pumpkin vases for the Thanksgiving table

These are a couple of pumpkins from my garden. I don't think they're good eating pumpkins, so I used then for vases on my Thanksgiving table. It was a wild Day as we had 16 of us for dinner - 14 staying overnight with us. We had such fun cooking, visiting and eating.

Anyway, the pumpkin vases worked well. I cut off the tops them stuck the flower stems into the seeds and fiber, then added water. The seeds and fibers did a good job of holding the stems in place.

pumpkins on the doorstep

I bought these pumpkins at the supermarket. They're not home home grown.... (but the supermarket is local)

It just takes up so much space to grow pumpkins. Even though I love them. I've been really pleased with my garden's production of butternut squash routinely. But when I grow pumpkins in my small space, sometimes they produce well, sometimes they don't. Always they take up a LOT of space.

I gave my pumpkin seedlings to my parents this year for their big garden. They got many pumpkins, but not really so big.

I am thinking to save seeds from all three of these. Especially the striped one. Then maybe I will go back on all I said above and grow a big pumpkin patch in my garden next year. What fun.

I noticed this morning that the squirrel has tasted each of the pumpkins. A little bite out of each. Fortunately not more than one bite. There must be better food out there for now. By November, the squirrels will tunnel through to get to the seeds. I am planning to use at least the red one for myself (pumpkin bread or pie) and will bring it inside if it looks like it is at risk of being eaten by wildlife.

baby pumpkin

Baby pumpkins are forming! We'll see if they set.

pumpkins on the doorsteps

When Skippy and I walked around the neighborhood yesterday, I brought my camera and took pictures of the pumpkins. I just love seeing pumpkins on doorsteps. One of the houses we walked by had big bunches of onions drying in the doorway too. All the fruits of the season - and its been a really great season for growing vegetables.



I will have to add a photo of my pumpkins on my doorsteps. Soon.

Long Island cheese pumpkin

The stem of my big early Long Island cheese pumpkin was broken off completely today when I went to my community plot. This pumpkin set fruit midway up on my fence and the weight of it was more than the vine could hold. The stem broke part way through a couple weeks ago. It looks like its nearly ripe. Its mostly beige colored, with only a few areas of greenish tint. Very early for a pumpkin. I'll keep it on my kitchen counter for a month before I use it and I think it will fully ripen. This is supposed to be a very good tasting pumpkin.

I was pleased to notice today that the vines at the edges of my pumpkin patch are looking very dense and lots of small pumpkins are setting. The center of the patch looks bad. I guess that's just because the oldest leaves aren't so healthy any more. I also picked a fully ripe ad bright orange Baby Pam pumpkin today. Several more are ripening on the vines.

broken pumpkin stem

My big Long Island Cheese pumpkin stem broke, but not all the way off. It was growing half way up on my fence and, as the weight increased, it sunk lower. (I should have given it a support, but forgot.) Finally, the weight pulled the pumpkin all the way to the ground, but the vine couldn't stretch quite that far. It has partially broken. I don't dare touch it. It seems to me there may be enough intact stem for it to ripen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Its a nice big pumpkin and very early in the season. Even if it doesn't make it, there is still plenty of time for others to set and ripen.

pumpkin on the counter

I suppose this is an unusual photo for summer.

Its a pumpkin I grew in my garden last year. I've enjoyed having its nice bright orange color on my counter all winter and spring. Its a Jarrahdale, a blue/gray pumpkin that ripened to orange midwinter. A really good keeper. This pumpkin is finally getting spots and so today I'm putting it out to the compost bin. :( I have a couple of new Jarrahdale plants in my garden that are growing fast in the heat. I'm looking forward to more of these.

orange Jarrahdale pumpkin

I grew this pumpkin in my community garden plot this summer. It was a beautiful shade of mottled green-blue-gray when I picked it (photo). I ended up with three 6-10 lb Jarrahdale's from two plants. One I made into fantastic pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread at Thanksgiving time. The other I gave to my brother and he did the same. This is the third. Its now on my dining room table and has ripen to bright yellow-orange. I'm thinking about baking with it soon (tomorrow).

Jarrahdale's have very thick, flavorful, and bright orange flesh. It will be enough to make several recipes. I love pumpkin bread, so I'll definitely make this. Any suggestions for other pumpkin recipes?

