HAMMOND - With Halloween just two days away, many families still needed to pick out the perfect pumpkin for their front porches. At Mrs. Heather's Pumpkin patch in Hammond, dry weather during the summer hurt crops in the fall. 

Heather Hughes is a local farmer and owns the pumpkin patch. She said after a dry summer, gearing up for the fall festivities was a challenge. 

"Normally we have a hay maze. We didn't do the hay maze this year because haven't been able to produce the hay," Hughes said.

For her cows, Hughes said she had to rely on shipping in hay from Alabama to make sure the animals were fed.

The pumpkin patch welcomes thousands of guests during month of October. Field trip visits throughout the week and families on the weekend mean there needs to be plenty of pumpkins to go around. Prep work for the pumpkin patch starts in the summer, planting pumpkins across ten acres. 

"Just to decorate it take us about a month and a half, but we usually plant the pumpkins and the corn maze the end of June, first of July," she said.

The pumpkin patch is open through the last weekend in September through the first weekend in November. 

Admission for adult with children is free. Children's admission is $10.