"Autumn's Celebrity 'Scam': How Influencers like Molly-Mae and Stacey Solomon Are Costing Moms Hundreds!"

IT’S the quintessential autumn activity, beloved by celebs including Molly-Mae, Kylie Jenner and the queen of wholesomeness, Stacey Solomon.

But despite the carefully curated Instagram shots, this hugely popular family day out isn’t always quite what it seems – as we reveal how you could be getting completely SCAMMED.

Molly-Mae Hague loves to entertain daughter Bambi right with dad Tommy Fury Stacey Solomon is another celeb mum who is always looking for family days out

UK favourites, like former star and ‘s , are well-known for sharing their adorable pumpkin-picking trips with their children on social media.

Stacey, 35, who often documents her seasonal home decorations at Pickle Cottage, has previously posted about her family days out to pumpkin patches, even praising a local garden centre for their spooky offering.

Meanwhile, , 26, has also shared snaps of her family at local farms, making the experience look like pure autumnal bliss.

We’re all after that authentic farm experience – but for many of the increasingly popular, and often pricey, pumpkin sites, the ‘picking’ isn’t the real deal.

The disappointing reality is that some of the major locations don’t actually grow the pumpkins on site.

Instead, they buy them in, often wholesale, and simply spread them out over a field so customers can get the experience of ‘picking’ them – for a massive mark-up, of course.

Some have even been accused of buying the pumpkins cheaply from Aldi, before plonking them in muddy fields and charging “ten times the price.”

Pumpkin picking can vary in price depending on where you are, but it can involve an entry fee, which can be as much as £14 per person, as well as a fee for the pumpkins, which can sometimes be over £10.

Pumpkin prices at Aldi, on the other hand, start at just 69p.

When you factor in food and drink, not to mention kids’ rides and any on-site photographers, the bill can become astronomical – particularly considering it’s not even an authentic farm experience.

“You can tell they are just bought in and dumped on muddy grass. It’s a total scam,” says mum of one Lauren Clarke, 39, from St Albans, Herts.

“It feels like you’ve been robbed, and feels very greedy.”

While not all pumpkin patches are faking it, there are a couple of ways to spot if you’ve been scammed at your local farm.

Pregnant Molly-Mae visiting a pumpkin patch Kylie Jenner and daughter Stormi posing with pumpkins Gemma Collins is another fan

How to spot a REAL pumpkin patch?

The Sun’s Gardening expert, , explains that one of the biggest giveaways of a sham patch is the condition of the pumpkins themselves.

She says: “Definitely be wary of the perfectly staged pumpkin.

“If every gourd is flawless, unnaturally clean, and sitting in neat, orderly rows on a clean bed of straw, you could be paying a premium to ‘pick’ something a truck delivered that morning.

“There’s a chance that they’re grown elsewhere on the farm and then moved to the public picking area – like Garson Farm in Esher – but often if it looks too good to be true, it usually is.

You can tell they are just bought in and dumped on muddy grass. It’s a total scam

Mum of one Lauren Clarke

“The biggest giveaway is that in a genuine patch, you’re looking for an organic mess.

“Real pumpkins are often stained, they sprawl, and the dead remnants of the vine are usually still very much present – they don’t just appear clean-cut and alone on a blanket of hay.

“Some might be rotten or spoiled by pests and disease – they’re definitely not all perfect.

“If your ‘pick-your-own’ experience involves pumpkins that look like they just came from a supermarket display, chances are you’re not in a field; you’re in a retail dump.”

A genuine pumpkin growing field. Our gardening expert Veronica says one of the biggest giveaways of a sham patch is the condition of the pumpkins themselves Stacey Solomon previously had the ‘best day’ pumpkin picking with her three sons Stacey regularly gets into the Halloween spirit by decorating her home

The truth has been exposed by eagle-eyed social media users, who have had enough of the extortionate costs.

One user on X (formerly Twitter) was among the first to slam the sneaky scheme, branding it “the biggest scam going”.

Mums see the pictures and feel like they should be ‘making memories’

Mum of two Alex Mills

They said: “Discovered last year, it’s just a load of pumpkins from Aldi, chucked on a muddy field, for 10 times the price. Never again.”

The post triggered a wave of agreement from other users, who realised they’d fallen for the same trick and couldn’t believe the brazenness of it all.

“They should re-name it ‘pumpkin picking-up’,” one person replied.

Rise of the pumpkin patch

Mum-of-two, Alex Mills, 44, from , has felt the pressure to take her kids pumpkin-picking – and discovered first-hand that the muddy reality doesn’t quite match the Insta-perfect ideal.

