What better way is there to spend a sunny Autumnal morning than by picking a crop of your own baby pumpkins?
Well, earlier this week, my Mum and I were lucky enough to spend a glorious Monday morning doing just that down at Trevaskis Farm in West Cornwall.
I'd spotted a post on their blog that said, this year, the farm would open up their fields for the public to pick their own 'ready-to-carve' pumpkins just in time for Halloween... so of course, Mum and I had to give this a go!
We bundled ourselves up in jumpers and woolly hats (sunny as it was, there was still a chill in the air...this is Cornwall after all!) and made the journey down to Hayle, thinking of all the best pumpkin recipes as we went.
Unfortunately, however, the previous day had been the farm's annual 'Apple Day' festival and we were told by an assistant at the on-site market that the pumpkin field might have been left a little trampled by some overkeen festival-goers. Oh dear.
I was, unsurprisingly, a bit miffed by this, but we walked round (passing some seriously cute goats on our way) to the field anyway in the hope of salvaging some pumpkins to take home and make some yummy soup with!
The field looked empty when we came to it and, at first, it seemed as if all the remaining pumpkins had been well and truly squashed underfoot. Cue a minor, blogger hissy fit on my part as I wondered how on earth I was going to write the post I had planned all about picking pumpkins... without the bloody pumpkins!
My mum, however, saved the day when she came across a small and unusual-looking yet, most importantly, unharmed crop of baby pumpkins and squash that we could pick to our heart's content. We chose a small onion squash, a Blue Hubbard pumpkin/squash and a small type of stripy acorn squash. I can only assume that these varieties were left untouched because they didn't seem as pretty or as traditional as the classic orange pumpkins, but I definitely feel a certain amount of affection towards the funny little crop we stumbled across!
They definitely made for some great pictures...
Anyway, without the super-duper massive pumpkins I'd been hoping to pick, I'm afraid I haven't been able to rustle up any seasonal recipes or DIYs to share with you all. I do have some plans to decorate my lovely squashes in time for Halloween but, just in case I don't manage to post about this, I thought I would share some of my favourite Pumpkin Pinterest finds instead.
These are all lovely ways to put your seasonal ingredients to good use and I for one will definitely be attempting a version of those beautiful pumpkin lanterns! All credit goes to the wonderful bloggers who came up with the following recipes and DIYs...
This gorgeous Chive and Pumpkin Seed Pesto Swirl Loaf / A stunning Pumpkin Lantern DIY / A potent Pumpkin, Cinnamon & Apple Spiced Sangria potion / + these decadent Pumpkin Doughnut Bites with a Dark Chocolate Drizzle.
All in all, I can't deny that I was quite disappointed with our trip to Trevaskis Farm. Perhaps I should have called ahead to check if they had any pumpkins left to pick (will definitely do this in the future!) but I can't help but feel that, as they advertised it as such a fun day out, they should have made more of it as an event throughout October... not just something that ended on the first weekend of the month.
However, we were definitely happy with our little squash pickings and we did have a lovely sunny morning walking around the farm. So maybe it wasn't such a disaster after all! I'll certainly be posting more October and Autumnal themed posts throughout the rest of the month, so be sure to keep up to date with me on Bloglovin so you don't miss out.
Do you have any pumpkin picking stories or recipes? I'd love to hear all about them in the comments below!
In the meantime,
All the love,
Sian x
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