Riverside Farmers is a family farming business at Beluncle Farm, Hoo located between the River Thames and the River Medway in Kent. We specialise in growing pumpkins, squashes, globe artichokes as well as combinable arable crops.

PYO Pumpkins was established in 2010 by Mark and Verity Batchelor when we had a surplus of pumpkins and invited a few friends over to pick their own.  This went down very well, so the next year Mark took what he had learnt from growing for the supermarkets and made it better.  PYO Pumpkins was born.  Every October we open our farm to the public and hold our annual Pick Your Own Pumpkins event.  A fun event for all the family!  We grow an extensive range of pumpkins and squashes in many colours and sizes. Our aim is to deliver a healthy product, bursting with colour, taste and freshness.  The squash are sourced for their different flavours and fantastic colours which when combined with the pumpkins makes for a delicious and colourful Halloween. The pumpkin fields rotate around the farm from the valley to the top of the farm.  We try to provide a new photo opportunity each year which usually includes a skeleton or 2 and a huge pile of pumpkins.

Mark also likes to try to grow gigantic pumpkins.  His biggest so far was in 2018 and weighed in at 230kg, this attracted much media interest!!  He also grows various different kinds of Maize and Sunflowers to provide a natural boundary to the fields.  The maize is multicoloured and inedible but provides good cover for the abundance of wildlife on the farm, the  Sunflowers are just for fun but they also prove popular with the birds, bees and small mammals.