A Scary Variety of Pumpkins and Winter Squashes

The clocks have gone back and the winter grumpiness is setting in. I'll get over it in a few months, probably after the winter solstice when the days start getting longer again.

I don't know what the Halloween equivalent of Bah Humbug is, so I'll call it Boo Vambug!
When I were a lad, Halloween was a quaint little event which came just before Fireworks Night. A little innocent trick or treat, without threat.
But now the kids I teach know absolutely nothing about 5th November, except for the Fireworks displays, and Penny For The Guy is a complete mystery to them.
But the Halloween disco! Now that's quite something else.

Unfortunately Halloween has gone the same way as Christmas. That's all I'm saying.

I won't mention the shameful waste of pumpkins. Well there you go, I've mentioned it.

The onset of Halloween did remind me last week to harvest in my own pumpkins and squashes. They've done okay this year, without producing anything spectacular. But at least the September and October weather has been fine so the pumpkins have hardened off well. The mice had found a few of them, but there are plenty enough left to last us through the winter.

So I have harvested them all. They will be stored in the utility room, where they won't get too cold and hopefully not too warm either. There's not too much direct sunlight in there either. They need circulation all around to prevent them turning into a gloopy mess.

Anyway, here's my harvest. I'm not sure what variety the giant green ones are. I'd guess Naples Long, but they've gone a bit crazy.
The Crown Prince have come out especially well.

I'll just finish with one last big BOO VAMBUG!

A thoroughly disheartening start to June

What's the difference between a turkey and a fly? Turkeys drop more easily. Read on and you'll understand.
It's been a bad start to June and one which has put a heavy demand on my stoical resources.

1st June
The grey goose now has three beautiful little goslings. She is already bringing them out of the stables. Unlike the white Embdens, she has done the decent thing and hatched them all out at the same time.
Meanwhile outside it rained and rained and rained. The 1000 litre water butt I had to empty to repair is now full again and I spent much of the day using the rainwater to irrigate the plants in the polytunnel. I planted my pepper and celery seedlings into the polytunnel beds along with another round of coriander plants. I came upon this little cryptic fella under a plank too.

Can you see it?

He's most welcome (I don't know why I'm assuming it's a he).

A freshly fledged tree sparrow appeared on the feeders today for the first time this year. Its mum (or dad, for both sexes are alike) was feeding it. These birds are becoming rarer and rarer in the English countryside so I am very proud to have them on the farm.

And so to the turkeys. I kept a close eye on them all day and mum seemed to be doing a great job looking after them. They spent quite a bit of time in the herb bed and quite a bit of time sheltering under a wheelbarrow. Mum spreads her wings and all you can see of the poults is all their legs poking out underneath mum. It looks like a 24-legged turkey!
When the rain got heavy I ushered them into their shed where they stayed for a while before going out for another wander. Come early evening I decided to round them back into the shed for the night. They had already taken themselves in but I could only count ten chicks. I counted three times. Still just ten. I wandered round the garden for ages looking and listening for a lone turkey poult but to no avail. Sue found it later on (well, Arthur actually, who has a very keen nose for such things) but it was dead.

2nd June
Everyone who has raised turkeys talks about how easily they give up on life and today I began to witness that. For when I opened up the turkey shed there was one of the young birds lying on its side, apparently dead. When I picked it up it was still moving, just. So I brought it inside, wrapped it up, put it under a heat lamp and fed it as much sugary water as I could. But after an hour it became obvious that it was to no avail.
We had been doing so well with the turkeys and I was now regretting the decision to let them out. Lesson learned for next year. I moved the turkeys back into the stables.

