Pumpkin farmer 'started with one pack of seeds'

A farmer who is getting ready to harvest more than 30,000 pumpkins said it all began with a packet of seeds sown for his children one Halloween.

Chris Hoggard, of Howe Bridge Farm in Malton, North Yorkshire, started growing pumpkins some 25 years ago when his son Thomas was a baby.

That year he grew 10, with the eight he did not need being sold at the farm gate.

He now raises about 15,000 plants and welcomes visitors from across the UK.

He said: "I bought a few seeds from the supermarket and planted them and we had no idea if they would grow or not, but of course they grew on a vine and all over the place.

"We had about 10 pumpkins so we put the other eight that we didn't want out on a stand with an honesty box. That was on a Saturday morning, and by the afternoon they had all gone.

"The year after we planted about 200 plants and then we sold them all within a week. Then we increased that number to 500 or so.

"We just kept doubling up until we got the number we are at today."

Mr Hoggard's farm is family-run, but they employ about seven staff in the farm shop and have just taken on an apprentice, Mia Scholefield, to help with the harvest.

"People come from all over to the farm," he said. "The pumpkins can be seen from the road and sometimes people have passed us on their way to a holiday cottage, and come back to buy a pumpkin."

"It's just got bigger and bigger."

"We started picking about a fortnight ago. We cut them all to let the stalks dry and cure and transfer them onto the field where we sell them."

He said Brexit had made no difference to business, nor had the national Covid-19 lockdowns - but the fuel crisis had meant the past week had seen fewer cars pass by.

"With us being rural, it's certainly quietened down," he said.

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