Are pumpkin patches a new Welsh staple?

Local TV

Pumpkin patches have been growing in numbers across Wales for years, when once they were a bit of a novelty, there’s now loads knocking about. Are they the future of this time of year, or have they had their hayday and reached their peak?

Transcript

00:00Pumpkin patches have become a staple of most of our Halloween seasons nowadays.

00:06A few years ago, they were basically a novelty, but they're part of the celebrations now,

00:10and there are plenty of them popping up all across Wales.

00:13They're not always easy to grow though. They take a good few months, can often get weeds,

00:17and on the scale they're needed, it's a massive job.

00:20And really, yeah, people can go up into the actual patch.

00:23We've had a nightmare growing pumpkins this year as well.

00:26We actually planted 50,000 seeds, and I would say, due to weather,

00:31and just the weeds basically have overtaken all of our crops,

00:36that we've probably lost about 30,000 pumpkins due to weeds, which happened due to weather as well.

00:43So yeah, it's been a massive year of work, and I'm quite happy for it to be open,

00:47because the next few weeks it almost is just talking to the public and showing what you've built.

00:51So we started planning this in... I think I started planning this just after Christmas.

00:58Clearly there's a growth with Halloween, celebrations around it,

01:01and that means that there are more pumpkin patches popping up all the time.

01:04South Wales is a particularly popular place to be,

01:07so you can do different pumpkin patch or other Halloween events basically every weekend.

01:12I think it's nice to have a variety, isn't it? Like, that's the spice of life.

01:15Like, we went down to St Fagan's a couple of years ago, and I love history,

01:18so I'm not going to just go to the one event, I want to go to that event too.

01:22And because we're all delivering different things, actually it's really nice.

01:27Like you said, you can fill your calendar with events, fill your calendar with days out,

01:30and just go and make the most of what's on your doorstep.

01:35And, like, we're really spoiling South Wales that we've got so much to offer people.

01:41Granted, like, my dad, David, was one of the first ones in the area to start doing pumpkins in a way

01:47that there's been so many people popping up that it just shows the popularity for it.

01:52And it gives some... Like, there's so many different places to go,

01:54and it means that then people can have a whole different experience going to different patches.

01:58And what we want to stick by is that we are just a farm.

02:01So when you come here, it is not commercialised at all, that it is just done by us.

02:06Like, everything you can see is done by us and a small team of people that help us.

02:10With so many pumpkin patches around, places are doing their best to set themselves apart from the rest.

02:15They're all looking for a niche or something people have never seen before.

02:19I think then you start to create a niche on your own thing.

02:22So we're in a quite populated part of Wales, which is brilliant,

02:26but there's also a lot of competition.

02:28So you have to create your place.

02:31And I don't think there's anything against anything that anybody's doing.

02:36But this is our vibe.

02:37And then we find our people.

02:38And like I said, our tribe.

02:40And the feedback has been really positive.

02:42And basically, I went and saw this pumpkin village in Dallas,

02:46and there was nothing like it in the UK to this scale anyway.

02:50A lot of pumpkin patches have houses and they have a big spread.

02:54But this, I was like, there's so many popping up that we need to go bigger and better.

02:58And that's it.

03:00And that's, I mean...

03:02that's it?

03:03That's...

03:05Alright.

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