Under the Choko Tree By Nevin Sweeney

Fence Pumpkins

I would like to tell you about my new invention, but unfortunately the pumpkins invented it themselves! As you have no doubt worked out, we don’t have a huge amount of room to grow stuff on our block and pumpkins do have a tendency to ramble. I have grown them up over shed roofs, the roof of the garage and on one occasion turned the choko tree into a pumpkin tree but the yields have been variable at best.

This year I put the pumpkins in one of the patches against the western fence, along which I recently put a strong trellis. I planted a whole stack of stuff in the bed as well including Lazy wife beans (Hey! She wanted me to get them, I wasn’t having a shot!) and a couple of cucumbers to make use of the trellis. I figured the pumpkins would fool around on the ground between the bed and the green house. The pumpkins took off fairly slowly and we got some beans and cucumbers before I noticed a funny thing.....the pumpkin vine yelled “Oh boy a trellis!” and started to climb for all they were worth. Over time the pumpkins wound their way all the way along the trellis, behind the shed to the area where the aquaponics system is going in and even took over the southern most of the western beds. They went berserk!

The redoubtable Fence Pumpkin

I used my standard process: planted the Queensland Blue pumpkin seeds in a punnet, potted them on into the cylinders and then planted them out into the bed when they had grown on for a few more weeks and all risk of frost was gone. After that it was just give them the occasional watering as required and then leave them to their own devices. They decided the trellis was fair game and even staged a takeover bid on the yard of the house over the back, although the attack was repelled with a few deft strokes of my neighbour’s secateurs.

Normally we get somewhere between four and six pumpkins a year from our back yard but this year Ii was able to harvest nine at the end of the growing season, some of them much bigger than normal. When I was clearing the vine away from the aquaponics area I was able to harvest and use another couple of pumpkins form their earlier in the year so we had almost a dozen pumpkins from out small back yard – outstanding!

This year's Harvest

We have a series of bookshelves along our hallway and the pumpkins get stacked on top of them to be stored, assuming that the stem joining them onto the vine has withered. If the stem is not withered they will not store as ling and you need to keep an eye on them or they can rot, not a good look (or smell for that matter) in your hallway. We regularly store pumpkins for in excess of 12 months this way.

The last of Last Year's Crop

Once they are cut they don’t last more than a week or two some plan some intensive pumpkin cooking and eating, freeze the excess or give it away to family and friends. Pumpkin is a low acid vegetable and so doesn’t lend itself to preserving by bottling but can be made into jam or dried by cutting the pumpkin into pieces, peeling and removing the seeds, then bake until it is soft and dry, push through a colander and spread thinly (5mm thick) onto lightly greased pie pans and dry in the sun, using a solar drier or in an oven at 60°C maximum for an hour or two.

Last years' pumpking plus some of this years' crop!

While I am not really fond of pumpkins, my family is and they are a great, storable provision that is very versatile; they can be made into baked pumpkin, pumpkin soup, pumpkin scones (Flo’s favourite for all those Queenslanders out there!)  as well as being able to be included in all manner of soups, stews and casseroles. If that is not enough you can even toast the seeds in an oven, frypan or microwave and with a little salt you have a very tasty and nutritious homemade snack.

We are winding down towards winter here in Aus at the moment, but next spring give pumpkins a go on your trellis and see what you get.

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