We have harvested the Austrian Hull-less Seed Pumpkins, freeing up more garden space for autumn planting. Most of the pumpkins are stored in the back room, awaiting our further attention, but we cut one open immediately to try the seeds. They are plump and delicious. We soaked them overnight in brine, then dried them in the oven to make them nice and crispy. What a tasty snack!
Austrian hull-less seed pumpkins
Pumpkin seeds ready for the oven
Neither Kevin or I had ever encountered this kind of pumpkin before we found it in a heritage seed catalogue in the spring. They have proved easy to grow, and we think they are beautiful looking pumpkins. The flesh is not very tasty. Beyond adding a bit of it to soups or stews, I can’t imagine that we’ll want to eat it very much. Kevin tried feeding some to the cows, who were unimpressed! Perhaps it would be popular with chickens or pigs. Because the seeds have no hulls, special care needs to be taken to prevent excessive moisture and rotting during germination. Once started, the vines are rampant, and the plump hull-less seeds are delicious. We would like to grow these pumpkins again next year.
The tomato harvest continues. At last we have the the joyful abundance of far more tomatoes than we can eat. Today it is my mission to bottle some of them. I plan to make a puree, reduce it, add some citric acid to ensure safe preservation, and bottle it in quart jars using the “overflow method.” This will be my first attempt ever at making preserves, so I’ll be sure to report on the results — favourable or otherwise!
Can you ever have too many?
As we harvest the summer vegetables, we are working on preparing the newly emptied potato and pumpkin beds for autumn planting. This involves breaking up remaining clods of clay, spreading lime and gypsum to condition the soil, adding cow manure, and mulching with loads of dry kikuyu grass. I am already starting seeds for many of our autumn crops: beets, swiss chard (silver beet), red cabbage, mustard lettuce, fenugreek, collards (Dalmatian cabbage), two kinds of kale, salsify, turnips, leeks, shungiku (chrysanthemum greens), peas (flour peas, sugar snaps, and shelling peas), carrots and radishes. We have direct-seeded the radish and carrot seed. The rest have been started inside and will be transplanted into the garden.
It seems that the Orange or tangerine colored tomatoes allow you to absorb more cancer fighting agents(lycopene) than ordinary red tomatoes.
See this article from the Journal of Agriculture…
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jafcau/2007/55/i04/html/jf062337b.html/QueryZIP/C3-I/((((%3CMANY%3E%3CPARAGRAPH%3E(tomato@@%3CAND%3E@@orange)))%3CAND%3E(PUBYR@@%3E=@@1996)))%3COR%3E(((%3CMANY%3E%3CPARAGRAPH%3E(tomato@@%3CAND%3E@@orange)))%3CAND%3E(ASAP@@%3CIN%3E@@VOL))
Pretty cool huh?
Mmm, tomatoes. Add a little garlic, onions, pepper and salt before pureeing and let it ferment a little and viola, traditional tomato ketchup! Another trick to ensure safe fermentation (never heard of the citric acid, do you add enough to sterilize, or just make bad bacteria unhappy), besides the obvious benefit of the salt in ketchup, is the addition of a little whey as a starter (yogurt or cheese or whatever, but I prefer kefir because the wide range of microcritters can safely transform and protect just about anything).
Also, you can’t go wrong drying a few in the sun (of course, I don’t really know how sunny NZ is).
I’m jealous of the hull-less pumpkin seeds. I learned recently that if you eat a whole lot of squash seeds and don’t chew those hulls EXTREMELY well, it can be a little unpleasant the next day to say the least (especially for my two year old daughter, who of course does her very best to spread her discomfort vocally).
On a completely unrelated subject, have you guys ever heard of the work of Masanobu Fukuoka? If not, you should definitely check out his book “The One Straw Revolution.” He is the Lao Tzu of farming. Just to give the most basic of intros, he produces yields of rice and barley (as well as veggies and fruit orchards) on his farm in Japan that are equal or greater than neighboring chemical and labor intensive farms, and he does it without any weeding, plowing, or chemicals of any kind. The craziest part is that he only spends about 50 hours a year working!!!!!!!
Here’s a basic article in case you’ve never heard of him:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/DIY/1982-07-01/The-Plowboy-Interview-Masanobu-Fukuoka.aspx
Hi, Limukala.
The ketchup sounds tasty. I’d like to have a go at making some of that. We’ve thought about sun drying some tomatoes, but decided it would probably be a little dicey here due to the high humidity.
I’m looking forward to reading the Fukuoka interview in Mother Earth News. We’ve read about him before in some permaculture books, but I’ve not seen that interview. Thanks for posting the link.
Thanks for your link, as well, BG. Can you recommend any open pollinated tomato varieties that are orange or tangerine? We’d love to try growing some.
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca and Kevin,
The above comment caught my eye because I was already thinking of offering to send you a copy of Mr. Fukuoka’s “One Straw Revolution”, if you are interested. Quite hard to get hold of, but one of Mr. Fukuoka’s former assistants in Japan has a stash of English copies published in India.
Very highly recommended reading. (Mr. F is about 93 and still going strong!)
cheers,
t
Hi Tochigi,
We’ve been looking for a copy, but haven’t had much luck so far. Amazon Marketplace has used copies, but many of those sellers won’t even post to New Zealand. Of course, it’s not available as a regular Amazon purchase. Hearing your recommendation makes us keener than ever!
Cheers,
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
I will let you know if I get hold of any more copies.
cheers,
t