Pumpkin, pumpkin everywhere

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Liz

The plant:

My four year old has hair the colour of the inside of a ripe pumpkin so you’d think she’d have an affinity with it, but alas she won’t touch the stuff.   Of course not everyone likes pumpkin – they feed it to the cows in Britain a practice that I think she would approve of.  However the variety they feed to the cows is different – stringy, lacking in flavour and an unappetising pale yellow colour, completely unlike the ones we grow in Australia.  Frankly I think she must just be a bit strange because pumpkin is clearly delicious – sweet, velvety and perfect for all kinds of dishes.  A roast wouldn’t be a roast without pumpkin, it makes a beautiful soup, is perfect with pasta and even makes a mean pie.  What’s not to like?  For all its positives though, is it the perfect plant for a suburban backyard?  Well that very much depends on two things, how much you like your lawn and how much you like pumpkin.

How I grow pumpkin:

It did take me a number of goes to get my seeds to germinate, I think the first lot were too early and the second I sowed in normal potting mix rather than seed raising mix so they rotted rather the germinating.  The third attempt – which was in late August was successful.  I sowed the seeds in 7.5cm pots.  Pumpkins don’t like having their roots disturbed so you need to sow their seed into something  allows for minimal root disturbance when you transplant them;  for instance small pots or even toilet rolls used as an opened bottom pot would be ideal.  You can sow seed direct but bear in mind that many varieties take a number of months to ripen and you need it to be reasonably warm for that to happen.  Pumpkins are not frost hardy in the slightest.

This year is the first year I have actually grown pumpkin in my garden, mainly because I knew they liked to take over and previously I didn’t think I had the space.  But this year I had a plan, I would grow them on the edge of the bed and allow the vines to trail over the paved area of our backyard.  It was a great plan, I would be maximising the growing space my yard has to offer with an attractive plant which produced great fruit.   The only problem of course is that pumpkin vines don’t just grow one way, they grow in all directions – very vigorously (at least the Bohemian variety does) .  You can prune them of course but when all the female flowers are on the bit of vine growing over where you planned to plant sweet corn you do tend to fairly loathe to cut it off.  Sweet corn can wait surely!  Then when you’ve got beautiful pumpkins forming on the bit of vine on the lawn you don’t cut that either and so on it goes until you are swamped in vine with little room for anything else.

I grew two varieties: Bohemian and Butternut.  The Bohemian was by far the more vigorous plant and did very much take over, especially as I had two plants of it to one butternut.  From the butternut I got one fruit (rodents ate at least 2 other fertilised pumpkins at a fairly early stage) and from the Bohemians I have 7 massive fruit, 4 of which are still on the vine.   I did have problems with the pumpkins – they got powdery mildew and went from looking great to looking fairly awful.  I have previously posted on my attempts to get rid of the powdery mildew but one thing I would say is that despite having powdery mildew since February and my cutting off most of the leaves, as they deteriorated, it doesn’t seem to have had much visual effect on the ripening of the actual fruit.

I harvested my first pumpkin at the start of April – A Bohemian and in all honesty it was a little disappointing but frankly I don’t think it was fully ripe.  Pumpkins are ripe when the stem dries out and this had yet to do that but I had to harvest it after my toddler rode his trike over its stem….. The flavour was OK when roasted with a bit of soy sauce mixed with the oil to bring out the sweetness but it still tasted a bit green.  Then 2 weeks ago I harvested a ripe butternut and 2 ripe Bohemians.  When harvesting you should want to retain at least a few cms of stalk on the pumpkin to prolong the time it can be stored for.

I have yet to do anything with the Bohemian as I have been advised that in cooler climates (and this summer Melbourne has not been particularly warm) its good to leave them to rest for a month before cutting into them.  Yesterday though impatience got the better of me and I cut open the butternut and roasted half to go with a roast chicken.

Really good – fabulous colour and texture with a slightly chestnutty flavour.  It wasn’t particularly sweet though and I suspect that is because it hasn’t been a particularly warm summer.   I think it should make good gnocchi though.

