“Magic?”, you might ask. Not quite.
As the weather slows down and the summer garden gives way to the winter crops, we slowly go around and collect the last of the summer fruit and veg. We still have apples on the granny smith tree and a few struggling tomatoes and cucumbers but we are picking the last of these.
The cucumbers in particular ended up being a pretty good crop considering I planted the last lot quite late and we’ve had a glut over the last few weeks.
One of things we didn’t get was pumpkins. The few that I planted were ripped up by the birds when they were seedlings.
However, last week my mum rang up and said she had been given a couple of pumpkins from the guy across the road and asked if I wanted one. “You beauty”, I said, “how about I swap you a couple of cucumbers, some apples and a jar of freshly made quince and apple sauce for the pumpkin?” “What time can you get here?”, she replied (She loves quince and apple).
A quick trip (and an extended 3 hour chat over coffee) later and I was the proud owner of a delicious big pumpkin and Mum was going, “ooh”, and ,”aah”, over her jar of quince and apple. Sharing is such a wonderful thing!
We’ve already had two meals from the pumpkin and, on the weekend, it’s pumpkin soup time! YUM!
I think I might try saving the seeds as well.
Heya Michael. Thought I’d leave you a comment in return (yours on my post at Greening of Gavin), you know, in the theme of sharing! If you want to try a variation on pumpkin soup, we do a pretty good ‘Sunshine Soup’ (for the kids who don’t eat pumpkin lol). Link to the ‘recipe’ (a very loose term!) is in this post http://seemyfootprints.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/sunshine-in-your-belly-in-winter.html
Thanks for the feedback on your solar oven. Off to browse your blog some more.
Cheers.
Thanks Kristy, That “recipe” for sunshine soup looks great. I’m going to give it a go.
And as for the name, it just so happens that I live just up the road from Sunshine in Melbourne’s western suburbs so it fits perfectly. 🙂