Pick your own pumpkins- Autumnal fun.

I know this has been blogged about quite a lot recently especially by those living locally to Pickwell Farm and you can clearly see why.

We took a trip down to the farm this morning with friends and it was the most fun catch up with the kids.

They adored exploring the fields and the various fruit and veg growing, running around in the fresh air and picking their own to take home.

We popped them in a wheelbarrow (provided at the farm) and bumped and bounced along the fields in the fresh air.

Pickwell Farm is located just off the M27 Junction 8 in Bursledon and is a family run 'pick your own' farm. It is a wonderful place to escape everyday life for a few hours and we easily spent almost three hours with the children exploring all the fields and the wonderful crops to enjoy.

Currently Pickwell Farm has pumpkins, sweetcorn, rhubarb, blackberries and delicious raspberries. 

We also saw kurly kale and Brussel Sprouts growing.

This post might be a bit picture heavy because I simply adore the Autumnal background of the vibrant orange pumpkins dotted around the fields. Autumn is such a beautiful season to capture, with crisp cool mornings ,beautiful blue skies and the changing colours of the leaves.

We loved all the shapes and sizes of the pumpkins and the huge variety of them. The supermarket pumpkins just don't compare to exploring all the interesting ones we found out in the open fields. To top this off it doesn't matter which pumpkin you choose they're all priced at a reasonable £2 each.

I let Oscar choose which pumpkin he wanted, we picked up a couple of corns and I couldn't resist a beautiful blue squash. I've never seen them this colour before but it's a very pastel duck egg blue shade. Apparently it is a Blue Hokkaido, a winter squash with a bright orange flesh of a subtle sweet but nutty flavour. I'm going to enjoy looking up some recipes for our blue squash but at the moment it's just sitting pretty in the living room.

The children were so inquisitive on our visit and it was nice to show them where produce comes from and how crops grow, it is just as much an educational and sensory activity with us all able to touch, smell and even sample a little taste of the fruit and veg we picked.

I can't recommend visiting enough, if you have a spare hour or so then pop along to the pick your own fields or even the shop, they have an immense range of delicious fresh produce.

To top our visit off we saw Zeeberry from the Marwell Zany Zebra trail arrive at Pickwell's Farm today. The Zebra sculptures and trail were dotted around Southampton during the Summer as part of a campaign to raise awareness and funds for the Grevy Zebra species. Pickwell were sponsors of Zeeberry and secured the sculpture in the recent auction this week. It's delightful that this beautiful piece of public art will remain at the farm for people to continue to enjoy.

In the afternoon we painted our pumpkins and covered them with glue and glitter to show Daddy when he got home.

We'll definitely be returning to Pickwell Farm again soon, if you're thinking of popping along then there are still heaps of pumpkins to pick in time for Halloween.