How I use it:

Pumpkin Gnocchi with a creamy leek sauce

Serves 4 – 6

  • 1kg pumpkin
  • 100g finely grated parmesan
  • 250g sifted plain flour
  • Salt & pepper
  • 1 head garlic
  • 2 leeks – finely shredded
  • 20g butter
  • Olive oil for roasting
  • 250ml stock
  • 100ml cream

Cut pumpkin into large pieces (for 1kg about 6 pieces would be right).  Roast the pumpkin & head of garlic in a 200 degree oven for about ½ hour or until cooked.   The pumpkin may take longer than the garlic.  Allow pumpkin to cool completely.  Meanwhile make the sauce.  Saute the shredded leeks in the butter and sweat until cooked.  Squeeze the garlic from its skin and add to leeks.  Add stock and cook until the stock has reduced by half.  Add cream and season with salt and pepper. Stir and bring to the boil.  Keep warm while you make the gnocchi.  One the pumpkin has cooled completely mash it very gently (if you are too vigorous too much water will come out of the pumpkin and you will need to use more flour – thus diluting the pumpkin taste of the gnocchi).  Add parmesan and 200g of the flour, season with salt and pepper.  Mix gently.  Spread the remainder of the flour on a board and use it to roll the pumpkin mixture (which will be quite wet) into long snakes which are about 2cm in diameter.  Cut the gnocchi snakes into 3cm long pieces.  Cook gnocchi in boiling salted water (as you would pasta).  The gnocchi is cooked when it floats to the surface.  Drain and arrange on plates pouring the sauce over the top.  Top with additional parmesan and chopped spring onions or chives.

 

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Posted in Alliums - Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Autumn Harvesting, Pumpkin, Recipes, Spring Planting | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Is it spinach, is it silver beet, or is it chard?

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Liz

The plant:

This plant was grown from seeds which called it perpetual spinach, which is a type of silver beet and is also known as Chard or even Swiss Chard.   Spinach (as opposed to ‘perpetual spinach’ ) is a completely different plant and does taste different  as well as having a much more velvety texture when cooked.  Regardless though in recipes where the spinach is cooked you can often substitute silver beet/chard.

There are some fantastic Chard varieties – I love the rainbow ones in particular as they look fantastic in the garden (unfortunately I ran out of seed and this year and only planted green stemmed plants).  The main difference between varieties is their habit and to a lesser extent their taste.  Some have absolutely huge stalks and leaves (for example the  Fordhook Giant variety which many Australians would be familiar with – it has white stalks and large deep green leaves).  Other varieties, like the one in the picture above, are a bit more delicate and compact.   Some varieties are stronger flavoured than others – rainbow chard and perpetual spinach are at the milder end of the taste spectrum.

How I grow it:

I grow my Chard from seed, either sowing direct or into seed trays and then potting up into 7.5 cm pots before planting out.  Which of these options I take depends on how much room I have in the garden at the point I need to sow seed.

Seed can be sown in Melbourne for much of the year (although probably best to avoid May, June & July).  To date I have been able to get a reasonable supply for 9 of the 12 months of the year but despite the ‘perpetual spinach’ tag my plants always seem to bolt in mid to late spring no matter what stage of development they are in.   This year I plan to sow seed at 1 week intervals from the start of August to try and get some plants that don’t bolt.  If this fails seed sown anytime from September onwards seems to produce plants that last until the following Spring so at the very least you should have a crop for about 9 months.  Incidentally, you can still harvest leaves from plants that have bolted you just cut out the bolting section of the plant and the plant should produce masses of new leaves.  These leaves tend to be smaller though so you may need a fair few plants at this point to get a decent supply.

Anyway none of this is a problem now as its Autumn and I have Chard plants that are happily producing leaves.  I have plants both in the beds and in pots and so have a good number of leaves to use.  Unfortunately the kids will only eat Chard in very few forms: Spinach (or Chard) and Ricotta Cannelloni, Spanakopita (this is only at a push….or more accurately with dessert used as a bribe) and this – their preferred form: Chicken & Spinach Curry.

What I use it for:

Chicken & Spinach* Curry

*I almost always actually use chard as I have it for a greater portion of the year and I cook this dish a lot.

  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 8 cardamom pods
  • 1 onion finely chopped
  • 2.5 cm ginger finely grated
  • 4 garlic cloves finely grated
  • 2 tomatoes – finely chopped
  • 2 large chicken breasts (or similar quantity thigh fillets, or meat on the bone if you prefer) – chopped into bite sized pieces.
  • ½ tspn chilli powder or 2 hot red chillies finely chopped.   (All my curry recipes are fairly low in chilli.  This is due to cooking for a young family who are being slowly introduced to the joys of spice.  Please double the amount (at least) if you like your food hot.)
  • 2 tspns ground cumin
  • 2 tspns ground coriander
  • 5 tbspns canola (or similar neutral flavoured) oil
  • 6 tbspns greek or natural yoghurt.
  • One small bunch of spinach or chard.
  • ½ to 1 tspn Salt (according to taste – I am used to cooking for kids and thus tend to under season at times)

Cook chard/spinach (I steam mine) then puree it.

