11 kilograms of Pumpkin.

 


This pumpkin outgrew its skin so I picked it early.

 

 

The pumpkin didn't look very big
... until I started chopping it up.
Had a good go at chopping my finger too!























We are approaching the time of year when tons of healthy, nutritious food gets needlessly thrown away. For in this country there is no great tradition of growing and eating pumpkins, except for their novelty value, famous as being the vegetable that grows to huge proportions, and obviously for carving into amusing ghoulish faces in which to place candles on the night of Halloween.

But I have discovered that pumpkin is actually deliciously tasty...which is a good thing. For this pumpkin weighed in at 11kg of flesh, after peeling and scooping out the seedy part. I have at least another dozen of these Pumpkin Hundredweight. I deliberately didn't grow them to huge proportions, letting more than one grow on a plant if it wanted and leaving the leaves on the plants to ramble over the ground. The wonderful thing about pumpkins is that they stay edible for ages, the nutty flesh sealed inside the tough skin where it stays fresh for months. This one had to be harvested a little early as it split its skin, but the flesh cooked up a treat and Sue turned half of it into bacon and pumpkin soup.  

On other matters, it's been a quiet time on the farm, just getting on with things. I should really be clearing veg plots, tidying and cleaning in preparation for winter. I've a couple of crops to start off too - some Autumn planting onion sets and garlic cloves. Many of the animals are close to freezer ready now - the pigs, the fattening lambs and several young cockerels need to go too.

Sun rise is becoming easier to catch, beyond 7 o'clock now, so on work days the animals can be fed at the same time. Autumn's sun rises can be stunning, or grey! Here's the first four to show what I mean.


Monday 1st October 2012
A grey start to the final quarter of the year.



Tuesday 2nd October 2012



Wednesday 3rd October 2012



Thursday 4th October 2012





Three piglets tuck into my prize winning Mangel Wurzel.
Should improve the taste when they go off soon!



Courgette wine it will have to be then!

Sue with a couple of oversize courgettes

 



Tuesday 18th September 2012

 

Wednesday 19th September 2012












Yesterday evening we went into the Lincolnshire Wolds to pick up 19 demijohns. That should tide us through for a while. At 4lbs of courgettes for 1 gallon of wine, the 32lbs that I picked today should use about 8 demijohns!

 

Yes, that's right. 32 lbs! To Sue's delight I presented her with another three baskets of courgettes in their various shapes and colours. Some ridiculously overgrown as a couple of downpours recently have brought on a fresh spate of logarhithmic growth!

The varieties of courgette which I have grown this year came from the Mr Fothergill's Courgettes and Summer Squashes Collection.

Black Beauty, Grisette de Provence, Di Nizza, Patty Pan, Golden Zucchini and Yellow Scallop.

The most prolific have been the Grisette de Provence, though they tend to grow fat and quickly reach a large size. However, the flesh stays firm and it's easy enough to scoop out the middle so that, even overgrown, they are great for stuffing like marrows. They've a good taste too. Similar are the Di Nizzas. A couple of these have attained the size of a medium pumpkin! The Black Beauties have cropped more modestly, but they are a very good looking courgette (though mine are not so dark, having a pleasing dappled, striped appearance.) The Golden Zucchinis (a pretty generic name for yellow courgettes) cropped very heavily early on and have a good, sweet taste along with a firm texture and a crunch to them. They are still cropping, but much more slowly now. Finally the Patty Pans have just started to produce fruits. They took me a bit by surprise so a few have reached the size of mini flying saucers! We'll see what the flesh is like in due course.

 

Some of the smaller pumpkins are ready now too. Fortunately these can stay on the plant much longer, as they just reach their full size then slowly ripen. But today I decided to pick a few of the dozens which are growing, just to see what they taste like and how ripe they are. Besides, they make a very colourful and exotic addition to the vegetable display in the Secret Shop.

 





Pumpkins and Squashes
are always fun to grow and harvest.



Ye secret shoppe.

 

The Potimarrons have grown and fruited profusely. They were the first to produce fruits and some have now ripened to a deep orangey red colour. They are a very convenient size for a meal for two and have a lovely, nutty taste.

The Jack-be-Little pumpkins were much slower to produce fruits, but each plant looks as if it will yield a hatful of fruits (and a big hat at that!).

 

Anyhow, back to that wine I was talking about. The recipe is at www.courgetterecipes.co.uk.



A modern kitchen, complete with laptop displaying recipe.

First, chop up lots of courgettes.

Then boil them in big pans.

Strain the juice into a very big bucket, along with other bits and pieces (see recipe)

As far as I remember, it stays about a week in the bucket then goes into demijohns, where it stays for about a year. By which time there will be plenty more courgettes to deal with!!

 

HELP!!! Swamped by courgettes

 

If you ignore the missing bean plants, then I guess this is what the Three Sisters planting system is supposed to look like. The squashes, pumpkins and courgettes have slithered along the floor and crept in to every gap to completely cover the ground. And in between rise the clusters of sweetcorn.

