A farmer from the Eden area renowned for her expertise with animals is growing her business in a new direction.
While Hannah Jackson — better known as the Red Shepherdess — has no intention of giving up her sheep, she has started growing pumpkins this year and already wishes she had planted more.
Now based on Eden’s East Fellside, Hannah explains that she got the idea for her diversification venture last autumn after driving down to her native Wirral to visit her lifelong best friend with the aim of going pumpkin picking for the first time.
She said: “We had this planned for a while and honesty we were both so excited to be able to walk into the field with our dogs — who are also best friends — and select the pumpkin to best suit our personalities and quirks. Let’s just say the whole experience did not disappoint.
“It was a stunningly beautiful autumnal day, that crisp but bluebird sky kind of day, and we strolled through acres of rows full of pumpkins while we pointed out our favourites and rolled aside the ones we didn’t like so much.
“I set my sights on a huge white pumpkin and a tiny orange pumpkin, just because I wanted something different to the generic mediocre orange pumpkin you pick in the supermarket out of the big bins at the front of the revolving doors.
“I genuinely loved it, my best friend loved it, our dogs loved it and as I gazed around the field watching everyone else’s expressions it was so clear they were engrossed and loving the experience, too.
“That’s when it hit me, that as a society we place so much value on experiences nowadays and rightly so — that for so many people buying a pumpkin off the shelf just isn’t going to cut it any more.
“People want to get hands on, feel the dirt under their nails, understand how pumpkins are grown, enjoy acres of space to roam and of course have a good choice.
“I looked to my best friend and said ‘I want to create this in Cumbria, I want to do a Red Shepherdess pumpkin patch’ and that is where the idea was born. It made complete sense to me as one of my main passions is reconnecting people back with farming and, of course, their food.
“I’ve always wanted to find ways of bringing people to our farm and to offer these experiences, and pumpkin picking felt like the best place to start — it’s something everyone can easily get involved with.”
Hannah gave two acres over to pumpkins and has had few problems cultivating them, although the seeds were initially planted too deep and so the job had to be done again by hand. However, all has gone well since then and Hannah’s only regret is that she did not devote a larger area to the pumpkin plan.
“I am delighted to say Red’s Pumpkin Patch will be open from October 22 onwards from 10am to 3pm for as long as stocks last,” said Hannah. “We have a variety of orange pumpkins, white pumpkins, gigantic pumpkins, baby pumpkins and everything in between.”
She added: “There might even be a few animals to meet and coffee to be drank so you can keep the autumnal chill at bay while searching for your perfect pumpkin to take home.”
Pumpkin patches are opening across Cumbria – is there one near you? Find out here!
