October to me means cooler weather, crispy golden leaves underfoot and of course, pumpkins. We haven’t been pumpkin picking for a couple of years so this morning we took advantage of the cool, dry autumnal weather to visit Essington Farm, our local fruit farm where they had just opened their pumpkin patch this weekend.
>>Scroll down for the latest information for visiting in 2019<<
Over the next few weekends in October, Essington Farm have free tractor rides down to their pumpkin patch and families can walk amongst the crops to pick their own.
Olly was really excited about visiting the farm. We regularly visit over the summer months for ‘pick your own’ strawberries and other fruits so we had high hopes for a good visit. We were certainly not disappointed.
Pick your own pumpkin
The tractor and trailer ride took just a couple of minutes down the field and we could walk around the field picking our own pumpkins as we pleased. There were loads of crops of pumpkin to pick and to my surprise they were still all attached to their roots in the ground (I’m not really sure what I was expecting but it’s good to see they were still in their natural state). The pumpkins vary in size and there’s a size and pricing guide at the edge of the field so you know roughly what to expect to pay.
Top tip: Take gloves with you to help you pick your pumpkin as they are a bit prickly to handle by the stem.
After walking up and down the field for a good ten minutes surveying the crops, Olly picked out a rather large pumpkin and enlisted the help of his Daddy and his gloves to separate it from the roots. He was so pleased with it. We decided to choose a pumpkin each and managed to find three really good looking pumpkins, each with beautiful orange colouring.
After a short tractor trailer ride back to the farm, we paid for our pumpkins (£13 for our three good sized ones) and picked up a pumpkin carving kit too, and Olly enjoyed ten minutes playing on the toy tractors in the polytunnel. There’s a tea room and farm shop on site too so we popped in for some supplies for lunch before heading home.
Latest visitor information for Pumpkin Picking 2019
Put on your wellies and visit the farm to pick your pumpkin from the field. The fields are open from 10am until 4pm on the following weekends Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th October, Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th October and every day between Saturday 19th and Thursday 31st October 2019.
Tractor and trailer rides are only available on weekends and between 26th and 31st October 2019. These rides are free of charge but donations are welcomed and will go to Wolverhampton MS Therapy Centre.
You can find out more about the PYO Pumpkins at Essington Farm here.
Disclosure: We paid for our own pumpkins and haven’t been asked to write this post. We had a lovely morning and thought any local readers might enjoy finding out where they can pick their own pumpkins too.
Plutonium Sox Blog (@PlutoniumSox) says
Oh this looks lovely. I must take the girls this year, I’ve never been to a pumpkin patch, bad blogger!
Nat.x
Kirsty Charles says
Hi
Do you allow dogs on the pumpkin patch please??
Emma Shilton says
You would need to contact Essington Farm directly for their policy on dogs.