PICK up a pumpkin this autumn while enjoying a fun day out at one of the fantastic picking farms nearby.
Stroll through orange fields, pick a prize pumpkin and grab a wheelbarrow full of lovely snaps.
Then take them home to carve and decorate in time for Halloween and enjoy some delicious leftovers.
Here's our pick of the pumpkin patches in Southampton and the New Forest.
Sunnyfields Farm, Marchwood
Pumpkin Time is about viewing and taking pictures with the wonderful variety of pumpkins on display and creating happy memories with loved ones down on the farm.
There will be thousands of pumpkins, squash and other cucurbits to pop into your wheelbarrow and purchase. You can then take them home to carve, paint, or decorate your home into an autumnal space!
If you desire that sundown Halloween twinkle amongst the atmospheric lights, the farm will be open until late.
Pickwell Farm, Bursledon
It's your no-frills pumpkin-picking experience, but is no less fun for it.
Farmers have been growing pumpkins at Pickwell for 36 years, and they were the first in the area to open their fields for public pumpkin picking in 2014.
There are ten acres of fields to roam, so grab a wheelbarrow and pick your pumpkins.
There's currently plenty of availability, but pumpkins do usually sell out before Halloween.
The Picking Patch, Fordingbridge
Pumpkins galore will be on offer to visitors every weekend and all week during the half-term holidays.
The patch will have more than 20 varieties of pumpkins for people to choose from.
Varieties include the quirkily named ‘polar bear’, ‘goosebump’ and the ‘munchkin’.
Niall Smith and Suzanne Henneken are preparing to open their field gates beside the A338 at Bickton to welcome visitors to the twenty-acre site.
There’s also a spooky Halloween Maize Maze on offer for the brave who like ‘ghostly tales of olde’.
See pickingpatch.com/pick-your-own-pumpkins/fordingbridge/
Cat and Fiddle Farm, Hinton
It's that time of year again and farmers on the edge of the New Forest can't wait to see you!
The fields are open from 9am to 6pm every day and there's late night picking on weekends until 8pm. Bring your torch!
And pumpkins mean only one thing at the on-site cafe - pumpkin spice! Enjoy Milkshake, Latte, Iced Latte and Hot Chocolate.
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