“I think the rise of pumpkin patches are part of the Americanism of Halloween and driven largely by social media and celebs,” says Alex, who is mum to Ralph, nine, and Max, six.

She adds: “Mums see the pictures and feel like they should be ‘making memories’.

“There’s a lot of pressure, like pyjamas and the like. Halloween is no longer a day – it feels like a whole month of expensive activities.

I’d much rather have done one in my own garden instead, which is what I will be doing this year instead

Mum of one Lauren Clarke

“I was chatting to another mum the other day, who is a professional photographer, and she was also saying how it’s basically just a muddy field with pumpkins dumped in it.

“Even if they have grown them, they obviously don’t just sit there looking all pretty in a field for you to ‘pick’.

“I think lots of them are having to add other elements to justify the visit, like music and play areas.

“The whole experience can be quite stressful as well.

“I took my two boys, my youngest was in a carrier, while I was trying to keep my eldest under control and push a wheelbarrow. It wasn’t the most fun, and I don’t think people realise this.

Alex Mills took her boys bought found the experience stressful with the mud Mum of two Alex Mills noticed that the pumpkins had been dumped in a muddy field Alex found that the whole experience stressful

“I went to a fancy one in the Cotswolds as well, and you can see that they had used straw to hide all the mud.

“Some places are ticketed as well, so if you have booked and it is raining, that is just grim.”

Like Alex, Lauren also learned the hard way that pumpkin picking wasn’t all it seemed.

“I took my son, and nephews and I thought it was going to be a fun Sunday, but it was a sham,” says Lauren, who is mum to Jenson, aged nine.

“I paid £10 for the ticket, £1 more because we went at peak time, on a Saturday at midday. That’s baffling in itself.

“Then on top of that, I had to pay for the pumpkins as well. It was very underwhelming, the kids were cold, we were slipping and sliding everywhere.

Alex noticed that they had attempted to hide the muddy field by adding hay on top Celebs often flock to these pumpkin patches every year

“I’d much rather have done one in my own garden instead, which is what I will be doing this year instead.”

While some patches are happy to sell wholesale stock for a profit, for true growers, producing a decent crop is a painstaking process.

Katherine Maxey, of Maxey’s Farm Shop in , spoke to the Daily Mail , confirming that while her family-run grows all its own produce, other patches are guilty of ‘buying’ it in.

A pumpkin in a supermarket might be a couple of quid, but people will pay more for the outdoor experience and have some fun and pick pumpkins

Phil Handley, of the Mostyn Kitchen Garden

“If an idea is popular, then people will copy… but you will only get the best experience from true growers and the original farms who started years ago,” she said.

Katherine also explains how the huge commitment has led to her having sleepless nights.

She said: “It is a long process from April through to October.

“We monitor the crops daily to make sure they are growing properly.”

Frankie and Wayne Bridge with their sons Binky Felstead is another celeb fan of pumpkin picking Ferne McCann with her daughter Sunday on the quintessential autumnal day out

The UK’s increasingly unpredictable climate adds another layer of stress.

Despite the challenges, the potential for quick cash is enormous, explaining why so many non-growers are jumping on the bandwagon.

A Flintshire-based farm last year told the that a PYO (pick your own) experience can make them a colossal £30,000 per acre.

Phil Handley, of the Mostyn Kitchen Garden, explained that farmers can plant 5,000 pumpkins an acre.

He said: “A pumpkin in a supermarket might be a couple of quid, but people will pay more for the outdoor experience and have some fun and pick pumpkins.”

But this isn’t the case for all pumpkin patches.

Ferne and Sunday on another pumpkin patch visit. Mum of three Helen Flanagan nails the essential Insta snap. Helen Flannagan’s Halloween-themed day out with her adorable children

Plenty of smaller, local farms do grow their pumpkins on-site and offer a genuinely wholesome experience.

If you’re keen to ensure your day out is authentic, your best bet is to check online or get in touch with the farm before you visit to see if their pumpkins are actually grown in their fields.

You can also look for patches where the pumpkins are still attached to the plant, although some farms harvest their own and move them to a different field for ease of customer access.

But if you’re purely after a lovely autumn photo op without blowing the budget on a glorified wheelbarrow race, the best solution might just be to recreate the magic at home.

One social media user suggested: “Just buy a load of Aldi ones, bang them in the garden when the kids go to bed, tell them the Halloween goblin has grown them overnight.”