Bumper pumpkin crop despite driest spring

"Nobbly ones, warty ones, yellow ones... I've even got pink ones" - nursery owner Barry Proctor lists his huge variety of pumpkins

A multi-award-winning nursery has defied the odds by producing about 15,000 pumpkins despite the country's driest spring on record.

The bumper crop means Proctors Nursery in Endon, Staffordshire, has been able to open its gates to families keen to pick their own pumpkin in the run up to Halloween.

Owner Barry Proctor said he was delighted by the efforts of his dedicated team.

"We've worked very hard," he explained. "But you see the fruits of the labour."

Proctors Nursery has had huge success with their flowers, adding gold medals from RHS Flower Shows at Chelsea and Wentworth Woodhouse to their trophy cabinet.

This is the sixth year the growers have ventured into pumpkins, sowing the seeds back in May.

After months of hard work amid a lack of rain, Mr Proctor rated this the best pumpkin yield yet in terms of number and variations.

But the crew admitted to challenges.

Rattling off items on his jobs list, chief pumpkin grower Dan Dawson, who has done most of the site's planting and cultivating, said: "Looking at the weather, looking if they've turned orange, checking no caterpillars are eating the leaves... We've had an exceptionally dry spring and summer, but we timed it just right.

"The last rain we had in spring just settled them in and off they went," he said of the crop, proudly surveying fields from his tractor.

He said he looked forward to Staffordshire families enjoying locally grown produce rather than the supermarket offering, which might have "travelled hundreds of miles".

Orange is not always the future, though, and that is where the need for variation comes in, Mr Proctor explains.

"The dressing of front doors and rooms are becoming more popular for the younger generation," he said, explaining the prompt to diversify from the traditional hue.

"I think this is the first year we've got it properly right."

Dan Dawson is chief pumpkin grower at the nursery

World record-breaking giant veg grower Derek Hulme is grateful to the nursery for allowing him to plant his massive pumpkins alongside the regular crop.

Four of them are now on display to the public alongside others that have been donated by the giant veg exhibitors of Malvern, Worcestershire.

Looking at the nursery ahead of the pumpkin-picking opening, Mr Hulme said: "I'm absolutely blown away for them.

"The amount of work, the effort, that they've put in to put this display on.

"They've done it, not just for themselves, they've done it for the community."

Families are welcome to visit the nursery for free on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and during all of half term from Monday 27 to Friday 31 October.