Pumpkin Patches

[MidnightPatrol]

There seems to be a new trend of ‘pumpkin patches’ popping up all over the place. I’ve seen a few advertised this week.

Now… none of these places to my knowledge grow pumpkins. So they have just put some pumpkins in a field.

Sometimes there seem to be some Halloween decorations too, but mainly just piles of pumpkins.

I am all for fun days out but… I don’t get it.

Most of them don’t even look very instagrammable (which I assumed was the point). Just… pumpkins on the ground.

Surely this activity would take 2-3 minutes?

I posted basically this exact thread last year and got accused of being the fun police, snobbish, misery guts, classist, and I can't remember what else 😂

Our local pumpkin farm grows them and uses a local venue to host the ‘picking’ as their farm isn’t suitable for the traffic. They put lots of activities on for children and it still supports our local farmers, I don’t mind that it isn’t off the vine.

And I probably came on to your thread saying people are motivated to go because of the photo opportunities 😂.

OMG I had to google that because I didn't believe I'd read it right. Can't believe that's a thing!

We're people made of tougher stuff back then? Cos I break out into a sweat and curse words when I have to peel a swede now, never mind carve out precise chunks, I don't think I could manage it 😂

" It doesnt need new blood as it's a closed shop. "
It isn't a closed shop. As I said, anyone is free to buy farmland. You could buy some tomorrow if you want. To keep livestock, you need to apply for a flock or herd number and prove you can keep them in a way that won't compromise their welfare or public health. And of course you need to comply with all the environmental, health and safety, food safety and traceability regs etc. But anyone can do it.

I have a brother. He's an engineer in the city. We rent out most of our land to the dairy farmer neighbour. He has a son. Who doesn't want to farm. Neighbour will probably sell his own land when he gets too old to farm.

The fact that it is NOT a big money spinner is probably what has probably saved farming, in a way. If there were big bucks to be made, massive global corporate entities would probably have bought all the land already, and be farming on a monster scale like the feedlots in America, or those dairy farms with tens of thousands of cattle that never go outside (zero grazing) staffed by robots and Mexicans paid a pittance.

Huh? No, people put wellies on take their kids for a walk in the fresh air and let them have fun running around picking up their favourite pumpkins, get some cute photos for the grandparents/family album and then pay roughly the same as supermarket prices to take them home and carve or eat them.

We went on Saturday.

We bought 2 large ones to carve, one eating variety which I will roast, and 3 cute little mini ones. Paid £9 in total, daughter got some time outside running about in the mud, and we had fun carving the big ones on Sunday. We now have some inexpensive biodegradable Halloween decorations. Hard to see how anyone can object to it.

"So basically someone throws a load of different shaped pumpkins in a field and instagram wankers pay a premium to go and "pick" them up off the floor, getting their Uggs and Air Max 120s all dirty.
I wonder whatever they will think of next."

They've already thought of it. Spooktacular older children/adult experiences. I went to one on a work team night/ bonding thing. Arrived in carpark after dark, couple of local farm lads in masks revving chainsaws menacingly. Walk through some old farm buildings with some more locals (maybe the Am Dram society?) dressed up telling improbable stories, various others plastered in red food colouring jumping out round corners. Through a field of maize that hadn't been cut for silage- either kept for the surface or because the summer was too wet and shit to cut it for silage, more chainsaw wielding maniacs chasing us through the maize. Back to the big nice shed for hot chocolate at picnic tables, back to car, change out of wellies into shoes (bad luck to the people to went through that sodden mucky maize field in good trainers) , home. Fun enough evening out, home in bed not too late, no hangover the next day.

We’re taking DS to a farm which does grow them and has activities. He just loves being outdoors and loves Halloween so he will be in his element, we’re not going for instagrammable pics or anything like that, just for his enjoyment. Some people like Halloween but appreciate it’s not everyone’s cup of tea

Also for older ones year round- high ropes courses, zorbing, driving golf carts or Land Rovers blindfolded with your mates in the bench seats in the back shouting directions. Back to the picnic tables in the big shed for hot chocolate or chips. It all needs a bit of thought, work and capital input to be done well and compete with a the other "experiences" other farm diversification projects are doing- whether the hen party people would rather go glamping on the next door farm's "authentic shepherd hut, fire pit and hot tub" weekend for example. They're all competing for the InstaParent dollar and/or the hen party/work do dollar. But that's fine.

If you think parking in a minging field, trudging 20 minutes through mud to another field and you would pay £10.50 per adult and £8 per child isn’t a rip off crack on. He buys the pumpkins in bulk at £1.50 each and charges per kilo on top of the entrance tickets. I could open 4/5 fields for pumpkin patches next year but we have morals and don’t rip people off.

The pumpkin patches near us are at PYO farms so I presume they grow them. We've been to the same one for a few years and it's great, they make lovely displays and have a few games for the kids. My kids love it (as do I). I probably wouldn't go to a pumpkin patch where it didn't look like they had made an effort or had any extra things for kids. Surely if you 'don't get it' just don't go?!

The only thing I worry about with these pumpkin patches is the amount of waste. We've been strawberry picking before and so many were squashed by people walking/falling onto the plants. We also picked too many and ended up chucking some out but that was entirely my own fault, but I won't be the only person who's made that mistake.

My mam has taking DS to a pumpkin patch before and he came home with a couple of small pumpkins which I carved up. I do love carving pumpkins, I try and save as much flesh as possible for soup but I do also feel guilty about being wasteful.

How many pumpkins in a pumpkin patch are completely wasted?

Actually this all sounds quite good. I might start one of these pumpkin patch things. For an extra fiver you can bring your cockerpoos Milo and Bailey, they can get a pumpkin spiced puppuchino and a Hallowe'en themed neckerchief and then get covered in muck galloping off the nice grassy pumpkin picking up zone into the field next door that my neighbour spread slurry on a few weeks ago😁

"If you think parking in a minging field, trudging 20 minutes through mud to another field and you would pay £10.50 per adult and £8 per child isn’t a rip off crack on. He buys the pumpkins in bulk at £1.50 each and charges per kilo on top of the entrance tickets"
Market forces will prevail eventually. There is no grapevine like mummy whatsapp group. If one of them took the wains to the pick your own strawberries/ sunflowers/ pumpkin experience last year and it was shit, the ones offering the better, less Tunnel of Goats / Spiderbaby -esque experience will get the footfall next year.

It's an American import. I don't know of any that grow them, they just distribute them around a field, set up hay bales --for the instagram family pictures- and charge an absolute fortune. They are really popular though, I understand why working farms do this to boost their income.

Surely it's better than buying the plastic halloween rubbish that is cropping up all over the place at least pumpkins are biodegradable and you can toast the seeds and make a pumpkin pie if you want to.
I have grown them on my allotment in the past they are easy to grow.
I also thought that farmers with unsold pumpkins used them as animal feed but I may be wrong.

I posted a place that grows them in my link.

I don’t really care about pumpkin patches but I too lament the old days of turnip lanterns (we call swedes turnips in Scotland). I do one every year for myself and the smell takes me right back. That said, we had a fun day out at a pumpkin patch last year and this photo is one of my all-time favourites of DS.

If anyone lives near Paultons Park their Halloween decorations are absolutely wonderful.

Meh. We have one near us. It comes with a "Field of fun" which is what you are really paying for. We got great value out of it when the weather was nice becuase it is enclosed, the children could roam whilst we chatted.

It's not new. It's now become "tradition". It's really odd

It's just an activity. You can do it or not, entirely up to you. Not sure what's so odd about that.