Dunham Massey pumpkin farm forced to change direction after bad weather sees crop fail

Andrew Fletcher went to see how the farm has changed its autumnal offering after its pumpkin crop failed

A farm has had to find a new way to celebrate its pumpkin festival for the first time in three decades - after bad weather caused its crop to fail.

Boundary Farm in Dunham Massey, in Cheshire, normally opens for people to pick their own pumpkins ahead of Halloween.

But after bad weather in early summer meant the usual crop of more than 150,000 pumpkins was reduced to just 600 - with a potential loss of half their annual income - the "heartbroken" family-owned farm was forced to change its plans.

Farmer Jonathan Hewitt said: "When we drilled the seeds back in May time, the end of May into June went very wet and cooler than conditions would normally happen.

"When we would normally get to see the growth happening and there were some seeds that were germinating, but it just wasn't happening enough.

"We had to think of something very quickly, rent still has to be paid, bills still have to be paid, so it was 'what can we do with what's around us?'"

"There is nothing worse than us having to say 'this has failed'," he said. "The loss of the crop was a big blow as it would have generated half the farm's annual income."

The farm found the answer in their 20 acre orchard where 70 varieties of apple have been growing well and are now ripe for harvesting.

They have now replaced its pumpkin pick with an apple festival, with visitors following the journey of the fruit from tree to glass.

"It is the full process," said events manager Henry Barlow. "Obviously we're not doing it on the industrial scale we usually do it, but everyone gets involved in each step of the process.

"We'll take them into the orchard, talk them through what apple they're picking and we'll get them picking.

"We'll then bring them in and get them juiced, and then we get to try that juice straight from the apple so it's probably the freshest juice a lot of them are ever going to get to taste."

With a shop on site selling the farm’s own range of apple juice and cider, they farm is now hoping it has stumbled on a way to keep the farm profitable, even without the pumpkins.

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