Tickets on sale as Llynclys Hall Farm shop prepares for bumper pumpkin picking season
Thousands of pumpkins and squash of all sizes, shapes and colours are the stars of the show at Llynclys Hall Farm Shop this October.
The American Halloween tradition of pumpkin carving invaded Britain some years ago and has now become one of the favourites with families as a more friendly fun thing to do than trick or treat and scary costumes.
Lynda and Richard Jones are harvesting around 50,000 pumpkins and squash from the fields around their farm near Oswestry ready for a monster display this Halloween.
The farm is open every day from Sunday, October 9 through to Sunday, October 31 from 9.30am until 5pm.
They first started growing pumpkins after a holiday in the USA more than two decades ago and their small pumpkin patch just grew and grew until they were planting fields of the crop.
Now their pumpkin fields and barn let visitors choose from the thousands of magnificent specimens and take part in activities from storytelling to arts and crafts.
The farm is hard to miss with pumpkins lining the walls along the A483, while the famous pumpkin display will be set up for Instagrammable-photos in the yard.
Other Halloween items will be for sale in the farm shop, while coffee will be available from the Mean Bean vans regularly stationed in Cae Glas park.
"It is such a wonderful vegetable idea for so many recipes," Richard said, adding that the farm is hoping to offer recipe ideas for making the most of the pumpkin flesh and seeds scooped out of the shells.
"We have a host of new varieties this year and we really are bigger than ever before. People do have to book their tickets in advance to ensure farm safety and that we can be Covid safe and allow us to follow guidelines."
This year visitors can also enjoy food from Oswestry-based House of Wingz and caterers Pedal and Push on weekends and throughout the last week of the month. And the farm's new car park will save anyone having to be towed out of mud in the event of wet weather.
On the last weekend in October there will be steam traction engines on display.
"We were exceptionally busy last year when people couldn't get out and about.
"I think people enjoyed doing things locally and doing things as a family so we are looking forward to welcoming them back this year.
"We can only guess at numbers as we sell group tickets, but we believe we had about 20,000 people through our farm gates last year."
People can book their tickets, which cost £5 per car not per person, through the Llynclys Hall website. Arrival times are staggered by 30 minutes but people can stay for as long as they wish.