10th January 2008

My pumpkins have been having illicit sex. A couple of months ago I planted out 3 Turkish Turban vines - the pumpkins are green and orange striped and have distinctive 'caps' that look like rolled Turkish turbans. Well, the vines are going great guns, but all the vines are producing half Turkish Turbans and half something else - I think the female flowers have been cross-pollinated from someone else's pumpkin patch. I can only assume that gardener is now staring bewildered at his or her strange turbaned fruit growing!

Here is one of the Turkish Turban pumpkins - you can clearly see its striped turban developing:

And here are two of the interlopers. They are twice the size of the turban fruit, are a different colour, and lack the distinctive turban. They are growing on the same vine.

All three vines are now producing the double fruit on the same vine: Turkish Turbans and something ... else.

I love what can happen in a garden. I am not upset about the interlopers - I have heard that while the turbans are sweet, they are the very devil to cut into, so I don't mind the more normal round shape of these interlopers.

I also have Australian Ironbarks growing and French warthogs (not their real name ... I can never remember their real name), but as none of these have flowered yet they could not have had illicit sex with the turks.

The front garden is looking lovely - I will try to take some pictures.

27th January 2008

I am in pumpkin heaven - starting now to process the harvest to pack away for the year. At the moment it is pumpkin time! How many things can you make with pumpkin? Lots!

I am taking a short break from making yet another big batch of pumpkin gnocchi - just the loveliest thing. I freeze the mixture in batches, then defrost and make up the gnocchi for lunches. The recipe is:

500 grams of pumpkins, cut into small pieces and steamed until it is soft but not overcooked. Let it drain while it is cooling so it will dry off a bit, then mash or push through a sieve or mouli.

To the mashed pumpkin add about 100 grams of flour, plus 2 teaspoons of salt, plus about 300 grams of parmesan cheese. Mix into a dough - it will be very sticky and porridge like. If you want to cook immediately, put the dough into the fridge for an hour or so - it is much better when it is cold. (You may want to add more flour, I probably add a fair bit more flour than the 100 gram. Just play it by ear.)

When ready to cook, take a teaspoon, wet it, then put a heaped teaspoon of dough into gently roiling water. The dough should slip off the spoon easily. Keep adding teaspoons of dough, then skim the gnocchi off the top of the water with a slotted spoon when they rise to the surface. Unlike potato gnocchi this will not be formed or even pretty to look at, but it is just the most lovely gnocchi. You can have your favourite sauce with it, or eat it plain like me.

I am also toasting the seeds, and making pumpkin soup, dehydrated pumpkins, pumpkin flour, mashed pumpkin ... it is being used in a score of different things, and all being stacked away in the freezer or bottled for the dried stuff.

The interloper pumpkins on the Turkish Turban vine have turned out to be warthog pumpkins - huge and sweet and tasty. I have picked most of them, and now the vine is producing ... more. What in the world am I going to do with all these pumpkins?

I have also bought in the bean harvest, and have either dried them, or frozen them. The de-podding of these beans has given me much grief - it really hurt my thumbs, and now my right thumb is almost unusable. If it hasn't improved by later this week I will need to see the doctor.

The tomatoes are doing brilliantly! I have had to pick them green and ripen them in the greenhouse as the rats were starting to help themselves, but I will still get a spectacular harvest. The leeks are growing on well, and I have just planted peas and kale for the winter.

Life is good.