Drought closes local pumpkin patch early

CASSVILLE, Mo. – The extremely dry conditions aren’t just impacting the grass outside your home.

Weeks without rain means one Missouri pumpkin and flower patch is closing up shop a month early.

“If it doesn’t let up, I won’t be able to plant the things to bloom in early spring,” Dennis Epperly said. “And that’ll really be bad. It’ll be worse than I say it is right now.”

Epperly and his wife have owned the farm for 40 years. It became Pa’s Posey Patch when Epperly wanted to share his flowers with his neighbors.

“About seven years ago, I started with the flowers,” Epperly said. “And now we have pumpkins and flowers.”

This year, he said he had thousands of pumpkins that were all successfully taken by happy customers — but the stars of the show dried up.

“These last (sunflowers) have suffered,” Epperly said. “They didn’t get much more than two to three feet tall and it works fine for pictures if you want to sit down near them.”

The patch normally closes after the first frost or on Halloween. Because of the drought, Pa’s Posey Patch closed on Oct. 6.

“I gave up,” Epperly said. “The weeds didn’t, but I did.”

The patch will open back up in March with the spring flowers.

“We don’t worry about the financial part as long as we get our expenses back, and we will,” Epperly said. “If I wanted to be rich, I would have married a rich woman but I didn’t at all. Married a pretty one, but not rich.”

Epperly would like to see some rain before mid-November.

“Good Lord always gives us rain sometime, maybe not on our schedule, but he’ll give it when we need it,” Epperly said.

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