I spent the afternoon planting out my various pumpkins and squashes with names like Hundredweight (self-explanatory), Cha-Cha (not so), Table Queen, Golden Nugget, Delicata, Sweet Dumpling and Naples Long. These go into the more exposed veg patch where I grow big plants, but it does put them more at risk of attack by rabbits and slugs. So each one gets a tree protector until it becomes established. They usually take a bit of a knock for the first few days outside, but after a week they get their roots down and from then on growth is rapid. I've put 25 plants out, so I'll be very happy if 20 come through which will give us plenty enough pumpkins and winter squash.
The tree protectors keep the rabbits from nibbling but they do nothing to protect against the silent enemy from underground, the slugs. So I sprinkled organic slug pellets around the base of each plant. The advantage with these, as well as supposedly not harming other wildlife, is that they don't just disappear when it rains so the extra cost is offset a little.

In the evening we were off to the monthly CSSG (Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group) meeting for a talk on edible plants which can be part of a forest garden. This is a system of gardening I know a fair bit about, though I tend to dismiss it as a little gimmicky. However, I'm always open to new ideas. I just think that the way forward is to integrate the best bits from lots of different systems - Forest Gardening, Permaculture, Polyculture, No Dig... I've not yet dabbled with Hydroponics or the one which relies on the cycles of the moon - can't remember what it's called.
In fact there's a fair bit of Forest Gardening goes on in my patch anyway, it's just that I don't go for all these exotic plants which you can, in theory if you really wanted to, eat. I'm all for trying out new things, but there are very few which eventually earn their place in my veg plot.

Anyway, we enjoyed the company. This group is very different to the Fenland Smallholders (from whom they split somewhat acrimoniously just before we came on the scene). They are the old guard, the more hippyish element, very open and extremely knowledgeable. It's such a shame the two groups can't merge as each has particular strengths which would make them very strong together. For the moment, Sue and I keep a foot in both camps. Unfortunately the CSSG is a little too distant for us to get more involved.

3rd June
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but today was one of those most disheartening days which occurs every now and again. Smallholding is never all rosy and sometimes demands a very strong resolve.
If you only want the view through rose-tinted glasses, then I'd suggest you stop reading now!

Sue had gone to a friend's to continue with making goat's cheese and to try to figure out why their efforts at goat's milk ice cream kept failing (turns out it needs more fat, something to do with goat's milk being naturally homogenised).
I opened the turkey stable to find a dead youngster with no head! Whether it was attacked by a predator (rat, weasel, stoat?) wasn't clear but would present a big problem if it were. I more suspected that it had passed away in the night and that the others had pecked away at it - poultry can be incredibly insensitive creatures.
Another young poult was looking not too good either, droopy winged and it's eyes half closed. It was no surprise when Sue found it dead later in the morning. This was feeling like a losing battle. Worst case scenario would be that some disease was jumping through the flock at an alarming rate, but my suspicions were still that the birds had just gotten too cold when we had let them outside on a wet day and possibly developed pneumonia. Whatever the case, I felt terrible. I feel responsible for these young lives and although I expect losses, this was becoming serious. Of course, the practical side of me was also thinking of the number of turkey dinners we would be missing out on, for that is the reason for rearing these young birds.

Just when I thought things couldn't get much worse, I discovered a neatly laid out pile of peacock tail feathers next to my digging spade. The only explanation was that Don, our neighbour, had found the body of Captain Peacock. This was a gentle way of letting us know. Having survived the road for so long (and presumable developed a bit of road sense), I suspect that the verge cutter may have done for him.

I spent the rest of the day doing big, physical jobs in the garden, trying not to think too much about other things. I got about half of the lawns mowed - quite a feat considering how long the grass had got. Then there was the strawberry patch to tackle. Despite my earlier weeding efforts, it had become overwhelmed with grasses and docks. With the soil nicely watered this would be the ideal time to start the not inconsiderable job of weeding before laying down straw and netting to protect the developing crop.
I called Sue in to help and we got half the job done before running out of energy. The remaining seven turkey poults made it through till the evening. What would we find next morning though?

A Passion for Pumpkins... or a Crush on Squashes

SHOCKING HALLOWEEN NEWS...

PUMPKINS ARE FOR EATING. 

THEY'RE NOT ALL ORANGE. 

THEY'RE NOT ALL ROUND.

