NT says cold, wet weather has affected pumpkins’ harvest
It looks to be more ‘trick than treat’ for this year’s Halloween celebrations as pumpkin crops are badly hit by a slew of bad weather – and slugs.
The National Trust says the problems has forced Kingston Lacy in Dorset to make its earliest ever harvest. Only half of the garden’s normal crop was saved.
Meanwhile, Arlington Court in Devon has lost more than 150 pumpkin and squash plants to slugs and ‘abysmal’ conditions.
The charity says cold, wet weather and a boom in slug populations have led to disappointing pumpkin harvests at a number of National Trust gardens, as many gear up for autumn and Halloween celebrations.
‘Pumpkins need a long, hot growing season to do well,’ explains Andrew Hunt, Head Gardener at Kingston Lacy.
‘Unfortunately, we had a cold and prolonged spring, which meant that germination took place later than normal and then the cooler and wetter conditions over the summer really haven’t helped.’
All might have been saved by a dry sunny start to autumn but in fact the wet and cold September meant plants stopped growing and needed harvesting early.
Arlington Court in Devon also reported an ‘abysmal’ season for squashes and pumpkins, with poor weather and slugs causing the loss of more than 150 squash and pumpkin plants.
Early harvest brought on by wet and cold start to autumn
‘Slugs are a big problem this year,’ says Sam Brown, Head Gardener at Buckland Abbey. ‘The only method I found that really worked was coming out in the evening and picking them off for the first few days after planting out.’
The growing challenges aren’t restricted to the south-west. Dunham Massey near Manchester would usually produce 30-40 pumpkins for an autumn display but this year there are none – all of the plants were eaten by slugs when young.
And Nostell, in West Yorkshire, typically produces around 80 pumpkins and squash but this autumn has just 25.
‘The wet spring and early summer has resulted in an army of slugs attacking the young plants we grew and planted out,’ says Paul Dibb, Garden and Outdoors Manager at Nostell. ‘It’s been a struggle to get any established in time to produce fruit.’
Many gardens, like Tyntesfield near Bristol and Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, reported a slow start to the pumpkin growing season because of the cold and wet weather, but managed to catch up.
‘The pumpkins took much longer to get going and we had to resow some due to slug damage, but they caught up well,’ says Heloise Brooke, Calke Head Gardener.
‘We still got some great pumpkins and gourds, which we’ll display on our pumpkin ‘theatre’, but there definitely won’t be as many as previous years.’
Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent had a slightly reduced pumpkin crop this year on its two acre organic vegetable garden.
Potentially less bee numbers seen as a reason for lower crop yield
Vegetable gardener Olivia Steed-Mundin thinks one of the reasons for the reduced crop is noticeably low populations of bumblebees – an important pollinator.
The cold wet start to summer reduced the number of pollinating insects needed to fertilise flowers.
Slugs and snails were less of a problem at Sissinghurst and the team are putting this down partly to new habitats created to attract beneficial wildlife, including a pond to encourage slug-eating amphibians.
Rebecca Bevan, plant health and sustainability consultant at the National Trust, and author of The National Trust School of Gardening, says 2024 was a challenging growing season for most vegetable gardeners.
‘But the rain was great for many garden plants, meaning they experienced no drought stress,’ she says. ‘Don’t be put off – every year is different and next autumn could be great for pumpkins.’
