Rainy weekends impacting local farms during fall harvest season

No doubt. It has been a tough year for farmers around New Jersey. We had that late winter freeze that impacted apples and peaches, and then the rainy fall dramatically decreasing profits during harvest season. News 12's Adriana Daniel caught up with local farmers today about how these wet and dreary weekends are leaving a negative impact on their business. Normally during the fall, farms are filled with people picking pumpkins and apples and just enjoying fall activities. But this year, rainy weekend after rainy weekend has made it impossible for people to enjoy this activity and leaving many farms to close their doors over the weekend. To lose every weekend in September to rain and also all of the Sundays of October so far to rain has just been devastating. 2026 has not been a kind year to farmers. From increasing costs of gas, a late winter freeze, and now a wet fall, farmers are barely getting by. The team at Allstead Farms is feeling the pinch. With where September fell and with where October is looking, we're probably looking about 20 to 30, maybe a little bit more percent lower than we would have been on an ideal year, which is a pretty big loss right now. And we're really just looking ahead to the last three weekends of October and hoping that people really start coming out. The fall harvest season is when farmers make back their money. They spend a lot of it planting in the spring with hopes of making it back in the fall. But this year, the loss of farm-side attractions is making that difficult. Columbus Day weekend is huge for Happy Day Farm in Manalapan. The rain is costing them a lot in lost revenue. Hundreds of thousands. That's, you know, definitely hundreds of thousands as farmers and the orchards. We do about 35% of our business that Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. So it's a four-day weekend for us. So it's, yeah, it's heartbreaking. But the season is not over, and these farmers share the same goal for the rest of the season. I hope the sun will be shining. If I could share a message to anyone, it would be support your local farmers. Don't go buy your pumpkins at Home Depot or ShopRite this year. Come out and buy them from us. Reporting for News 12 New Jersey, I'm Adriana Daniel.