The cucurbits growing in tyres are doing equally well, spilling over the sides and along the ground.And just look at the harvest we're getting. We are harvesting courgettes daily and poor Sue can't keep up with them. So far we've got a sea of Spicy Courgette Soup, we've got griddled courgettes, variously flavoured Courgette Fritters and grated courgettes. The freezer is positively bursting. The only thing we've not tried yet is courgette cake.

But PLEASE! PLEASE!! PLEASE!!! Does anyone out there have any inspired ideas how to use a mountain of courgettes, especially the ones which have miraculously reached gargantuan marrow proportions overnight, without necessitating another visit to the freezer shop?

I've scoured the interweb, which is full of similar tales and pleas, but I'm just looking for that one killer idea. Courgette beer?? Courgette cordial?? Courgette sorbet?? Even Courgette juice??

Meanwhile, here are some images.

 

 





 





Potimarron pumpkin.

There is a fascinating website devoted to

Tai Chi and Potimarrons!

http://www.rainbow-taichi.org.uk/site/the-potimarron-project/

The gurgling water is somewhat disconcerting.

I thought it was my fermenting cider

about to explode!





At least the squashes and pumpkins grow at a nice, steady rate and will store through the winter, a great asset. As for the courgettes, well here's what's happened to some of them.

Good news is that the chickens, geese and the pigs all like courgette, so nothing is going to waste.












Two Sisters

Three Sisters, Sweetcorn, Climbing Peas and Cucurbits















This was my Three Sisters patch just over two weeks ago. The sweetcorn was beginning to do well and the various squashes, pumpkins and courgettes were just beginning to flower and burst into growth. The pea beans, though, had twice floundered under attack by slugs. I'd raised some in the greenhouse though and these were looking healthy enough to go outside. Three Sisters restored.














The cucurbits planted in tyres were mostly beginning to thrive too. This system of planting means I can pack all the nutrients in around the roots. It is most beneficial in a warmer and drier year, when the tyres heat up the soil and help retain water.

Thursday 2nd August 2012



So, fast forward to early August and here's my Three Sisters patch.



The sweetcorn is doing well. I had my reservations about planting it in blocks of four, but decided to follow the planting guidelines to the letter. The flower tassels are waving about in the air and the cobs are beginning to swell.



Underneath, the cucurbits are really beginning to ramble now and most have fruits forming.

As for the pea beans ... well, the third Sister has again failed to make it past the slugs. Maybe one or two might survive to clamber up the corn stems if I'm lucky. On the positive side, I think this system will work well for me. This is just an exceptionally challenging year for all the beans.

 

The first courgette.
This is Grisette de Provence.
It grew rather fat and I thought
it might go pulpy inside,
but no, it was lovely and firm.
I griddled half with burgers and chips.
The other half held up very well
in a chicken and potato curry.

The squashes, pumpkins and courgettes grown on the ground in the Three Sisters system seem to have faired about the same as their cousins grown in tyres. I'll give them all a feed of comfrey juice now they've set some fruits.

We've started harvesting courgettes and the patty pans aren't far behind. A welcome glut will soon be upon us!

I'm growing pumpkins for the first time this year, Jack Be Little and Hundredweight. I don't just use them at halloween. They are great in soups, curries and in cakes and muffins. So versatile.

And with the winter squashes too we'll be well fed from our stores in the colder months.

On the Cucurbit front

Patriotic Potatoes revisited
I have been totally perplexed of late. Viewing figures for my blog have rocketed and I haven't been able to work out why. While it's nice to think that anybody would want to read about what we do here at Swallow Farm, I'm no self-publicist (thought the Sex In The Strawberry Bed post was a shameless attempt at increasing viewing figures!) So why should Patriotic Potatoes storm ahead of all other posts?? And why would I get more hits from Germany than from the UK?
Yes, my flag made of three varieties of potato was ingenious, witty and original... Apparently not!

For I googled Patriotic Potatoes in search of explanation. Turns out I'm not the first person to think of it. In fact Patriotic Potatoes is a celebratory American dish. And tomorrow's date...

And Germany? I guess they still have all those American bases there?

I do hope my flood of recent visitors haven't been too disappointed with what they found.

Oh, forgot to say for tomorrow..

Happy Fisherman's day to all in The Marshall Islands.
Happy Family day to all those in Lesotho.
Happy day of Agwe to all Haitians.
And a very Happy Birthday to Queen Sonja of Norway.

Reckon I may just have hit on a plan to up the blog hits!!!


On the Cucurbit front

The squashes, pumpkins and courgettes always take a bit of a knock when planted outside. It's not unusual to lose a few. Stems wither, leaves yellow, slugs attack, grey mould appears. This year I've given them as much help as I can, protection, goodness, special planting sites, rainy slug hunts...

And it seems to be working. Today I found flourishing green leaves and even a couple of flowers. One was growing so well it pushed it's milk carton protection right off the ground!

I'm not setting my hopes too high yet, but if we get some sunshine things may just turn out well on the cucurbit front.

Tuesday 3rd July
and tomorrow is...