The British Pumpkin Patch

In the US, I grew up going to huge pumpkin patches every year - complete with their corn mazes, spooky scarecrows, hay rides, festive foods, and more. In preschool and grade school I am sure there were school trips to the pumpkin patches every fall. In the US, a trip to the pumpkin patch is one that every family seems to make in the September/ October time frame. I have plenty of photos through the years of our trips to the pumpkin patch, where my sister & I would each pick out our pumpkins that we would carve for Halloween. It is fun, festive, and part of the build-up that goes into celebrating Halloween in the US.

I may have touched on this subject to some degree in the past but the pumpkin patch is yet another example of how commercialized the Halloween Holiday is in the US versus in the UK where it is not as elaborate in scope (Although admittedly growing in popularity each year but the looks of the store shelves...)

Now that we have a little girl to start such family traditions with, it seemed only fitting that we celebrate the fall season with a trip to the local pumpkin patch, so last weekend I searched for a local pumpkin patch in our area and luckily we found one within about 20 minutes of a drive.

The pumpkin patch was located on farm in the middle of the countryside and they had one large pumpkin balloon flying in the air for people to be able to find them. It only took us about 5 minutes to walk around the entire pumpkin selection area of this farm, but it was really a cute little find - just quite different than the massive pumpkin farm industry in America!

The farm owners had some "spooky" and festive decor set up on their property.

Inside the tent of pumpkins. Much different to the US, there was only one small tent filled with pumpkins (although a nice selection of them!).

Crosby took in the view of the pumpkins from Dad's shoulders.

There was a cute old fashioned large scale there to weigh the pumpkins, so we decided to weigh our little pumpkin to see how she compared!

We seated Crosby next to a few of the pumpkins for a while. She happily sat there and just watched the other people visiting the pumpkin farm walk around. She most definitely enjoys being out watching people.

Is that a pumpkin head or Scott??!?!?

After we selected a few pumpkins, we piled the pumpkins and Crosby into the little wagon the farm had on site.

Scott pulled the pumpkins and Crosby back to our car. It was a short little visit but it seemed festive and we were glad to support a local farmer in our purchase of pumpkins, rather than the grocery store.