The winner of the Veg Group's Giant Pumpkin competition was put to good use.
The flesh made pumpkin soup for the children at Sue's school
and the shell was carved into a very realistic likeness of the headteacher (sorry Sue!!!)

I'm actually talking about pumpkins and winter squashes here. To tell the truth, I'm never that impressed with actual pumpkins. I grow just a few, but one giant is normally enough to make all the variants of pumpkin soup I can eat in a year. You can use pumpkins in breads and cakes and they taste very nice, but you use such a small quantity that it doesn't really help when you're trying to use up half a kitchen full of pumpkin.

I much prefer what are known as winter squashes, These come in a bewildering range of shapes and sizes. Their flesh is usually much firmer than that of a pumpkin and the flavour is usually nuttier. They have wonderful names too. Cha Cha, Table Queen, Large Pink Banana, Sweet Dumpling, Amazonika...

I grow a large patch of mixed pumpkins and squashes. In theory they need loads of organic matter in the soil and loads of water, but I pretty much neglect mine and leave then to get on with it on their own. They are easy to raise in the polytunnel and very quickly grow into sturdy little plants. The only tricky bit is planting them out, when the shock of being outside as well as the threat of being munched by slugs can result in a few losses. However, I have largely avoided this by using tree protectors over them until their roots have obviously gotten hold and they start to grow strongly.

2015 has been a dull year weather-wise, not the best for pumpkins. I tend to leave my pumpkin patch alone. The large leaves do a pretty good job of subduing weeds, but there's always a carpet of chickweed growing under them. There comes a time when it's impossible to weed without crushing pumpkin leaves and stems.

So last Wednesday I decided it was time to collect in this year's pumpkin harvest before they started rotting in the decidedly damp weather we've been having. Although a few fruits were still forming, most had had long enough to swell, ripen and for the skins to toughen. It's crucial to get them in before the first frost too, as this destroys them.

When harvesting pumpkins and squashes, it's best to collect them with a good portion of stalk, for if they do begin to rot during the winter, this is where the rot invariably begins.

The only ones which I don;t harvest yet are the butternut squashes which, by this time of year, have pretty much taken over half the polytunnel. These squashes earn their space in the tunnel every year as they produce plenty of large, firm fruits for me. I pick them as they are ready and actually started harvesting some lovely specimens a few weeks ago.

Now, last Wednesday wasn't the ideal day to be picking the pumpkins. A couple of days of rain had left the clay soil a little sticky, to say the least. I tried to avoid treading it down too much, though most of it appeared to be stuck to my wellies!

Boris was a great help too, as you can imagine. A bit like me, he absolutely loves getting dirty.

The end result was a very full barrowload of squashes and pumpkins, plenty enough to get Sue and I through the winter with probably a few spare for the sheep. The seeds won't go to waste either. We'll scoop out a few to roast and the rest are supposedly very good at helping to worm the animals. The chickens love them.

Even the abundance of leaves and stalks won't go to waste. They have gone straight onto the compost heap, which is now groaning under the pressure, and will go back into the soil next year to add goodness and body.

A giant heap of leaves. It won't be long before it's sunk down though.

Polytunnel Prolifica

Tomatoes, cucumbers, chillies, peppers and beans.
The polytunnel really adds an extra dimension to our food production.

I've got aubergines this year.
The Listada de Gandia are fruiting
much better than the more usual
Black Beauty.



Tigerella and Black Cherry.

Things have moved on quickly in the polytunnel in the last few weeks.
We can now rely on a handful of ripe, tangy tomatoes everyday, red ones, yellow ones, green ones, black(ish) ones, stripy ones, big ones, small ones, round ones, pear-shaped ones. Or, to put it another way... Moneymaker, Sunbaby, Green Zebra, Black Cherry, Black Russian, Tigerella, Marmande, Red Cherry, Gardeners Delight, Ildi, Roma. It's a tad more inspirational than the tomato section of the supermarket!