Here's the pumpkin soup recipe:

PUMPKIN GINGER SOUP TOPPED WITH SOUR CREAM AND CONDIMENTS
adapted from Marci Arthur

1 Cooking Pumpkin, about 2 lbs. Cut into quarters, seeded and peeled
3 tablespoons butter
2 large leeks, including 1-inch pale leaves, cut into ½-inch thick slices
6 cups chicken stock
2-1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced to make 1 tablespoons
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Condiments
½ cup sour cream or creme fraiche
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Steam pumpkin til tender - about 15 minutes. Scoop pumpkin flesh into balls and set aside. (OR you can bake in foil for 1 hour, cool and then scoop out flesh. OR, if you are strong and want to use the shell to serve the soup, scoop out raw flesh.)

In soup pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add all but 2 of the leek slices and sauté for two to three minutes, or until nearly translucent. Add broth, minced ginger, salt and pepper and pumpkin balls. Bring just below a boil, reduce heat.
Simmer until pumpkin is very tender, about 10 minutes. Puree.

To serve, ladle hot soup into bowls, garnish with spoonful of sour cream, cilantro and leek slices as desired.

"my" pumpkin soup recipe

My favorite pumpkin soup recipe is from a little book: Holiday Pumpkins by Georgeanne Brennan and Jennifer Barry. A very cute book with a bunch of nice pumpkiny ideas. But the soup is exceptional. Nice and simple: pumpkin, leeks and ginger. Optional cilantro and cream garnish. I made it for Thanksgiving a while back and served it in the pumpkin shell. I'm planning to do the same again this year.

Not wanting to copy a book recipe onto my blog, I searched online for someone else who has a similar recipe. Here's the exact recipe at trufflesandtrifles.com, but using sour cream instead of creme fraiche. Both neglect to mention that you should puree the soup after cooking the pumpkin.

pumpkins

Jarrahdale pumpkins

Baby Pam pumpkins

Long Island Cheese and Cinderella ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes’ pumpkins

pumpkins from my garden this year

Big Rock pumpkins

pumpkin from Spain - Calabaza RoteÑa

So many varieties!

I've been confused about when a squash is a "pumpkin"? I've read that a pumpkin is, by definition, a round orange winter squash. But shape can vary from tall to fat. And in addition to orange, but they can be green, white, red, yellow or blue-gray. Usually smooth, they can also be heavily ribbed or knobby. A very technical explanation I read is that pumpkins have stems that are more rigid, pricklier, and squarer than squash. It seems its more a tradition whether a particular winter squash is called a pumpkin.

The Jarrahdale seeds were sent to me to try by Botanical Interests and they were fantastic in the garden. I got three nice big pumpkins from two plants. The vines are about the biggest I've ever seen and they scrambled all over my garden fences. The variety is from the town of Jarrahdale in New Zealand - a cross between Blue Hubbard squash and huge red Cinderella pumpkin. Its nearly identical to 'Queensland Blue', the variety that Barbara Kingsolver made into Thanksgiving pumpkin soup in Animal Vegetable Miracle. I've read that the thick flesh is orange, medium sweet and absolutely delicious! It smells almost like a cantaloupe when opened! I'm looking forward to making something special from mine for Thanksgiving! I have a nice pumpkin soup recipe.

I like growing Baby Pam for cooking. They have small vines and produce lots of pumpkins, each the perfect size for a single recipe.

The Big Rock are nice for carving. For the past two years, I've gotten one 10-15 lb pumpkin per plant.

I'm thinking about pumpkins to grow next year. Long Island Cheese and Cinderella ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes’ look like fun. I photographed them at the Topsfield Fair this year. Chiot's Run has a nice post on the Cinderella here.

My brother-in-law sent me these photos of the knobby green pumpkins in his garden in Spain. Wow! That's a great variety. I asked him what it is and he said, "I don't know its just the pumpkin that's grown around here". Today he emailed and said its commonly called Calabaza RoteÑa. He says it tastes great. This would be fun to grow.

© Skippy's Vegetable Garden

pumpkin bread

Recipe:

1 cup spelt flour
2 cups white flour
1 tsp each baking powder, baking soda, salt
1/2 tsp each nutmeg, ginger
dash each ground cloves, allspice
2 tsp cinnamon

4 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla

4 cups grated fresh pumpkin (peeled)
1 cup raisins
1 cup walnuts

Combine dry ingredients and set aside. Combine eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla and mix. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture. Add grated pumpkin, raisins, and nuts. Stir well. Pour into 2 generously buttered loaf pans. Bake at 360*F for 1 hour or until done.

Serve with whipped cream cheese.

