Can you explain pumpkin patches to me?

[cherrypiepie]

Seems to be a thing the past two years or has been going longer?

Is it just a place to go to take cute pictures? Do they grow the pumpkins? What do you do?

Do I need to go to a pumpkin patch?

More faux-naïveté anti-Americanism such as the “what is a baby shower and why would I possibly want to celebrate any life event” type threads.
Can you really not imagine why taking the kids to a farm might be more of a fun day out, fill more time and burn off more kid energy than a sad trip to Lidl for a £1 pumpkin
The one we go to is a farm that also does PYO strawberries etc in the summer. It has a corn maze, farm shop stalls with seasonal produce and a large field with mini barrows for the kids to push around.

Our local farm does grow them (they're a PYO) and it's a nice afternoon for the children. They have a park and sell cake and icecream in the farm shop and they'll probably have Halloween activities. My children are 7 and 4 so loved it last year (they didn't have activities due to covid but we managed to get a pumpkin and have some cake).

It seems a daft thing to scoff at, letting children choose a pumpkin. Seems pretty harmless to me.

MN can be so miserable at times

Oh, I couldn't possibly take my kids to a farm to ride tractors or climb hay bales or pick pumpkins! I'll just buy a boot-full of £1 pumpkins from Lidl - because that's just as much fun and an equally great day out for the kids

I know, some of this thread is so bloody miserable (and judged)

DD and I went to a family/run PYO farm last weekend, she was definitely there for the 'gram, dressed in autumn colours and corduroy (it was about 70 degrees lol).

It was lovely - we picked sweet corn, then headed into the fields with a wheelbarrow to choose pumpkins and gourds - all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes. They were sold by weight, and the price per kg of the small ornamental gourds was lower than Lidl, although the large pumpkins obviously worked out more expensive.

And they had a picturesque cafe and shelter, plus other seasonal PYO veg.

I'm a cheapskate, I admire the pumpkins growing from their flowers to ripening up as I pass through the public footpaths going through the farm on my usual trail running routes. It's definitely a real farm! Real mud too!

My DCs aren't bothered about the trail type thing. It never was their kind of thing and it's caught on since they were toddlers, so at least I was spared my good, wholesome intentions resulting in thrashing tantrums ankle deep in mud. We do go for a couple of miles of walk to see them before the pumpkins all go though. They're happy with that.