Heat oil, once heated add cinnamon and cardamom, cook for about a minute or two and then add onion.  Fry onion until lightly golden brown.  Add ginger and garlic.  Fry over a low to medium until they are cooked and the onion is a deep golden brown.   Add cumin, coriander and chilli.  Cook for a couple of minutes.  Add tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes collapse and the oil starts to separate.  Add chicken and stir once then add the yoghurt one tablespoon at a time stir thoroughly in between to ensure the yoghurt is well integrated into the sauce.  Once all the yoghurt has been added stir through the cooked and pureed spinach.   Season with salt.   Cook for a further 5 minutes and ensure the chicken is completely cooked.  Serve with rice

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Posted in Autumn Harvesting, Autumn Planting, Greens - Lettuce, Spinach, Beets, Recipes, Spring Harvesting, Spring Planting, Summer Harvesting, Summer Planting, Winter Harvesting, Winter Planting | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Eggplant – The perfect pot plant?

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Liz

The plant:

My mother loves to tell a story about when I was living in the UK and I arrived back home for a visit.  Allegedly I opened the fridge and cried: “what no aubergine!”.  To her this one phrase signified not only that I had become a horrible food snob but an anglicised one at that.  To me it points to a clear neglect of a fabulous vegetable, although she has since mended her ways……In retrospect though I should probably have yelled “what no brinjal!”, as eggplant is a native of India.  But then maybe mum was right as its hard to get the same snobby intonation in the word brinjal as it is in aubergine.  If you don’t believe me try saying the words aloud.  What ever you call it, and you may also be familiar with the Italian Melanzana, or the Arabic al-badinjan to mention but 2 others , its great to grow and great to cook with.  Incidently the name eggplant apparently derives from some, then prized, 18th century cultivars which resembled goose eggs and it is this name which is used in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US.

How I grow it:

I have only ever grown eggplant in pots – although this year I do plan to try them in my main garden bed.  I like them in pots though, they fruit, they don’t take up too much space and you can move them to follow the sun to try and get the most out of the season.   Eggplants are perennial so they may survive a Melbourne winter.  I have yet to achieve this though although I have heard about gardeners locally who have.   Eggplants generally need staking to support the weight of the fruit.   I fertilise pot grown Eggplants every month with liquid fertiliser as the watering process tends to wash away some of the potting mixes nutrients, but in the ground I think I would rely on nutrients in the soil (provided the soil is of a decent quality) as too much fertiliser may encourage the production of leaves over fruits.

This year I grew eggplants from both seed and store bought seedlings.  Both have been successful.  The 3 types I have grown this year are: Early long purple, Lebanese bunching and something called ‘Patio Eggplant”  and frankly all have had something to recommend them: The Lebanese type has been the most prolific, the long purple has produced nearly as many as the Lebanese type but has far softer skin once cooked and the ‘Patio Eggplant’ has produced the largest and ‘meatiest’ fruit.    Perfect for Eggplant or Brinjal Curry.

What I use it for:

Eggplant Masala

In this recipe the eggplant doesn’t really look like eggplant which is a considerable advantage if your 4 year has an avowed dislike of eggplants (referring to it as Brinjal curry also helps in this respect).

  • 4 tablespoons canola (or similar light cooking) oil
  • 2 onions – chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves – chopped
  • A knob of ginger (about 2cm in length) – chopped
  • ¼  tspn chilli powder or 2 red chillies finely chopped.  (This will make it mild as I cook for young children, double (or more) the quantity if you like things hot.)
  • ½ teaspoon of turmeric
  • 2 large tomatoes finely chopped
  • A small bunch of coriander – chopped
  • About 600 – 700 gram of eggplant (you do not need to be exact over or under will be fine)
  • 1 teaspoon garam masala*
  • Juice of half a small lemon
  • Salt

Prick the eggplants and place on a baking sheet in an oven set to 210 degrees.  Cook until the skin collapses when touched.  (For a smokier version you can cook the eggplants over a gas flame or BBQ but using the oven works fine and is far less time consuming than cooking them over a gas flame. )  Puree the onion with the garlic and ginger.  I find I don’t have to add water when pureeing Australian onions, however if you have a drier variety you may need to add to splash of water into the food processor get a puree.

