By Tanya Steele
The Adams Farm is hosting a U-pick from its pumpkin patch for the autumn season, in a first for the family property, which usually deals in Brussels sprouts.
The multi-generational family usually grows a mixed pumpkin crop annually, but this year farmer Daniel Adams experimented and decided to plant more than usual and has had a spectacular result.
Four varieties of pumpkin will be available for the public to pick themselves, the main variety available is a sweet grey.
Daniel said there are also butternuts and an interesting cross between a Butternut and Kent or a Japanese pumpkin that he has named the Butterjap.
“I’ve been planting seeds from pumpkins for years and it seems like the species is splitting, so they just grow a little randomly,” he said.
“They are the colour of a butternut and the shape of a Kent and taste the best I think.”
The field of green and grey pumpkins stretches out behind the main harvest of Brussels sprouts, a testament to the summer that seemed to fly by.
The Adams Farm has been running for over 60 years and originally was located in Bayswater, it remains a family operated farm and grows up to 120 acres of Brussels sprouts each year.
Bruce Adams grew up on the property along with his three siblings Pam, Ruth and Peter.
Bruce has been at the helm of the farm since the passing of his father in 2013 continuing his passion for the humble brussels sprout and has passed this on to his two sons, Daniel and Jeremy.
Bruces’s daughter Narelle remembers her grandparents regularly planting pumpkins to harvest and store for winter.
“They’d keep stock of them and use them for soup,” she said.
Narelle enjoys giving the public the chance to see what real working farms look like, having hosted events before like the annual sprout festival which ran a few times before Covid.
“I think it’s nice for people in the community to see how the place works,” she said.
This year, the U-pick will be a low-key affair to make sure the bountiful crop gets harvested in time for winter.
Bruce Adams said they don’t take much work to grow but the farmer has no plans to expand beyond the volume of pumpkin crops they’ve been producing.
“We go in and thin them out, irrigate them a few times and they’ve done pretty well this year,” he said.
It remains to see what the heaviest pick on the field will be, but there is plenty to choose from.
People can come and pick and weigh their pumpkins on the weekend of 29 and 30 April.
