00:00As the landscape warms with autumnal hues it's the perfect time to embrace the outdoors
00:06and immerse yourself in nature's beauty. I've come to Churchview Farm in Lyddiot
00:11where the air is crisp and the scenery is bursting with colour.
00:15We bought the farm in December 1985 and in 1988 started doing pumpkins. I was the only person
00:26growing pumpkins around. I got the idea obviously from America originally.
00:33Set across five acres of picturesque fields are planted thousands of pumpkins.
00:38From knobbly and wrinkly to shiny, lumpy and even white varieties there's pumpkins for every purpose
00:45whether you're carving, baking or decorating for Halloween.
00:49They're not the easiest crop to grow because they're the only crop that you've got to do
00:55so the seeds by hand and they have got to be sown the right way up. The pointed end down,
01:04right down into the compost otherwise when they start growing they push themselves out
01:09and it takes us about two weeks to do. It's the six months then ready to harvest.
01:17Many local farms like here aren't just offering pumpkin picking on Saturdays and Sundays there's
01:23fairground rides and food and drink offerings too. This is my own recipe for pumpkin soup but you would
01:31adjust that because that makes an awful lot of soup. Also if it's adults eating it you can put more
01:39chillies in but everything else is just pure veg. The UK's 2025 pumpkin crop is expected to be a
01:48bumper year with larger pumpkins and higher yields due to a combination of good weather conditions
01:54including a wet 2024 followed by this year's warm and sunny spells. Many farms have even reported
02:01harvesting their crops earlier than normal. The weather's been good to us this year. They've all grown well
02:06different varieties as well. Cappuccino being one of them. The white ones are popular because they're more
02:15ghosty and they like to be able to pick some of the greenery that's still on the plants where the
02:22pumpkins grow because that's more spooky for Halloween. They like spookiness. So if you're looking to soak up
02:32some autumn fun grab your wellies and head out as this season is fleeting but memories are forever.
02:39Autumn now. Autumn's a nice time. I like all four seasons on a farm. We don't have
02:44spraying machines anyway to do it so it just grows naturally but we don't claim to be organic because
02:51sometimes seeds that you buy have already been dipped to stop different diseases and that.
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