Photo credit: Associated Press

Pumpkins - or rather the scarcity this year of pumpkins - is the subject of a story I wrote in today's Baltimore Sun.

It seems that a cool, rainy spring slowed the start of the pumpkin growing season. The bees were grounded by cloudy skies (they use the sun to navigate) during the time for pollenation. And a dry August inhibited the growth of the pumpkins that did form.

This was the case not only in Maryland, but also over much of the country.

Consumers probably won't notice it - there should be plenty of jack-o-lanterns for sale.

But my research took me to Libby's, the division of Nestle that cans pumpkin.

All of the pumpkin that Libby's cans is grown on 5,000 acres in Morton, Ill., and it is all harvested, processed and canned in just a few weeks in September and October.

The pumpkins are a special variety - Dickinson "Libby's Select" - that isn't available to home gardeners. Libby's harvests all the seeds and returns them to the farmers for next year's crop.

The "Libby's Select" pumpkin is not big, round and orange. It is smaller, more squat, meatier, sweeter and a pale orange. The meat from this pumpkin is very creamy. Perfect for pies.

One more fun pumpkin fact: Libby's has calculated that if an average year's harvest would produce 90 million pumpkin pies.

Get baking, people.