It's the great pumpkin harvest!

A Southern Manitoba pumpkin farmer says he's seeing average to above average yields this year.

Scott Friesen, who operates Snowland Vegetable Farms near Halbstadt, commented on the timing of this year's harvest.

"They're about 10 days to two weeks later than I would have liked to have started, just due to the wet spring. Our planting delay was also about two weeks. The wholesalers were looking to buy much earlier but we were just unable to deliver product. It just wasn't quite ready yet."

Friesen grows 95 acres of pumpkins and says he's harvested about 10 per cent so far.

"It's looking to be pretty good. The pumpkins have sized up fairly well to almost a little bit too big as some of the pumpkins, the seed that I buy is supposed to be for a specific size, but with the moisture they've gotten a little bit larger than I would have liked to have seen them."

The pumpkins are purchased by two large retailers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan with some ending up in food service areas in Alberta as well.

Friesen is also growing carrots, beets, baby dill and sweet corn this year for Peak of the Market, noting yields and quality have been good.

He adds it's been a challenging season with the constant rain, noting they've had over 20 inches of rain so far this year which is about double what they saw last year.

Friesen says yields have been average to above average