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"  It&amp;#039;s the Great Pumpkin Shortage, Charlie Brown. Thanks to Hurricane Irene&amp;#039;s punishing rains, the Northeast is facing a paucity of pumpkins with Halloween just around the corner. More from Delish: Scary Sweets-7 Halloween Cookie Recipes Pumpkin farmers were already grappling with difficult growing conditions before last month&amp;#039;s storm destroyed hundreds of Northeastern pumpkin patches. The Associated Press reports that heavy spring rains forced farmers to push back planting by several weeks, a troubling dilemma since a delayed harvest can mean missing prime Halloween pumpkin season. Additional heavy rains in mid-August caused growth of a water mold called phytophthora fungus in many fields in the region. But it was Irene&amp;#039;s deluge at the end of August that has put the real fear in pumpkin farmers. &amp;quot;I think there&amp;#039;s going to be an extreme shortage of pumpkins this year,&amp;quot; Darcy Pray, owner of Pray&amp;#039;s Family Farms in Keeseville, New York, told the AP. Pray&amp;#039;s crop of between 15,000 and 20,000 pumpkins was washed into Lake Champlain in post-Irene flooding.  While it remains to be seen how the shortage will affect retail prices, Pray told the AP that the wholesale price for a bin of 32 to 45 pumpkins has already doubled to between $150 and $200. More from Delish: 12 of America&amp;#039;s Best Farmers&amp;#039; Markets Though other pumpkin growing states across the Midwest are stepping in to fill some of the void, farmers still recommend buying your Jack-o-Lantern ahead of schedule this year.  &amp;quot;Just get your pumpkins early, that&amp;#039;s all I can say,&amp;quot; Jim Stakey, owner of Stakey&amp;#039;s Pumpkin Farm in Aquebogue, New York, told the AP. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s going to be a difficult season.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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