Every year that goes by the more ‘American’ we all get. We have adopted baby showers, going all out for Halloween, etc… and it’s totally okay, lets enjoy it. One of the things I love the most out of this all is pumpkin picking and the big fuss we’re gradually more and more making over Halloween, like honestly makes me so happy.
Pumpkin picking has become my favourite place to go in October and I always tend to go early and at an odd time to avoid lots of people in the background because I want easy editing of my pumpkin patch photos. Picking pumpkins for me is the best time of year, we get to pick a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins to display with pride around the outside and inside of my home and we get to take annual family pictures (not that I don’t take hundreds throughout the year anyway) and it’s my favourite for comparison photos. I just love seeing how much they grow and truthfully how much our family has grown through the years too. We first started going in 2016 before Iris was born, I think she was born about 2 weeks after we first went and we’ve gone every year since, documenting Lucas growing up, adding Iris to the photos, being heavily pregnant with Rufus and then adding him to the patch too. It’s really nice and special for me to look back on.
There’s numerous places around Hampshire to go pumpkin picking but my favourite is Pickwell and we go to pick well every year. I am not interested in any other pumpkin patch. The reason we choose pick well is because it’s local, it’s free entry to the patch, the pumpkins are great, the patch is perfect for picking and photographing, the pumpkins are so reasonably priced, you can get other veg and things in the shop, there’s a pub next door which sells the best crumble and finally its helping support a small, local business in Southampton too.
As mentioned, we usually go around the first or second week of October, we go after school or early morning and we usually need 30-40 minutes in the patch. We have picked corn their before too but we didn’t this year because we thought they were closing and they weren’t so felt a little silly. We tend to buy around 11-15 pumpkins in all sorts of sizes. We usually pick a pumpkin each from the patch so that’s now 5 pumpkins, usually the biggest and coolest ones we can find; These have to be orange ones. Then we go and find the munchkin pumpkins, the squashes and the ugly warty ones because they’re just cool and we fill the wheelbarrow up with as many as possible. We then tend to buy some veg, lollipops, a coffee and walnut cake and sometimes a Yankee Candle because they sell those too. This year we didn’t as we were getting a taxi back but some years we’ve gone with family and then we head to the pub next door and just order dessert and it has to be crumble and custard. It’s just tradition and I won’t change for anyone.
Pickwell is great at so many different times of year, they have strawberries, corn, rhubarb, blackberries, beans, Christmas trees, pumpkins, etc… we usually end up at Pickwell at least 2-3 times a year for picking different seasonal fruit and veg. It’s just a no over the top pick-your-own and that’s all I want when picking pumpkins or strawberries.
So don’t forget to head to Pickwell, ASAP for pumpkins or Christmas trees in a month or so!
