25 October 2023 , 11:30
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Halloween is just days away, and if you're planning on celebrating with a spookily carved pumpkin, then you'll need to make sure you've picked up a decent-sized vegetable to etch a creepy face onto. While you can buy a perfectly decent pumpkin from the supermarket, picking your own has become increasingly popular in the UK.
Pumpkin picking is an autumn activity loved by families in America, and it's a tradition that has now come to the UK - but it turns out many people didn't really know what they were signing up for. Most people assumed that much like when you go to a farm to pick strawberries, you actually 'pick' the pumpkin yourself - but it turns out that's not the case.
Pumpkin patches in the UK, where people are invited to come to buy them and take them home, are more like outdoor showrooms, where there's a line-up of pre-picked fruit that you choose from. Rob shared the discovery on X, formerly Twitter, on his account @bertnews. He said: "I did not realise the whole pumpkin-picking phenomenon was coming to a field where people have placed pumpkins to pick them up. We are quite, quite mad."
It turns out Rob wasn't the only Brit to only just find out what pumpkin picking was all about, with one follower saying: "Is it really?! Oh my goodness," with another adding: "I too had assumed it to be more like strawberry picking".
A third person commented: "It's crazy! Not unlike going to a supermarket where people have placed large quantities of packaged food in a building," while a fourth said: "Is this for real?? Never done this with my kids, we've just bought them from a supermarket and focused more on the carving!"
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However, others said that while this is the case for many places, there are still some farms that let you do the picking bit yourself. One person said: "There's some that are legit! I went to one that still had baby pumpkins growing. they cut the stems off the ones that were fully grown but that's it." Another said: "Our local one is picking them off the vines in the fields they grow in, it's lovely. There's no entrance fee and there's a lovely cafe. I wish they were all like that."
Others explained that the reason they are pre-cut is likely down to health and safety, as pumpkins grow on thick 'peduncle' stems which require a blade or sturdy gardening hears to cut - which isn't ideal with children running around. However, some social media users accused certain places of being a "scam", with one person adding: "The one by us had Tesco stickers still stuck to them."