Heat the oil and fry the onion mixture with the turmeric over a medium heat.  Fry until the colour of the mixture deepens and becomes a rich golden colour.  Add tomatoes and coriander and chilli.  Cook until the tomatoes collapse and merge with the onion mixture to become a sauce.  Add the eggplant.  Season with salt.  Cook for another 10 minutes.  Add garam masala and lemon juice.  Garnish with additional coriander.  Serve

*To make Garam Masala:

I like my garam masala with a bit of cumin and coriander in it – I find it easier to use than the stronger versions which tend to omit these ingredients (and are a lot heavier on the black pepper).  You can choose to omit the cumin and coriander from this recipe if you prefer.

  • 1 tblspn cumin seeds.
  • 1 tblspn coriander seeds
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • 1 tspn cloves
  • ¼ of a whole nutmeg grated
  • 2 black cardamom pods
  • 1 tablespoon seed from green cardamom pods
  • 1 tspn black peppercorns

Heat a frypan on the top of the stove and add all the spices except the nutmeg and cloves.  Dry fry the spices until fragrant.  Allow them to cool.  Grind all spices together in a spice grinder.

This mixture will keep its flavour for about 3 months (although the fresher the better).

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Posted in Autumn Harvesting, Chillies, Capsicum & Eggplant, Recipes, Spring Planting | Tagged , | 18 Comments

Tomato Tart

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Liz

There are hardly any tomatoes left on the plants now and they have stopped setting new fruit.  This may be one of the last tomato tarts of the season.

Tomato Tart

  • 375 grams ricotta
  • 1 large egg
  • 3 spring onions – finely chopped
  • 2 tomatoes – thinly sliced.
  • 1 sheet puff pastry
  • 1/3 cup finely grated parmesan
  • Pepper
  • Herbs (parsley or rocket or basil finely chopped)

Heat the oven to 200 degrees.    Remove excess liquid from tomatoes – if they are very seedy then remove seeds and pat them gently with kitchen paper.  Mix together the ricotta, egg, spring onions & parmesan.  Place puff pastry on a baking tray.  Spread the ricotta mixture over the puff pastry leaving about 2 cm free at each edge.  Place on the tomato slices.  Fold up edges of puff pasty.  Bake for 35 minutes.  Sprinkle with herbs.  Return to oven for a further 5 minutes, or until cooked.

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Posted in Autumn Harvesting, Recipes, Tomatoes | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A plan for Winter

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Liz

I planted my garlic yesterday.  I would have liked to have done it a bit earlier but I couldn’t.  This is largely because I refused to pull out the cucumber plants that have done so well this summer (from 4 plants they produced a cucumber a day from December until late February, slowing to a couple a week by the end of March).  Instead of pulling it out in March when production was slowing (and I had put in my plan) I left it in and left it in and left it in until there was just one cucumber left on it but even then I didn’t want to pull them out until that ripened.  Ripen it finally did and my 4 year old daughter grabbed it for a salad which she was making which she then pronounced disgusting and refused to eat.  She makes very odd combinations and frankly her diagnosis was correct – the salad was yuk and went straight into the compost.  So I had wasted a week of valuable bed resting time to produce compost.

Of course you can plant garlic pretty happily in this (temperate) climate anytime up until about June so I could have left the beds to rest a little longer but I felt like playing in the dirt so I carefully measured out my bed and planted 14 rows of 7 cloves at 12cm intervals with 12cms between rows.  My point in all this is actually to point out that I did actually consider my winter crops when I chose where and when to plant at least some of my summer ones, otherwise I might still be waiting for beans to finish etc and I wouldn’t have got to spend yesterday playing in the dirt.

I do find the planning does actually help.   I plan to both ensure that I rotate my crops around the bed and also to ensure I follow some basic companion planting principles.   I have to say I’m not yet sure about companion planting, exactly how beneficial given the amount of potential planning it needs but I do still follow some basic principles just in case.

My principle method of planning is to map out the beds on paper and write in where and when things are to be planted.   I break the beds down into 1 metre squares and then dedicate each square to a different crop/s.   The below links show the last few seasons and my current plan.

Garden plan Winter – Spring 2011

Garden plan Summer 2010-2011

Garden plan Winter – Spring 2010

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Posted in Spring Planting, Summer Planting, Winter Planting | Tagged | 3 Comments