of it in a small amount of other ingredients. I am going to try that again.

Did similar to your way. Talked about this with DH and he said it sounded good. He's been hungry for pumpkin bread a lot lately.

The pumpkins I cooked were way too big for a pie plate. Half of one would maybe fit in a large turkey roasting pan and you would have to move the oven rack down as far as it would go.

If this is the case on pumpkins this year what you might want to do is substitute sweet potatoes for pumpkin and/or butternut squash. Not as messy either.

I have heard this for the last however many years. It wasn't ever true. I did hear it on the news station here.
In the stores it was plentiful. I don't always buy Libby's Pumpkin, all taste the same to me.

Years ago my husband worked for a local canning company. the canned variety is Festal brand. The pumpkins were large and thin skinned. went through the plant and they also used the skin. my local HyVee store handles the festal brand and I just love the brand.
when doing my own I bake it and then freeze it.

I do know the decorator pumpkins are not good to eat and we have lots of those for sale here. The food manufactures don't use those. The Pumpkin Patch here grows pumpkins for decorations not for food. The owner said don't eat these, they don't taste good. Maybe most people think pumpkins tastes like the pumpkins sold as Jack o Lantern pumpkins?

No lack of pumpkins in BC Canada. They were ripening in August.