The humble pumpkin...

Whilst I sit twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear about a larger allotment plot I thought I'd write a post about pumpkins, perhaps not the most exciting of vegetables but hey ho.

This year was a good year for pumpkins, we grew the largest two we've ever managed on our allotment and oddly we weren't even trying, happy accidents you might say.

Here are the largest two of this years pumpkins -

We were pleased with them.

I had thought we weren't going to get any large pumpkins this year, we lost a load of plants to marauding slugs and had to sow more, and as a result by the time some of our other pumpkin plants were growing fruit we had some plants that were showing no signs of doing anything productive at all.

And then around the middle of August I noticed these two small pumpkins, on separate plants - 

Small, about grapefruit/melon size here.

At this point I thought, well it's late in the season so they probably won't come to much, but I'll leave them anyway, by the end of August start of September they had grown a fair bit, the one by the fence had grown quite a lot, it went from being grapefruit sized to watermelon sized in a couple of weeks and the other one was about the same size.

Fence pumpkin - 

Larger than it looks.

The other one - 

Again larger than it looks.

A month later when I picked them they had gotten considerably larger, I haven't done anything special with them, just plenty of water and sunshine (you can also use tomato food on them) and that's it, and in the space of about six weeks they went from grapefruit/melon sized to weighing 25.5kg between the two of them, the largest is 13.5kg and the smaller one 12kg, they can grow very quickly if they get plenty of sun and water.

Harvest time, I had to use my bike trailer - 

A good haul.

Currently we have a kitchen full of pumpkins (and other squash) they will all get used, we've started processing some of them already, the one we carved for Halloween has been made into puree and frozen for soups and pies (and anything else we can think of) a couple have been turned into relish made by my wife some of the puree was used in the flat breads my wife makes as well, and we roasted the seeds with some olive oil and spices, they make a great snack.

Pumpkins are very useful, did you know that around 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin gets thrown away each year in the UK after Halloween ? and why ? they can be eaten so why throw it away ?

The internet is awash with recipes and ideas for what to do with pumpkins and squashes.

Here's a list of things we do with pumpkins, 

Puree for soup

Cut up in stews, and curries

Pumpkin pie

Roasted with the spuds for Sunday dinner

Pumpkin flat breads

Pumpkin relish

Pumpkin wine, which is very nice even if I do say so myself

Grated into a shepherds pie or a chilli, makes the mince go further

Pumpkin muffins (kids love them, probably because they are sweet)

Seeds roasted for a nice healthy snack

And pumpkins have numerous health benefits and they are very high in vitamins and minerals, like vitamin C, vitamin A and calcium and iron and they are a fun to grow, kids get a kick out of watching them get bigger.

So rather than chucking your pumpkins in the bin after Halloween why not try to use them, after all you are throwing food away, and if you don't want to use them see if anyone in your area is running a pumpkin/squash rescue event where you can donate your pumpkins and know they'll be used to help someone who is perhaps a little less fortunate than you, it has to be better than chucking them away.

In the mean time we'll be finding uses for this lot - 

This isn't all of them.

Thanks for reading.

Allotment update (last one of 2012) ...

Yes this will most likely be the last allotment update for this year, things have started to slow right down on the plot, there are some things that have been missed by the slugs, some cabbages and other such things, fingers crossed they will make it through the winter.

This is how the plot looked last month after we'd been there for a spot of weeding and other related jobs, like adding a small divide between our half and the other half, and planting some stuff to grow over winter, like cabbages.


The small divide -

It's just a few bits of pallet.

Cabbages,kale and spinach for over winter -

I've since added a load of netting, damn pigeons.

As I mentioned due to the never ending onslaught of slugs we've lost a lot of the stuff that we'd intended to grow over the winter, but some of it survived, so there's hope yet, we did how ever get a good haul of beans of various sorts, as well as about 1.5kg of broad beans (shelled that is)


Beans, beans are good for your heart the more you eat ...

They weighed 4.5kg with the pods.

More beans - 

Is it me or is it getting windy in here ?

The coloured beans got eaten very quickly, the kids were a little annoyed the purple ones didn't stay purple when they were cooked, still tasted good, we have a load of small bags of beans in the freezer for using in stews and such like when the weather gets cold, apparently the purple beans taste good raw.


This is the haul we got from our latest (and most likely last) visit this year -

Pumpkins for Halloween sorted.