Note added 11/25/09: The Globe made excellent edits to this recipe. Thanks! Here's the link: GLOBE version. Globe article link is here.

pumpkin support

I haven't been to check on my garden plot in several days. When I was there last, I put up a quick support for my biggest Jarrahdale pumpkin that was hanging from the vine up on the fence. The fence is plenty strong to support the 12 lb expected weight, by the vine was starting to tear.

The support is a tomato cage and a large pot saucer. I should turn the saucer over so it won't fill up with rain water. Tomorrow. I'm looking forward to some garden time.

pumpkins ripening

The pumpkins in my plot are ripening fast. Under big leaves and overgrown weeds, orange and green fruits. Something about pumpkins means summer's over. One of the last crops. A grand finale.

This year I grew Baby Pam (a small sweet pie pumpkin), Big Rock (a 20lb Jack-O-Lantern type) and Jarrahdale (a ribbed gray pumpkin that I look forward to tasting). All have done very well. So far I've picked three and eaten one Baby Pam - grated into pumpkin bread. Yummy. About 5 more Baby Pam's are on the vines. I have two Big Rocks, about half orange now. I'm guessing 15 pounders. (Last year's my single Big pumpkin was 11 lbs.)

I'm growing Jarrahdale pumpkins for the first time this year. The mottled green ribs are very interesting. They'll turn gray when ripe. I've been told they're good eating ("soft, melon-like aroma, delicious flesh that is bright orange, very firm, very little stringiness"). I have two enormous plants, 4 or 5 fruits growing, though more keep coming. They hide well and grow fast. Two big ones are hanging from the vines up on my fence. My guess is they are 6-8 lbs now. I was advised to build a support for them to rest on, but it seems to me the vines are thick and strong enough to support them unassisted. I hope I'm right.

I got my pumpkin soup recipe out. A creamy version with leeks that is served in the hollowed out pumpkin shell. Took me a while to find it, but I did. Bet it will be great for a big gray Jarrahdale with bright orange flesh.

winter squashes

Jarrahdale pumpkin (Botanical Interests)

Waltham Butternut and Baby Pam Pumpkin

This year I'm growing 3 types of pumpkins: Baby Pam, Big Rock and Jarrahdale. Also two winter squashes: Butternut and Lakota.

I have lots of Butternuts so far! Maybe 8 or 10! Very exciting. Also several Baby Pan Pumpkins. The big squashes are just starting to bloom and set fruit. I have a couple Jarrahdales that have set fruit. I'm keeping an eye out for Big Rocks and Lakotas.

I planted too many big squashes for my little plot. The vines are overtaking more beds by the day.

pumpkin and gourds on the steps

I'm showing off my big pumpkin and three gourds! All from my garden (ooops - Skippy's Garden). I love to see them sitting out on my front steps - bright and cheerful. Happy Autumn!

Pumpkin (Cucurbitaceae spp.)
Decorative gourds

pumpkin weight

Jeepers. It turns out the weight of my "giant" pumpkin is only 10.4 lbs.... :( Well, it certainly looks more like a 20 lb pumpkin to me.

Skippy and the great pumpkin

For years I have been trying to grow a giant pumpkin. I am so pleased to harvest this beauty today! Here it is. Fully documented with photos.

The variety is Big Rock, seeds are from Johnny's. I grew four plants - two at my community plot and two at home. Only one fruit set - this one! It bloomed in late July at my community plot, grew fast, then turned orange this week. It was resting a rock and got a bit scarred on one side before a fellow gardener recommended I put foam pads under it.

Today I noticed it was fully orange and sounded hollow when thumped. So my son helped me harvest it. Skippy was a bit peeved when I put it in HIS spot on the car seat. SO he sat on it. I don't know why he couldn't just use the other seat...

I haven't weighed it yet. It won't break any records besides my personal one. I'll add the weight and circumference as soon as I can. This variety averages just under 20 lbs.

I'd like to save this pumpkin until Thanksgiving. I was reading about curing pumpkins for long storage. It seems they do best when cured in the field at 80-85F and high humidity for 10-20 days. But they shouldn't have full sun during this time. I'll try putting it out in my side garden under the tomato vines for a week or so. Then it is supposed to go to a cool dry area. That will be my basement until the weather cools down. With proper curing, pumpkins keep for 2-3 months.

Hopefully I can use this one as decoration on my door step once the weather cools down. For Thanksgiving, I'd like to make pumpkin soup served in the pumpkin rind. I did this several years ago and it was delicious. One challenge is the curing and storage. Another, I'm planning to go to Arizona for Thanksgiving. Hmmm..... I wonder if it will fit in my luggage?
Pumpkin -- Cucurbitaceae spp.