Picked the first pumpkin of the season today. Pumpkins are wild in my garden. These Japs plant themselves every year, rambling over fences and down banks, unruly and disobedient. The vines are too rampant for my intensive, fortress fenced beds so the bush turkeys get most of them, wastefully pecking holes randomly. Occasionally I try planting another variety. I had high hopes that Queensland Blues with their very tough shells might slow the turkeys down, but they just go for the young ones.
But by curbing my neat impulse and letting the vines climb and ramble, a percentage of the pumpkins grow in places that are less convenient for turkeys, and I get to pick enough to be over pumpkin by the time the season ends in early winter. They get absolutely no attention, no mulch, water, fertiliser, not even kind words when I come out to find one trying to climb a coffee tree or smother the mint patch.
But right now, I’m going to make Moroccan Pumpkin Salad with this one, and maybe Pumpkin Scones as well.
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Look at the size of it! Jap pumpkins are one of my favourites, but when I buy them at the markets, they’re usually quite small. Darn bush turkeys, wish you could eat them or something, since they’re eating food which would otherwise be on your table!
We’re waiting Celia. If we ever get real food shortages, those turkeys are going to be very tasty!