ecobites.com

Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

So what follows is a compilation of organic growing tips and some of our favorite ways of preparing and enjoying that large, orange / yellow, tasty and most prolific vegetable. They are offfered in the hope that more people will enjoy their pumpkin even more as a result of trying something different.

Pumpkins belong to the curcubit family.They are relatives of squash, melons, marrows, zucchinis amd cucumber. All of which are cultivated in the same way. Pumpkins are a wonderful addition to your organic garden, and they are a joy to grow.You can grow pumpkins in almost any type of climate and they store well.

However, pumpkins don't tolerate frosts. They like a fairly rich, well-drained soil. Over-fertilization causes heavy foliage and no fruit. Sow once the ground is warm. Start seeds in cans or plant boxes or sow directly in groups of 5-6 seeds in a hollow. If they all germinate pull out the surplus.Select a sunny spot to plant your pumpkins.

Mulch when the vines have "taken". After you’ve planted your pumpkins, frequent weeding is important to keep your pumpkins healthy as they develop.Avoid planting pumpkins where there has recently been other vine crops such as melons. It’s a good idea to wait at least two years before planting pumpkins in these areas. Pumpkins may be too rampant for smaller backyard gardens and if this is so pinch or nip off trailers when they reach 5-6 feet and are carrying flowers.

Water during early stages, but once the vines are established and mulched your work is over until picking time. Once plants have germinated and are growing happily, they will flower abundantly. Pumpkins need a lot of pollination in order to set fruit. In fact, a pumpkin flower needs to get eight to twelve visits from a honey bee or other pollinating insect in order to set fruit. Since pumpkin flowers are only fertile for one day, this is a feat that requires an army of pollinating insects to accomplish. Getting adequate pollination is one of the biggest challenges that pumpkin growers must overcome. Organic gardens are often havens for bees and other beneficial insects that thrive on the diversity of flowering plants that are available to them. More importantly, organic gardeners don't spray long-lasting insecticides that kill pollinators.

Pumpkins should be well matured on the vine. Harvest when skin is hard and cut off the vine with a portion of the stem attached.

Store them until it's time to make gnocchi, soup and pumpkin pies, etc. Keep in mind that pumpkins like hot weather and will suffer chill damage at temperatures below 50 degrees F, so if it is going to get cold, try to get your pumpkins happily harvested and into storage. Store your pumpkins in a cool, well-ventilated area.

How to enjoy the pumpkin harvest....

Grabben Gullen pie, stuffed pumpkin, dinner in a pumpkin, gnocchi, fritatta, quiche,risotto, pasta, pancakes, Fritelle, soup, dips, baked, sauteed, steamed, mashed, casseroles, salads, pie toppings, pies, bread, cookies, bread pudding,add mashed to cakes, muffins and scones. Not forgetting, celebrating Halloween with the large jack-o-lanterns and party feast foods.

The big pumpkin - With a small family to do the eating, it can take a week to finish off a large pumpkin. Mashed, boiled and baked pumpkin can get very boring for a whole week of meals, so we introduced a little more variety into our pumpkin-eating week.

Most of the recipes call for mashed pumpkin, so our first meal from a freshly cut organic "fruit" usually includes baked pumpkin as a vegetable. Cooking far more than can be used in that one meal, and leftovers get used later.

Not only the flesh of a pumpkin is edible. We have had some good meals from the vine while waiting for the fruit to set - fried pumpkin flowers are delicious, for the meat-consumers a little organic bacon added is a treat. Even after the remnants have long since graced the compost heap, roasted pumpkin seeds can make delicious munchings. Most pumpkins have lots of seeds to spare, even after you have saved samples of the best ones for next year's crop.

If you have limited refrigerated space - or even none at all - then a large hunk of wilting pumpkin can be put in the oven for a couple of hours to cook, allowed to cool, and then used in the next couple of days. This procedure keeps the molds at bay, lets you vary your diet between pumpkin meals and stops waste. Other alternatives would be composting or pig's fodder.

Pumpkin Soup
There are many versions. This is a quick filling meal.
Baking the pumpkin for soup gives a beautiful caramelized flavor.

organic olive / coconut oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 leek, white part only, finely sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
2 pounds (1kg) peeled pumpkin, diced
2 potatoes,diced
1 carrot / sweet potato, diced
1L chicken or vegetable stock
plain organic yogurt / milk of choice
 
Bake pumpkin for 30 minutes.
Heat 2 tablespoons organic coconut oil in a large saucepan over low heat, add onion and leek and cook for 2-3 minutes, until softened but not colored. Add garlic and spices and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add potato and stock and bring to the boil. Turn heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add baked pumpkin. Allow to cool slightly, then blend in batches.
Return soup to pan, stir through milk / yogurt and reheat gently. Season and add a little more nutmeg if desired.
Float a dallop of yogurt in the middle and top with chopped fresh herbs.

Pumpkin Pancakes
Something different for breakfast - particularly if you have some left-over pumpkin soup.

Mashed pumpkin (or soup left-overs)
Milk of choice
egg
Flour (with raising)
To some smoothly mashed pumpkin, add milk until you have the consitency of a thick, unwhipped cream.
Beat in a egg.
Add sufficient flour until a fairly thick batter.
Cook the batter as either pancakes or pikelets.
Serve hot, spread with honey or cumquat marmalade or whatever else you fancy.

Pumpkin Salad
This one will be loved by even the non-pumpkin lover. Great to team up with the Sunday BBQ.

