Heavy rains slowed soybean and corn crops in the Midwest, but we had no idea what havoc was being wrought in the nation's pumpkin patch. (Massachusetts counts 510 pumpkin farms; Maine, 335; Vermont, 211; New Hampshire, 210; and Rhode Island, 68.) Part of the problem was rain. (Boston was six inches over average for the summer months.) Part of the problem, according to one grower, is that bees fly less in the rain and so a good number of plants failed to pollinate. Nobody expects a pumpkin from this year's crop to beat the 1,689-pounder that set the record at last year's Topsfield Fair.