Much of the crop failed this year due to wet conditions (Picture: Boundary Farm)
A Manchester farm has had to revamp their Autumn plans after their pumpkin crop failed – for the first time in 30 years.
Boundary Farm in Dunham Massey has been supplying pumpkins to businesses for decades, but this year the fields looked much different to their normal hue of orange.
‘The cold, wet spring we had this year wasn’t conducive to the germination of the crop,’ Chris Hewitt, owner of the Boundary Farm, told Metro.
‘When you’re sowing 40,000 to 45,000 seeds, you’re expecting around 120,000 pumpkins. This year, we just didn’t get that. It was a bit of a shock.’
The 600 pumpkins this year – compared to their normal 120,000 – was an ‘eye-opener’, Chris said, as the farm relies on pumpkin sales to pay rent for the winter, which prompted him to search for other options to help.
‘It’s been an issue across the country. This is due to the wet weather that we had in the spring. You rely on warmer weather for a decent germination on the crop for a good start. That just had a knock on effect here through the year,’ he said.
Chris Hewitt said the farm has turned to apples this year (Picture: Instagram)
Their pumpkin crop this year was less than ideal, owner Chris Hewitt said (Picture: Boundary Farm)
Wet crops present more issues than just a low crop yield – they also bring up the chances of potential diseases in the harvest.
Chris added: ‘Then, you look at the financial aspects of applying more chemicals to control those diseases. It’s a huge investment.’
Boundary Farm looked to their 30 acres of apple orchards to help alleviate the burden, resulting in this year’s new Apple Festival.
Using their 6,500 apple trees at the farm – something they aren’t short of this year, Chris says – the farm decided to allow visitors to pick the fruit and even taste the fresh apple juice and cider.
The response from the public has been ‘fantastic’, he said.
The farm has changed their focus this year to their apple orchards, rather than pumpkins (Picture: Boundary Farm)
‘We’ve been booked out every day that we’ve run, and the feedback that we’ve been getting is that people are enjoying it because it’s something a bit different to pumpkin picking.’
Though the pumpkin crop failed, their apple juice sales have benefitted from the extra footfall through the Apple Festival.
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