 Three pumpkins for Halloween this year, the yellow one could have done with being left on the vine for a bit longer, but the weather is getting colder and I didn't want to leave it in case it got damaged by the cold, so now I'm putting it out in the sun at home to harden up, the other two pumpkins are fine though, not bad considering these are all grown from seeds I saved from last years pumpkins, the yellow one is the largest pumpkin I've grown to date.

We've got quite a bit of corn, I planted 24 plants and we have 24 cobs, although some are smaller than I'd have liked, the kids have already eaten some of it, they had a cob between them for dinner, they said it tasted great.

Even though some of the corn cobs are small they still have corn on them, so I'm planning on using these ones as next years seeds, but they'll need to be dried out over the winter so I can get the kernels out with out damaging them.

Still has some viable seed material - 

Just needs drying out.

I do have some jobs to do to get the plot ready for next year, but those I'll either do before Christmas or sometime after just before spring, things like the poly-tunnel I've been threatening to build for, well for ever, but all in all it's been a good year, better than last year, we've still got a way to go though, but things are in a much better state now than they were last year at this time.

There are a few things left on the plot, the butternut squashes are still there, they are very small, so I figured I'd leave them for another week or so, and there are still some small pumpkins on the various vines that are left, so I thought I'd see if they grow larger before digging things over, and there's a few beetroots and some turnips and parsnips, so we shall see what comes of them.

The baby pumpkin - 

It's about the size of a tennis ball.

And that's that for this year, fingers crossed for some better weather next year, enjoy autumn.

This is how we've left things for now - 

Shouldn't take much to get it ready for spring.

Thanks for reading.

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”  Henry David Thoreau.

Allotment update ... ... winding down.

Well it's September, the weather has got colder in this neck of the woods, not that summer was hot, at least not as hot as previous years.

The allotment has been left alone for a few weeks, so the other morning (at 7am) I decided I should pay it a visit and maybe start sorting it out, it'll need regular digging over, and weeding throughout the winter, it's not been easy, but I think I've got a handle on the weeds, don't think I'll ever beat them though, just keep them at bay.

I had hoped the pumpkins that had started to grow last time I was there were okay, they were and they seem to be doing alright, I had thought I'd harvest them, but decided to leave them for longer with a view to harvesting them for halloween :-)

This was how big they were last time I saw them -

Baby pumpkins :-)

I wondered whether they'd been eaten, or damaged by the weather, but as it turns out they are doing quite well, hopefully they'll be bigger for halloween, I doubt they'll be huge but they should be alright for carving and we can make some pumpkin pies and pumpkin soup, and any thing else we can think of.

The pumpkins now -

They don't look it, but they are bigger :-)

 I started to dig the bits that did have things growing, like the section where the spuds were, once the pumpkins are done I'll go over the whole plot, and then just try and keep on top of the weeds over winter, I may also plant some things for an early crop.

There are other things I can be doing though, I have to build some kind of compost bin / box, part of it is already there, I just need to add a front to it to stop the waste from falling out of it. I also have a poly-tunnel to build, but first I'll have to clear a space for it, I have the frame work already to be put up, just need to get some large polythene sheets, then I'll have an extra green house, which reminds me, I need to fix the one in the garden, why is it to do lists only ever get bigger ? even if you cross loads of stuff of them.

I did come home with some rather large courgettes, which is good as I've eaten more or less all of the courgette relish my wife made (was meant to last until next year, oooppps) if you fancy making courgette relish you can find the recipe on my wifes blog ---> here (opens in new window)

Monster courgettes -

Okay so it's more like a marrow now :-)

A little less curly :-)

I also got 2 small winter squashes, they look really nice no idea what we'll do with them yet though.

I'm sure we can think of something to do with them.

A table full of squashes (and the odd corn cob)

The curly courgette weighs nearly 2kg !

So we have enough for a new batch of relish, which I'll try not to eat before next year, well not all of it anyway ;-)

I think we did pretty well considering we got the plot later in the year than was really helpful, and we'd already planted a load of stuff in our gardens, next year we should get much more produce.

You may remember me saying that around the allotment site are loads of hop plants, and there's a load between our plot and the one next door, so I thought I'd pick some, apparently you can use them for a few things, apart from making beer, you can make a relaxing pillow filled with hops and lavender to help you sleep for example, still looking into other uses, but I'm looking forward to finding interesting uses for them.

A bag full of hops -

They need drying out.

And that's about it, the next allotment up date will probably be in spring time, unless I get round to building the poly-tunnel before then :-)

Thanks for reading.