An enterprising Angus couple are all set to stage a weekend of Halloween fun for all the family with plenty of pumpkins ripe for the picking.
Angus Dowell and Lauren Neill have developed a fun way to educate families about food and its source in a farm diversification project which has grown in popularity in the last 12 months.
Last year they staged the first pick your own pumpkin patch at Angus’s family’s farm at Cononsyth, near Arbroath.
On that occasion they welcomed approximately 200 people to the farm, and this year hopes are high they can treble that number when the pumpkin patch runs on Saturday and Sunday, October 26 and 27 from 10am to 2pm both days.
Lauren, a trainee rural surveyor in Aberdeen, explained her partner Angus works full time on the family farm with his dad.
She said: “We were keen to diversify the farm and engage with the general public, encouraging them onto the farm to educate them where our food and produce comes from.
“We therefore ventured into pumpkin growing in 2018.”
This year they planted seeds in trays in mid-May, planting them under plastic in early June.
They continued: “We have a dripper irrigation system to feed the plants and this year weather events were on our side.
“Pumpkins love the sun but are also very thirsty plants, we just about had the perfect weather conditions over the summer months.
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“The pumpkins were all harvested off the vine the last week in September and will cure over the next few weeks ready for Halloween.”
Hundreds of pumpkins in all shapes and sizes will be ready for collection by families keen to get into the Halloween spirit.
Families are invited along to the farm to see where they were grown and to choose their own spooky squash in time for Halloween on October 31.
They continued: “The pumpkins will all be in the field they grew in so wellies will probably be required.”
Angus and Lauren, both 25, have arranged lots of fun family activities from pumpkin carving stations and face painting to animal petting pens.
Family friend Fleur Baxter has also created an eye-catching bale art in the field beside the patch to advertise the weekend.
Entry is by car parking ticket only which can be booked in advance on EventBrite via the Cononsyth Farms’ Facebook page.
The car parking ticket is redeemable against the cost of a pumpkin and only one ticket per car is required.
Cononsyth Farm is located on the B961 on the outskirts of Arbroath.
