Pick your own pumpkins

I know we're not in the season, but for some reason I was thinking about pumpkin picking.  Does anyone know of anywhere you can pick your own pumpkins?  I am in Oxfordshire, but am willing to travel for a pumpkin patch, hayride and maybe even some apple cider this fall!!!

I'm not saying we don't have them anywhere, but I've never heard of a pumpkin patch here like you have in the States

I know we're not in the season, but for some reason I was thinking about pumpkin picking.  Does anyone know of anywhere you can pick your own pumpkins?  I am in Oxfordshire, but am willing to travel for a pumpkin patch, hayride and maybe even some apple cider this fall!!!

My Granddad used to live outside Kings Lynn (Wisbech) and I remember being there in the early Autumn seeing signs for pick your own pumpkins.. It was only one far, out of the many in the area, and seemed odd.

Its no where near as common as it is back home for pumpkin picking (Halloween is only becoming a thing to do here...) but you might want to google for what farms are in your area and what they grow....  Warning, if you can pick your own, more than likely wont be any hayrides or apple bobbing to go along side your day out..

We have one up here in the NorthWest, its not exactly the same but its still fun for the kids! Its a small patch at a PYO farm, and you have to get ther early in the season to get the best pumpkins, but its still enjoyable!

There is sort of one near Cambridge.  They don't actually pick your own, except out of a giant pile of them, but they have a farm with not quite hay rides (no hay, but a tractor ride) and animals.

They have a corn maze, but it is ploughed under by Halloween.

Hatton in Warwickshire does a pumpkin week with pyo and activities for the kids

http://www.hattonworld.com/farmvillage/

We have picked pumpkins here.  http://www.garsons.co.uk/
I have been to the Esher location countless times. They have a country store that carries American food items. Have a look at the site.They have a list of when and what fruits and vegetables you can pick.

Good Luck

Thanks everyone!  I'll check out all of the suggestions!!

We have one up here in the NorthWest, its not exactly the same but its still fun for the kids! Its a small patch at a PYO farm, and you have to get ther early in the season to get the best pumpkins, but its still enjoyable!

Sorry to bump!  Where is this farm located?  I'd love to get some pumpkins.  I'm about 20 miles north of MCR. 

I don't think I've seen PYO here (East Sussex), but there are pumpkins in all the farm stalls.

I made pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins last year. Wow, it sucked.

Surely not! Everything made from scratch is so much better. Snerk.

Maybe it was the type of pumpkin, or it needed more draining.  It is just one of those things that I can't be bothered to do because I don't think the returns are all that better.

She says with some mini lemon meringues- that had better turn out well, or else- in the oven.

Somebody told me -- maybe somebody here, I'm not sure -- that the canned pumpkin pie filler you buy in the States is actually butternut squash. I may try that next time.

I buy as many pumpkins as I can when I see them and after they've been sitting around being pretty for long enough, I cut them up, de-seed them, peel them, and roast them.  I then freeze them in chunks (I don't bother puréeing them at that point).  I usually have enough to last me a while.

I never heard about that with the tinned pumpkin, but I always used Libby's (and never a filler or mix, just pumpkin).  If you were told that by someone here, it could be they have no clue about pumpkin.  Which is something I've encountered a bit here.  Almost every time you look at a "pumpkin" recipe here, it's with butternut squash.  It's similar, but not the same, IMO.  It's just not popular here, so I think people don't recognise the difference.

Last Christmas my MiL served mashed up swede, and I wasn't sure what it was.  I asked her and she said, "It's swede.  It tastes like your pumpkin."  I tried to explain to her that swede was nothing like pumpkin, and we actually called swede "rutabaga", but she looked at me like I was a culinary barbarian.  Sort of like when I said my quiche wasn't an omelette.  

I don't know if it's 'Pick Your Own' or not, but Riverford (the organic veg box company) will apparently have Pumpkin Days on their farms coming up in October - it was in the little newsletter with our veg box this week.  So if you're near one of their farms (throughout the UK), you could maybe look into that.  There's not an announcement on their website yet (not that I could find anyway) - but it was in our little paper newsletter this week as I said.

A link with info on the locations of their farms (in Devon, Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire & Hampshire):

http://www.riverford.co.uk/homefarm/about_riverford/riverford_farms/

See http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/food/pick.htm - the The Old Farm Shop in Harwell apparently does Pick Your Own pumpkins. It's also worth checking out Millets Farm Centre or Peachcroft Farm - both do a lot of PYO, and Millets is certainly doing a lot of Halloween stuff...