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September is here! Within a week the schools will be back, children kitted out in new school uniforms and exhausted parents celebrating wildly. And for the first time ever we’ve still got strawberries to pick as the summer holidays end. What a long season it's been! In this post I’ll have a look back at how our first summer growing indoor strawberries has gone...
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I spotted the team in action in the pumpkin patch this afternoon and took the chance to make a short video. We've planted pumpkins in late May every year since the early 1990s. It's the start of months of caring for the plants to get a bumper patch full of pumpkins for picking in October! You'll have to excuse the noise of the breeze in the background but I hope you'll find something interesting in this quick introduction to pumpkin planting! And if you know a little someone who'd like to have a go at planting a pumpkin in our patch (by hand) then check for spaces on the Junior Farmer sessions we hold during the May half term. James Bulmer, 21st May 2019
 I've been staring at a blank screen for an hour now. If I don't start writing something soon, we'll be opening for Pumpkins 2019 before I've written about 2018!
I just don't know where to start. October was the busiest month ever at Kenyon Hall Farm. We grew more pumpkins, welcomed more visitors, sold more pumpkins, carved more pumpkins, wheeled more barrows and ate more chocolate apples than ever before. We smashed all our records - not just for a pumpkin season, but for any season. Since we started in 1978. I can't let all that pass without comment. But after a month of relentless pumpkining and minimal sleep (I call it pumpkinsomina) my brain doesn't seem to fancy this final task: the write-up. So you'll be pleased to hear that I'll be keeping this brief! A quick look at how we did and a nod towards next year...
All bets are off. It’s 19th June, the strawberry season is under a week old and I couldn’t tell you whether there will strawberries to pick tomorrow, let alone into July! We’ve never seen a fruit season like it: raspberries ready in mid-June, sugar snap peas so plentiful they’re carpeting the field bright green, and the strawberries… oh dear, the strawberries. In this post I’ll clarify the current situation with our Pick Your Own fruit and veg, explain why it’s behaving so bizarrely, look at what to expect in the coming weeks and help you work out how to still enjoy a visit to the farm this summer. 
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