By Steven Biggs
Cook (or Compost) Your Pumpkins Too!
The first pumpkin is carved for Halloween this year; the kids had a pumpkin-carving get-together with friends over the weekend. That only leaves three giant pumpkins, four pie pumpkins, a warty pumpkin, a Jamaican pumpkin, a Turk’s turban squash, a blue hubbard squash, and an elongated pinkish pumpkin. Guess what we’re doing tomorrow!
We’ve hit a pumpkin-carving crescendo this year. The kids are the right age to design and carve. I love it as much as my they do. (To my imagination that blue hubbard squash looks a bit like a turkey in a roasting pan…)
Did we go overboard with so many pumpkins and squash? No.
Pumpkins make their way into our kitchen, or into our soil. We eat them or compost them.
Pumpkin Muffins
Nana Biggs’ pumpkin muffin recipe. (I usually cut the sugar in half and add raisins and nuts.)
One of Nana Biggs’ favourite recipes was pumpkin muffins. I remember as a kid taking my jack-o-lantern there the day after Halloween so that Nana could roast it.
(My Uncle Bill didn’t agree with my giving Nana all of that pumpkin as he didn’t care for the supply of muffins encouraged by it. I never let him forget that. One fall after I had moved away from home, I roasted a jack-o-lantern, baked a giant, six-inch-wide muffin, and sent it to Uncle Bill by courier.)
My kids all like pumpkin muffins, so Nana would be pleased. They love roasted pumpkin seeds too. (A bit of oil, salt, and garlic powder makes a mean roasted pumpkin seed, in my opinion.)
Last year, my wife, Shelley, spent a whole day roasting various pumpkins and squash, and made a series of pies, using different proportions of each. We got to taste-test them all. There were lots more that went into the freezer. We just ate the last one yesterday.
Watch Your Jack-O-Lanterns!
In my daughter Emma’s book, Gardening with Emma, she tells kids how pumpkins in the garden start to sag, and then become spots on the soil by spring.
You must be wondering if we’ll eat all of those pumpkins on our front porch this year. We’ll use the pie pumpkins first, as they have a less watery, more flavourful flesh.
What doesn’t go into pumpkin pies, muffins, and soups feeds the soil. My daugher Emma shares this idea in her book Gardening with Emma.
Sometimes we put our jack-o-lanterns in the compost pile. But what’s really fun is watching them slowly melt into the soil.
Each one ages differently!
Written for kids by a kid, this guide helps kids see the fun side of gardening, whether it’s growing giant vegetables, making a bug vacuum, or making a sound-themed garden.
Emma shares lots of inspiring ideas for young gardeners about how to grow healthy food, raise cool plants, and have fun outdoors.
Copies from the Food Garden Life shop are signed by Emma!