Sussex farmer: Pumpkin season highlights the hard work we do year-round
We're catching up with Caroline Harriott, who's farm transforms into a pumpkin haven once a year
Halloween is a welcome arrival over at Sompting Pumpkins.
Here, Caroline Harriott - farmer and NFU Sussex Council representative - transforms her field with over 60,000 seeds, yielding around twenty types of pumpkin.
"With four heat waves and hardly a shower, I was seriously concerned that we would have no pumpkins and that would have been very sad," she admits.
"But we were very, very lucky."
Weeks of rain made the field a home to anything from tiny, orange "munchkin" pumpkins, neighboured with larger, grey-blue "Crown Princes" - which Caroline likens to a butternut squash.
"Last night I made this into a bacon and squash risotto, which was delicious with parmesan on the top," she explains.
Pumpkins highlight calls to back local farmers
As well as becoming a tool to teach visitors about sustainable eating, the pumpkins also come to represent a fervent campaign around the importance of supporting local farmers.
With this year's produce grown on a backdrop of year-round protest against family farm tax - of which Caroline has been at the forefront - she hopes to cement the importance of supporting local farms.
She described the pumpkin field as a 'snapshot':
"Around the edges are hedges and trees, which are there as a wildlife corridor.
"They're there for nesting and feeding habitat for the birds, and they also sequestrate the carbon.
"This field is a prime example of what farmers in the South Downs are doing.
"They're feeding the country and very productive in the middle of the field , but on the outside edges they're feeding the environment.
"That then in turn helps feed the farmer, because by looking after the environment and the soil, we're able to be productive as well as very environmentally friendly.
"We work really hard at that and the trailer rides really give people a snapshot of that."
The pumpkin field is open between 10am and 4pm on the 18th and 19th of October, and the 25th-31st of October.