Back late last year, I bought a little punnet of Queensland Blue pumpkin seedlings with three tiny shoots, about 4cm tall. I planted the shoots in my flower-beds, under the rosemary shrubs. I’d forgotten about the plants as Cherry, me and the family headed to our beach house for the Summer. It wasn’t until Cherry’s Daddy checked in on our Melbourne home, to collect the mail and water the garden, when he called me in shock to say “the pumpkins have taken over the garden!” After just a few weeks, the tiny pumpkin seedlings had grown into gigantic monster creepers, swallowing our entire lawn! I asked him to send me some pics as I was in disbelief. This was the start of our 2012 Pumpkin Harvest!

Mid Autumn we harvested 12 big fat beauties!

Cherry in our garden

Elle’s Winter Pumpkin Soup
Without ‘Mr Muscles’ around to help chop up the pumpkin, I baked the enter thing, skin, stalk, seeds and all, in a medium oven for 2 hours.
 Before

After

After it cooled down the skin was really easy to remove. I separated the flesh and seeds.

I then placed the remaining orange flesh in a large pot, poured in 1L of stock, added some cinnamon, salt and pepper and brought it to the boil.

Then I blitzed with my Bar-Mix and served with a dollop of plain yogurt. Hey presto, Elle’s Winter Pumpkin Soup is served!

Don’t forget the seeds make a delicious snack too!

Lay the pumpkin seeds on baking tray and dry roast them in a medium oven until crisp

Our manicured Sir Walter Lawn is still recovering from the pumpkin stampede but it was well worth it! It’s bulb season now and Cherry and Me are watching our Daffodils and Tulips pop up everywhere. We adore our little inner city garden and can’t wait for the next crop!