Pumpkins: In Memoriam

Well, our gardening season got largely cut short here a few weeks ago by a massive hailstorm. The growth of a lot of our stuff was cut short, including one of my favorites: pumpkins. We didn’t know quite what we were getting into when we first grew pumpkins so we thought we’d grow a nice, small, cooking variety. They get up to about 8” in diameter. Anyways, that first year we grew them they just went crazy. It was a pumpkin jungle; there was no way we could even get in there to see what was growing. But it ultimately didn’t matter. Come fall, all the leaves browned and withered away to reveal lovely orange globes dotting the landscape. But this year, before they ripened, their stems got severed from the vine by hail. So this is their memoriam. Below is one of last years spreads featuring a couple prime pumpkins.

Pumpkins, like most squashes, are favored by beetles, such as squash beetles. The beetles don’t actually eat the fruit, but they cripple the plant so that it can’t produce healthy pumpkins. Plant lots of stuff that repels bugs (see co-planting), such as basil and marigolds, and umbellifers (such as carrots, cilantro, dill) which attract parasitic flies that will attack your bugs. Even this might not be enough. Ruthlessly squash or drown the bugs if you see them. Also, clean up your garden in the fall, either burying or composting all the dead stuff so that the bugs won’t have a handy place to over-winter. Of course, in a best case scenario, you could turn a chicken loose in there to bring the pain.

So, we all know pumpkins taste great. If you want to grow cooking pumpkins, prepare them like this. Cut the pumpkin in half and scrape out the seeds and goop. If you want, separate the seeds from the goop, dry them out and either roast them with a little oil and salt (mmmmmmmm) or cook them in a seed-bread. Pumpkin seeds help your body get rid of parasites, so eat up. Then, cut the pumpkin into one to two inch strips and put it in a pot with a couple of inches of water in it. Put a lid on and let it steam on low for about an hour. When the pumpkin feels squishy, take it out and let it cool, then scrape it off the peel, which should be pretty easy. Then blend it or just mash it up and put it in bags to freeze or just cook it right away. Pumpkin is also good cooked as above and eaten warm with butter and salt. We love our pumpkins and we love that they are good sources of Vitamin C and A and, as their color belies, are high in betacarotene. I’ll try to get Jenna to put up a couple of our favorite recipes involving pumpkin.