A day out at Hendrewennol Pick Your Own Fruit Farm

The summer half term is here and that means play groups are off so it’s time to find other ways to keep ourselves entertained.

I’ve been meaning to visit Hendrewennol, the pick your own soft fruit farm, for over a year, but have never got round to it for one reason or another.

However, after checking the weather forecast for the week and finding a dry day, I asked my friend if she wanted to come along with her children to spend the day at Hendrewennol.

Just to give you a bit of info about Hendrewennol, it was opened in July 1978 by Tom and Peta Keen. They planted the first soft fruit plant in 1976 and have a variety of currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and more.

I remember my mum taking my sister and I to Hendrewennol when we were children and for that reason I have very fond memories of the place.

Hendrewennol became the biggest and most visited fruit business in South Wales throughout the 80’s and 90’s which is pretty impressive!

I left my house around 9.20am and arrived around 20 minutes later. It was easy to find as it was well sign posted, although I did use my sat nav. I think I may have got lost otherwise as you do go down a variety of winding country lanes!

Upon arrival I found that the car park was pretty empty, but then again they don’t open until 10am so I was a bit early!

The entrance to Hendrewennol is a lovely green space with some picnic benches in. We waited there for my friend and her children to arrive. Whilst we waited R and M decided to run around to ‘warm’ themselves up as they said they were cold!

Entry into Hendrewennol is £1 per person and this gets you your basket to put your fruit in. They also do a monthly pass which is £5 and this gives you 10% off your fruit and means you can return within a month without paying the entry fee again. I went for this option as I can see us returning again soon!

When we arrived a lovely lady greeted us and told us a bit about the farm and where everything was. She was very friendly and helpful.

After paying and collecting our baskets we headed out toward where the strawberries and raspberries were first.

I’d read on their Facebook page that their strawberries were running low to due to the number of people who had already picked them and also due to the weather, so it was advised to arrive early.

There are rows and rows of strawberry and raspberry plants to chose from.

R and M enjoyed hunting for the fruit. It was like a treasure hunt!

I’ve written previously about how we grow our own fruit and vegetables at home so they already knew to only pick the red strawberries and to leave the green ones.

We did well and managed to collect a good number of strawberries and raspberries.

We then headed to the other side of the farm to see what fruit was available.

One thing I love is that everything is signposted so you know what you can find where.

On the other side of the farm you can pick gooseberries, tayberries, black currents, white currants and more. Sadly we did’t find any gooseberries, but we did manage to pick a good number of black currents and some tayberries too. I’d never heard of tayberries before, but in case you’re interested they’re basically a cross between a blackberry and raspberry.

Soon it was time for lunch so we headed toward an area with picnic benches in and found that there was also a large sandpit, hay bales to climb on and a bouncy castle.

After lunch R and M played in the sandpit for a good while. They then went on the bouncy castle which was under cover. Also under the cover was a seated area with a table in which had some colouring sheets on and crayons so R and M both coloured in a picture of a strawberry.

Without a doubt though the thing that they most enjoyed was climbing on the hay bales! They were stacked on top of one another and secured into place making them safe for children to play on. Tunnels had also been made in them for added fun!

It’s amazing how much fun children can have running around and climbing on hay bales!

We had such a great time at Hendrewennol and will definitely be returning again! We decided to make jam using the strawberries and raspberries that we collected, so we bought two jam jars from the shop in the farm which were very reasonably priced at just £1.25 each.

Our jam tasted amazing and we can’t wait to return to pick some more fruit!

Thanks for a lovely day!