Darlington farm’s pumpkin patch saved by lucky decision

In addition to having to spend more, the farm has also had to find more space for these larger pumpkin seeds to grow, as they need a wider patch of land to intake the amount of water they need.

This means that they have had to reduce the amount of other crops they would usually grow.

Walton said they did this “to be able to grow into the big pumpkins that everybody seems to want these days”.

Pumpkins are not the only crop that have been affected by the summer droughts.

William Maughan, the northern chairman of the National Farmer’s Union, said: “It’s been a challenging year for farmers, less so in the North East where we had a little bit more rain earlier in the summer, but it’s been a challenging long, hot, dry summer for everyone.”

He said most yields had been all right, but certain root crops such as potatoes and anything that needs a lot of water have “maybe suffered a bit more”.

Maughan commended Baydale for their thought process last year and said: “As farmers we all need to look at that – what crops we grow, how we grow them, what varieties we do and how we can better protect ourselves from these weather variations.”

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