Finding ways to entice the kids to eat their recommended five fruits and vegetables a day can be easier said than done. However, farms that offer the ability to pick your own offer a bit of a lifesaver for parents - plus a fun day out in the (hopefully) sun.
Spring is here, which means that filling punnets full of delicious strawberries and the like is just the activity to get you through the hot weather - or more drizzly British summer days. Are you more of an 'eat-as-you-go' kind of picker, or a more sensible fill your punnet and show off your prized pickings to the rest of your family, maybe at a picnic?
Fortunately for us here in Bristol, there are a few places in and around the city where you can just turn up with the kids, gather up what you want and then pay for your pickings before you leave. Even if the sun's shining, remember farmers recommend wearing sturdy shoes for the fruit picking - wellies if it's raining - and for small children to wear long sleeves and trousers to protect their arms and ankles from thistles and nettles dotted around the fields.
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Here's our rundown of fruit farms in and around Bristol…
St Aldams Nursery
Where: Westerleigh Road, Pucklechurch
St Aldams Nursery’s PYO farm features strawberries, gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and raspberries. But if you’re planning on going soon, bear in mind that raspberries don’t start picking until mid July and, this year, strawberries won't be ready for picking until mid-June. Then look out for pumpkin picking later in the year.
Primrose Vale Farm Shop
Where: Shurdington Road, Gloucester
Primrose Vale offers some fifteen different crops for picking, with the most popular being table top strawberries, which are grown on raised platforms so that they’re easy to pick. There are also raspberries gooseberries, blackberries, blackcurrants, loganberries, tayberries & whitecurrants. Plums, Apples and Pears are available in the autumn too.
Thurloxton Fruit Growers
Where: Taunton
A little further afield but definitely worth the trip, Thurloxton Fruit Growers is home to a range of berries and vegetables. It is run by the Quick family, who have farmed at the foot of the Quantocks for most of the past century. They now produce a wide range of fruit and vegetables on 25 acres of rich, red, soil.
The farm opens for pick-your-own strawberries in June then in July there will be raspberries. Sunflowers take over in August and September ahead of pumpkin picking in October.
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