Remember that pumpkin I created from apples (ok, I swapped it for some apples, quince puree and cucmbers). Well, we have already turned it into roast pumpkin, stew, steamed pumpkin and shortly, soup. Amazing!

But Wait! There’s More! . . . Now we’re going to turn it into more pumpkins!

“But how?”, you ask. “By saving the seeds!”, we triumphantly reply, “and planting them next season!”.

We decided to keep the seeds because we liked this pumpkin so much. Saving seeds is a great idea for a number of reasons including growing more of what you like, selecting plants that are suited to your particular climate and preserving heritage or unusual species. It’s also cheaper and very satisfying to save and grow from your own seeds. It not hard, and doesn’t take much effort, although some seeds are a bit harder to harvest, clean and store than others and some are very hard to germinate, particulalry some natives.

Saving pumpkin seeds is very easy, different people have different techniques and this is the one we used. First we scooped out the seeds and pulled them from the stringy flesh that holds them in place. I find the easiest way to remove the seeds from the pumpkin is with a tablespoon. Once they are roughly cleaned, soak them in a bowl of water for a day or two to loosen the remain pulp around them and give them another wash in a colander and leave to drain.

When they are drained spread them out on a bit of kitchen paper or cloth to dry.

Once they’re dry carefully lift them from the paper or cloth. They might stick a bit as they dry out but they should be able to be lifted reasonably easily.

They can then be stored in a jar in a cool dark place until ready to be planted.

We got about 250 seeds from this one pumpkin so if we planted them all and 50% germinated and they all produced, say, four pumpkins that’s 500 pumpkins! Not bad for a couple of apples, quince and cucumber!

Roll on summer – I want some of them, there pumpkins!

“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.