If You Do One Thing…
Have fun in the mud with seasonal pumpkin picking!
THE leaves are spinning off the trees and the mist is rolling down the Stirlingshire hills like slow-motion tumbleweed, settling on the plain and bathing the farm in a gentle but persistent mizzle.
The damp conditions are helping to churn the field into ankle-deep mud – that and the many feet and wheelbarrows schlepping through it.
But these are no farm labourers tramping the fields, harvesting on an autumnal Scottish day. The pickers are, in fact, paying for the privilege of sliding in the mud and gathering their own veg on this picturesque farm. And judging by their faces, they’re loving it.
Pick-your-own pumpkin patches have been springing up across the country in the last couple of years, giving punters a more authentic experience of selecting their Hallowe’en decorations than rummaging in a giant box in a supermarket.
But Arnprior Farm, in the village of the same name, started in 2015 when the only other growers selling direct to customers put their pumpkins on shelves in farm shops.
Duncan and Rebecca McEwen’s idea was to make the whole experience a little more rustic.
“We were looking for diversification ideas,” Rebecca says. “We live next to a busy road so we get passing trade and we had been thinking about a pick-your-own.”
It was Duncan who came up with pumpkins and as the family – Rebecca, Duncan and their three young children, Duncan, Floraidh and Erin – pick their own Christmas tree in winter and their own strawberries in summer, they felt autumn pumpkin picking would fit nicely.
“We have family in Philadelphia who have their yearly trip to the pumpkin patch,” Rebecca says.
That first season they grew 300 pumpkins and had parking for 10 cars, not knowing quite what the public interest would be.
“Within half an hour on our first day we had to move sheep out of a field to make room for more parking!”
In 2016 they grew more than 7000 pumpkins over four acres (1.6 hectares) and had more than 6000 visitors.
Pumpkins are now one of the main sources of income on their sheep and arable farm, with the venture succeeding beyond their wildest expectations.
“I’m from a farming family and this land has been farmed by Duncan’s family since 1936. We grew up in the countryside and we’re used to mud so I think we forget how much people enjoy getting out of their concrete world and getting muddy,” Rebecca says.
That success meant looking to further diversify – a lambing experience opened this spring and glamping pods and a swimming pool, heated by the excess from the farmhouse’s biomass, are on their way.
Back at the pumpkins, in an area which saw schools take a tattie howking holiday only a few generations ago, a cheery teenager is earning extra cash on his October break welcoming pumpkin-pickers, old and young.
“I like your wellies, do they flash? Wow, I wish mine did,” he says to some new arrivals.
Most customers, he tells me, are from Glasgow but they have had visitors from Stonehaven and the Lake District.
The visitors trundle through the welcome tent and past the wellie hire stall – it soon became apparent that this was needed as visitors would arrive in pristine white trainers – and out to the fields. They were welcoming 750 people the day we visited.
Aside from pumpkins, there’s a quad bike trailer ride for kids, face-painting, stalls selling sweets and hot food, chainsaw wood-carving, a kale maze, pull up your own turnip, dig your own tatties – and even a gin stall to help parents forget about the laundry to come.
The pumpkins are more or less where they grew in the field, says Rebecca, with the vines having just withered or been trampled away underfoot.
The farm boasts six different varieties of pumpkin – including traditional orange, white and knobbly – and the couple trial four different varieties a year.
“They are the hardest crop,” Rebecca says. “The second year the wind came and they were all windmilling off their stalks. Last year we were worried about them not getting enough water but it actually brought on a little bit of rot. Every year there is something.”
Even on a bleak day, just being outside – surrounded by the brightly coloured vegetables, children scrambling on hay bales and toddlers almost completely coated in mud – lifts the spirits.
We came with a plan to buy two pumpkins but my nine-year-old is soon deep in the turnip field and we end up with four, plus a turnip.
With our muddy pumpkins, turnip and wellies safely stored in the boot, all that remains is to return home and tackle the carving. Oh, and the laundry.
The world championship pumpkin chucking – known as Punkin Chunkin – is held each November in Illinois, USA. Devices used include catapults and air cannons. The current record stands at 1431 metres (4695 feet).