There’s more to pumpkins than Halloween
Pumpkins can be used to make a variety of different treats. Photo: Martin Doege
Unofficial National Pumpkin Day is celebrated on 26th October and was established in the US. Whilst the UK doesn’t recognise this ‘holiday’ surely the pumpkin needs more recognition than just being a sacrificed vegetable for Halloween.
Spalding farmer, David Bowman, is the biggest grower in Europe with his 500 acre farm. The company, founded in 1997, has purpose built facilities including a temperature controlled storage area.
With a crop of around three million his picking team are averaging 100,000 a day in the month leading up to the 31st October.
He said: “It’s been a very average year in terms of the pumpkin crop because the weather was either too dry or too wet over the summer.”
Despite this, David describes his crop as “marvelous for an average year.”
Originally pumpkins were just one of many vegetables that the company grew, including marrows and courgettes. However towards the end of the 1990s as the site developed pumpkins became their main priority.
David Bowman Ltd provides thousands of pumpkins for the annual Spalding Pumpkin Festival, many of which are carved by pupils of local schools. David supplies many supermarkets with their pumpkins for the Halloween period as well as European establishments.