There's always a slightly longer wait than we'd like for tomatoes and there's a slow build up. The real flood will be another month or so yet, but Sue has already started cooking up sauces and passatas to go in the freezer.








The cucumbers are coming gradually, but are a bit disappointing given the number of plants that I have. Having said that, we're still getting a couple a week, which is plenty. Just not enough to be giving them away or selling them.

Onto more exotic produce and, now that I've stopped the overhead irrigation, the peppers are faring much better. This is very exciting as it's a crop I've never succeeded with before.


Peppers and chillies, mid-August

 

Then there's the chillies, in their numerous forms and levels of heat. These have all done very well this year, but have left Sue and I with a bit of a puzzle.


Peppers and Chillies, early September

Several years ago, we joined a truck tour of East Africa for the summer holidays. Every day we would call in at a local market to stock up on supplies. I well remember rather brashly volunteering to test a rather small, green chilli for heat. I hesitantly nibbled the end, expecting my head to go volcanic, my lips to swell, my brow to sweat and my tongue to go numb. But not a bit of it. These chillies just tasted like watery peppers. We purchased a small bag full and they were duly added to that evening's concoction... which blew everyone's head off! For those inoffensive chillies had suddenly changed their nature and were fiery as hell.

The point of this little tale is that the same has happened again. We nibbled a little of each and every chilli variety in the polytunnel and, without exception, they all just tasty like rather mild peppers. But the minute Sue chopped one up they completely changed, like Jekyll and Hyde. This was made worse by the fact that Sue carelessly rubbed her eye and got chilli in it.








The Borlottis have all been picked now.

I've picked most of the beans now and saved the seeds either for sowing next year or for winter cassoulets. The chickpea crop has been abandoned after our harvest of one chickpea!

But this has left more space for the Butternut Squash plants to ramble. Other squashes, pumpkins and courgettes have performed disappointingly in the polytunnel. I think they are much happier outside. But getting butternuts to ripen is never easy and they seem happier with the tropical conditions in the tunnel.
It looks as if we'll get at least half a dozen fine specimens and the first is well on its way to being ripe.
I've got my eyes on the Fenland Smallholders produce show for a couple of these.

Butternut Squash coming along nicely.



Three Sisters resurrected

Last year I attempted to cultivate The Three Sisters.

That's the system where you grow sweetcorn in small clumps, interspersed with squashes and pumpkins. Then you add the third "sister" - climbing beans, whose sole purpose is to feed the slugs and divert them away from the other crops... or so it seemed.

Well, that was last year.
As it was, the sweetcorn, squashes, courgettes and pumpkins did very well given copious amounts of rain.

This year is a very different year. So last week the three sisters were resurrected.

The sweetcorn is growing well now.
Time to sow the French beans.

I doubt the original growers of Three Sisters
surrounded their crops with electric fence
to protect it against rabbits.

Young sweetcorn plants, back on 27th May


The sweetcorn has been planted for well over a fortnight now. It always takes a knock back when it first goes into the ground outside and the weakest specimens don't make it.
After a tricky germination, where several complete trays just rotted away as they failed to spring into life in the cool conditions, I didn't really have any to spare. As it is a high proportion of plants have made it through and have begun to grow more strongly.

Various types of courgette, squash and pumpkin have now been transplanted out between them.

I decided to invest time erecting the electric rabbit fence around my lovingly nurtured plants. There is nothing as soul-destroying as the disappointment of finding your freshly planted crops nibbled or, worse still, uprooted and laying wilted on the surface of the soil.

And so to the third sister. While the cucurbits spread and shade the surface of the soil, the beans climb up the sweetcorn stalks, in the process capturing nitrogen and enriching the soil for next year.
I had some beans already sown, but they are about three times as tall as the corn and reaching rapidly for the skies. So I decided instead to sow fresh beans at the bases of the sweetcorn. I have plumped for French bean Blue Lake, a stringless variety which has performed well in our soil in the past.

