But that hasn’t stopped fans and event organisers putting on a big show for Sunday’s pumpkin festival at Kootingal.

They might not have the monsters and as many as they have had in the past, but the show will go on and there’s a big cultural and artistic bent this year too.

Schoolkids at Kootingal and Moonbi might have found pumpkin growing a classroom failure – teachers and gardeners report that rain and flooding earlier this year, and a lack of bees, which in turn led to a lack of pollination of pumpkin flowers, has devastated season crops.

But according to Justine George, the treasurer of the Moonbi school parents association, children have been putting their artistic skills to work on the pumpkins they have grown.

Her daughter Laura, nine, is one of many decorating their pumpkins, into things like chooks and fairies for the Sunday show. Her son Conrad, 11, is entering his produce in the heavyweight divisions.

The Moonbi school has organised the art show over today and tomorrow in the hall, which includes entries from digital photographs to watercolour and oil paintings. There are more than 80 entries from as far as Queensland and Newcastle.