600g pumpkin,(butternut variety is nice) deseeded, peeled, cut into wedges
2 teaspoons organic coconut /olive oil
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey, extra
2 tablespoons organic extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon organic wholegrain mustard
baby spinach leaves / rocket or combination of young greens
toasted pine nuts
cubed feta cheese
Preheat oven.
Place the pumpkin in a large bowl. Drizzle with oil and honey. Season with celtic salt and cumin.
Gently toss until the pumpkin is well coated.
Bake, turning once during cooking, for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from oven and sprinkle evenly with the sesame seeds.
Return to oven and bake for 5 minutes or until the seeds are lightly toasted.
Remove from oven and set aside for 30 minutes to cool.

Combine the lemon juice, extra virgin organic olive oil, mustard and extra honey in a screw-top jar and shake until well combined. Season with celtic salt.
Place the pumpkin, spinach and pine nuts in a large bowl. Drizzle with the dressing and gently toss through feta cheese(can also toss through cooked chick peas if desired) and organic olives are a nice addition too, until just combined.
Serve immediately.

Pumpkin Gnocchi
A quantity of mashed pumpkin - smooth.
An equal quantity of organic flour (no raising)
An organic egg (not really necessary, but helps to bind).
For four people, two cups each of pumpkin and flour is about the right amount.
Mix the flour and pumpkin together, add the egg, and knead the lot together, treating it much as you would scone dough.
Roll the dough out into long sausages, thick as the base of thumb - this to be done on a well-floured board or table.
Shaping The Gnocchi - Press onto fork with thumb. Then roll off the fork.(Cut off pieces about 1/4 inch long and slightly flatten with fork).
The gnocchi will double in size during cooking, so be careful not to make them too large.
Flour the gnocchi well, or they will stick together before they can be cooked.
Get a large pot of salted water to a good rolling boil, add the gnocchi.
Keep the water boiling all the time to prevent the pieces sticking together.
They take about 20 minutes to cook, test for "doneness" in the same way as spaghetti. Ideally bite one in half to test if cooked all the way through.
If you prefer, cut and look.
When they are cooked, drain and serve with organic butter or with tomato suces - NOT from the bottle, but homemade if possible.

Pumpkin Scones
2 cups organic flour (with raising)
1 cup cold mashed pumpkin
Pinch celtic salt
1/2 teaspon grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons organic butter
1 egg (well beaten).

Sift flour and celtic salt in basin.
Rub in butter.
Stir in mashed pumpkin and lemon rind, mix to rather firm dough with egg.
If pumpkin is dry, it may be necessary to add a little milk.
Turn onto a floured board, roll to about 3/4 inch thickness.
Cut into rounds, glaze with milk.
Bake in a hot oven 12 to 15 minutes.

Pumpkin Seeds
To collect the seeds for roasting, either carefully pick out all the seeds, clean and spread on trays, or do it the easy way - which takes longer.
Dump the seeds andd the membrane they are held in, in a bucket of water.
After a couple of days or a week, depending on the weather, the seeds will sink to the bottom, and the membrane will be floating on top.
Scoop out the membrane, put it on the compost, then collect the seeds and dry them in the sun.
To bake, spread them thinly on an oven tray and put in a medium-hot oven for about half an hour, or until they start to color.
Bite the seeds to crack the skin eat the meat, the skin tastes something like recycled cardboard, the kernal is something like peanuts.

Another Pumpkin Seed Version
2 cups pumpkin seeds (cleaned)
1/2 teaspoon organic Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons organic butter melted / organic coconut oil
1 1/2 tespoons celtic salt

Preheat oven 250 degrees
Mix all the ingredients together and place in a shallow baking pan or tray
Bake for 2 1/2 - 3 hours stirring often
Cool.

Pumpkin Flowers

Flowers (male)
Batter (organic coconut flour, egg)
Coconut oil for frying
Collect excess male flowers from the pumkin vines, preferably in the morning.
A collection can be built up over a couple of days if you have refrigerator room to keep them in.
Discard all the green parts and the stamen.
Make up a thinninsh egg batter, dip the flowers, and fry in hot coocnut oil.
Drain and serve as a vegetable.
They go well with zucchini and or aubergine.

The Birds and Bees

First comes the male flowers. They will often proliferate a week or two before the first female comes upon the scene. New growers will occasionally worry that perhaps there is something wrong with the plant as no females have appeared. This worry is heightened when talking with experienced growers who invariably will be a week or so ahead of the novice grower and boast of the pumpkins growing on the vine. Never, fear, your plant will eventually develop female flowers with tiny fruit attached below them.
Male Flowers are on a stem that is fairly thin and shoots up several inches to a foot above the vine. The center stamen contains the pollen. Pollen is mature if it readily comes off the stamen and onto your finger. Do not pick and use it until it is mature. There are usually several male flowers for every female flower. There should be a mature male or two ready to pollinate whenever a female matures.
Female flowers are easily identified. A tiny baby pumpkin is located between the stem and the flower. The female flower will be close to the vine and the stem will only be a couple of inches long. In the center is a multi segmented stigma which must be pollinated in order for the fruit to develop.
Is Pollination Occurring:
The affirmative answer is discovered after several days when the female flower has died and fallen off, and the tiny pumpkin beneath it begins to grow.
If pollination did not occur, the baby pumpkin below the female flower will shrivel and die.
Poor pollination can also occur. Pollination needs to be made to all segments of the female flower. If not the fruit will not reach it's maximum potential, and the number of seeds will be reduced.

Enjoy!

http://pumpkinnook.com/howto/pollen.htm

http://pollinator.com/

Organic Pumpkin and Winter Squash Production http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/pumpkin.html