Kitchen Garden Forum

I hope OH will forgive me for stealing what would have been his new thread.
Bright full harvest moon last night in crystal clear skies; woke this morning to the first frost. The season has definitely turned now despite the forecast for a bit of warmer weather in the coming days.

You are forgiven, Alan.....

Infact, it brings back lovely memories of the past, when we would take it in turns to try and inject a bit of life back into the forum.
Now we have the brilliant Pa Snip, who is an ace at coming up with new topics....

A frost here first thing, but now it is the most perfect Autumn day....

Well I prefer this gentle heat of autumn sunshine to the frazzling summer heat which cooks my brain and prevents me from concentrating on anything. Just the right temperature for seasonal contemplation and getting things done in a steady way.

Somebody gave me a HUGE butternut squash today from her allotment . (Sadly I don't have room to grow them) but she's picking them before they all get stolen so it can gently sunbathe on the patio and finish off ripening there . I might even join it given the temperature at the moment!

It certainly qualifies as autumnal, despite the fact that the cricket season is still running (it is in its last week - I think it is too late in the year).
These chilly nights and mornings however are leaving us some lovely sunshine for a few hours during the middle of the day.

I've just lit our first fire of the season in the log/coal/peat burner, temps now down to 4 degrees inside the greenhouse now, so starting to lift the tomato plants that have given their best, still a few to ripen if the cold doesn't finish them off.

oldherbaceous wrote:Now we have the brilliant Pa Snip, who is an ace at coming up with new topics....

No no no. I cannot live up to such an accolade, nor do I deserve it. Some seem to like my postings, some even get the humour at times. But for every one that does like them there is probably another that doesn't.

So thank you for the accolade OH but I truely do not deserve it


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Mrs S and I went up the plot today, 30 minutes of lifting out the sweetcorn stems and I had had it. definitely travelling the downhill gradient faster

#well if it's any comfort to you Pa, I picked all the remaining tomatoes earlier this afternoon and did a little bit of weeding and felt shattered too.

I decided to treat myself to a 30 minute nap on the bed. Our bedroom faces west so all the warm afternoon sun came beaming in through the window. I closed my eyes and it was just like sunbathing in sunny Majorca, only a lot less travelling hassle and a darned sight cheaper. Didn't even need to go hunting for my passport either!

I will be sunbathing in Spain next week that's if I can get through two years of weeds that will be around two meters high

I also have taken most of my pumpkins before they were nicked but I have a dilemma I've not had before - I can't fit the polar bears through the greenhouse door. My plan is to sort some sort of shelter under the back patio bench for them & hope it's a while before we get a hard frost. They will be the first eaten as I know the QLD Blue store really well, but the size of them will mean I will be sharing out chunks with the whole neighbourhood & 1/2 of work as well!

(Unless they taste pants in which case I shall donate one for pumpkin carving to one of the neighbours who have grandchildren around for Halloween & not waste any energy cutting it up)!

Westi, your Polar pumpkins have done really well. One doesn,t always think of potential storage and size problems after picking with these plants. The problem with these monsters is keeping the flesh in condition and storing them once the first cut has been made but airtight clingfilm placed over the surfaces is usually good. I don,t know what other people do. I guess a chainsaw comes in useful for cutting them into chunks for sharing.

I remember a huge pumpkin my dad grew during wartime when I was a small child. I remember it spending the whole winter sitting on the tiled hearth in the unheated lounge which was never used. Bits were regularly carved off it but strangely I can never recall eating it as a vegetable on its own. I guess my mother chopped it up and added it to soups and casseroles to eke the meagre meat ration out.

How do all of you who grow them eat them ?

They didn't look that big in the pic in the catalogue so I was taken by surprise, was more interested in the description of the flavour & flesh colour when choosing the seeds. (Fortunately they have a smaller white one in this years seed catalogues)! I do the same as you, get the seeds out & press clingfilm into the inner against the flesh, then wrap more over the cut ends & just cut the ends/edges off before using. They last a long time - but in the case of these it will be a long, long, long time!

Good job I like pumpkin!

Just looking out of the window: there are some beautiful pink clouds in the east and it's sunset time! What is the world coming to?

I have a similar problem ,I have three normal size pumpkins if normal is very large then I have the large one which I don't think will fit through the door. I decided to grow them for making soup I only hope I like pumpkin soup ,I have read you wash the outside with bleach and water in a 10 to 1 mix

I've cleared most of the tomato plants from the greenhouse as due to overnight temps down to 4 degrees I didn't think they'd grow any more, 15 degrees last night, typical!!

I never pull my tomatoes off until at least mid November ,if the plant has a bit of green on it I leave it alone ,when they are brown and dead I then pull the remaining tomatoes off, I put all the green ones in a brown cardboard box and put it in the garage were it's cold and dark I check it every couple of days to pick the ripe ones out