And in honour of the Native American origins of the Three Sisters planting system, I have planted some wigwams of runner beans alongside!

But in all seriousness there are some very valid reasons for growing these crops in combination. Get the timing right and the plants aid each others' growth. They provide a good nutritional balance too.
There's some good information on this website:

http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html

One very useful hint I picked up from this site, so indirectly from the Native American Indians, is to use nature to time sowing and planting.
For early spring in the books is different across the whole country and from year to year. If you sowed seeds strictly by date this year, as I found out to my cost with the sweetcorn, they just sat in the cold conditions not realising it was time to sprout into life.
But if you sowed when, for instance, the cow parsley came into flower or the sowthistles started to grow, then nature would be your calendar...

Not that nature always gets it right.

A Pumpkin is not just for Halloween.

Monday 15th October 2012

My heart lifted the other day when one of my pupils, on the subject of pumpkins, started talking about pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie. Could it be that the British public are finally realising that you can actually eat pumpkins as well as carve them into ghoulish faces?

Unfortunately, when I recanted this tale to Sue, she pointed out that the child's reaction had probably come straight from Homer Simpson!

The sweetcorn which towered over my various squashes, courgettes and pumpkins is now long picked, but I have been leaving the pumpkins etc to soak up every last gram of British sunshine. Today I decided to brave entering the jungle of gigantic leaves and meandering stems, with the intention of removing said leaves so that the crop could have a last few days in the open, still attached to its stems just in case it could wheedle out any extra goodness from the roots.

As seems to always happen, it proved to be a bigger job than I was expecting. It was like untangling spaghetti and a fair few times I cut through the wrong stem - hence the pile of pumpkins and squashes on the goat barrow ready to spend a few days ripening in the polytunnel.

By the end, I was fairly impressed with my crop, especially considering that the same patch has already yielded a considerable quantity of courgettes.

I was also left with about 8 barow loads of greenery, which the pigs turn their noses up at, although they did tuck into all the old corn stems with zeal. So the compost heaps got some good roughage added.

By this evening, Sue was already boiling up a vat full of spiced pumpkin and apple jam. It smelt absolutely delicious, very Christmassy.

The Produce Show

Today was the much awaited Fenland Goatkeepers and Smallholders Club annual produce show. Competition was fierce. Well actually it's all very friendly and rather charming, but I was taking it very seriously!!
In the morning we selected our squashes and pumpkins and I unearthed the biggest mangold wurzel I could find - and it was a show stopper.

Category One of the competition were the cucurbits and it was clear that the rain this year had helped everybody to a pretty good crop. I entered the potimarrons as my own and let Sue enter the acorn-type summer squashes. But when I saw the competition I feared that size would triumph over beauty and perfection.

Size isn't everything!

The winning trio.

For the vegetable categories everybody got to vote for their favourite, so it was quite a shock when the winner was announced.



Sue scooped first prize
ahead of stiff competition.

We had entries in the jams and marmalades too, as well as the chutneys, but sadly they didn't win.

But here's a selection of the other entries from the show.

Category 14 - eggs

Category 4 - Veg grown above the ground

 

 

Category 6 - Beverages

Category 7 - Jams

Category 5 - Fruits

I didn't get photos, but there were categories for recycled objects, crafts, photography and baking too. Next year we'll get our act together and go for some of these too!

Finally came category 20. The Jeff Yates Mangold Wurzel trophy. This was what I had been waiting for. The result was never in question. How could it be? Mine was the only entry!
I seriously reckon that people had seen me come in with my giant and quickly sneaked their entries back into their cars in shame.



15 lb 14 oz of Wurzel magic!

So we had turned up and scooped the first category and the last. Victorious!

Next year we'll be back to defend our titles and maybe have a serious go at some of the other categories - I fancy the bread and the vegetables grown under the ground.

But in all seriousness, it was just great to see so many familiar and friendly faces and to catch up on how the cider's developing, how the veg has done this year, how the pigs, chickens and lambs are doing and has anyone got any plums this year?