When I were lad, Halloween lanterns were carved out of swedes or turnips. In fact, Halloween was mainly something that Americans did because they didn’t have Bonfire Night. Trick or Treat hadn’t been invented and. And although we were familiar with pumpkins, like unicorns they didn’t exist in the real world.

Nowadays almost every allotment plot has patch devoted to at least one variety of winter squash. Even if this year’s crop has not been great, due to the lack of sun, we still have butternut and Hubbard golden squash, both of which are ideal for Halloween soup accompanied by savoury pumpkin cakes and seeds.

Pumpkin Soup with savoury pumpkin cakes and toasted seeds

The quantities I have suggested should serve eight. Split the pumpkin in half and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. You will then have to separate the seeds themselves from the sticky fibre. Weigh out the required quantity, peel and cube.

For the soup you will need:

1 large onion, chopped
3 pt stock
2lb lb pumpkin, cubed
1 large carrot, thinly sliced
1 oz of butter
½ lb potato, peeled and diced
½ pt single cream
Parsley finely chopped, salt and pepper

Prepare the stock according to whatever ingredients you have in hand. (On this occasion, I used onions, celery, carrots, a winter radish, a bunch of herbs and a glass of white wine. Meat or chicken stock would also do.)

In a heavy saucepan, fry the onion gently in the butter. Add the pumpkin and carrot the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. The carrot is not essential, but adds colour, particularly if the pumpkin is not fully ripe. Add the potato and continue to simmer until the vegetables are soft. Then liquidise in batches. I also push the soup through a sieve to make sure that there are no bits and that the soup has a rich, velvety texture.

Just before serving, reheat the soup, add salt and pepper to taste, stir in the cream and sprinkle with parsley.

For the savoury pumpkin cakes you will need:

1½ lb pumpkin, cubed
4 oz plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tb sugar
½ teaspoon spice (e.g. cinnamon, allspice, ginger, Chinese 5 spice)
1 egg
Pinch of salt
Sunflower oil
(Makes about 24)

Bake the pumpkin in a hot oven until soft, turning if the edges seems to be browning. While the pumpkin is cooling, pour oil into the bottom of 2 small tart tins, the sort that are used for mince pies. The compartments should be about ¼ full of oil. Put into the hot oven

Meanwhile mash the pumpkin with the sugar, spice, salt and egg. Mix the flour and baking powder and fold into the mixture. When the oil in the tins is very hot, put a spoonful of the mixture in each compartment and back until they are the colour of onion bhajis. About ten minutes should do it. (The ones in the photo went a bit dark, but still tasted fine) Take out of the oven and keep warm. As an alternative, you can deep fry spoonfuls of the mixture of make pumpkin fritters.

While you are reheating the soup, heat a tablespoon of oil over a high flame and then fry the pumpkin seeds with a sprinkling of salt. Drain on kitchen towel once they are golden brown.

Poor Man’s Liver

Obviously you will have lots of pumpkin left over. Pumpkin pie is one possibility. Another is a Sicilian dish, named Poor Man’s Liver. For the same eight people you will need:

2 lb pumpkin cut in ¼” slices, still with the skin attached
2 tbs dried mint
6-8 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced
1 tsp salt
Olive oil for frying
Lemon wedges

(We dry mint in bunches tied across the front of our fireplace. At this time of the year, it has a really strong, fresh taste. You could use a cupful of fresh mint instead.) Heat the oil over a medium flame. When it is hot, lay the slices of pumpkin in the pan and fry. Sprinkle with dried mint, salt and garlic and fry, turning until brown. Serve with lemon wedges and rice or pasta.

The frosts have come again and done the damage, the squash and courgettes have turned up their leaves and finished. I think that the last few tomatoes will take a bit of ripening and the peppers have stopped. The cucumber nearest the door has died but the others further into the tunnel are still struggling on, with about 6 or 7 cucumbers still growing.

I have taken all the squashes off the plants and put them in the tunnel to finish off ripening while the plants have been pulled up. I think it’s time to clear tunnel 2 and start getting it ready for next year, dug over and manured.

I am continuing with the ongoing task of digging over the cleared areas and spreading manure on them, however I have started with next years crops. The garlic has arrived and is now in the ground - a nice feeling with everything else looking less than fresh.

Even though the frost has started to affect the less tender plants some are still looking good, the lupins are flowering and bring a smile at this time of year and the winter crops are also looking healthy.

JOBS FOR THE WEEK

1. Start rebuilding manure area
2. Start clearing flower bed
3. Continue clearing, digging and spreading manure to areas finished cropping

WORK DONE THIS WEEK 

SUNDAY

1. Lay slabs in front of shed
2. dig over and manure one squash bed
3. Dig over second squash bed
4. Water
5. Move comfrey bin to new home

MONDAY

1. Dig and weed rest of 2nd squash area

TUESDAY

1. Move cold frames
2. Dig over area under cold frames
3. Pick
4. Water 

WEDNESDAY

1. Weed and  dig over area of last sweetcorn bed
2. Manure cold frame area
3. Start manuring area dug today
4. Pick

THURSDAY

Quick check over plot (AMAS meeting)

FRIDAY

1. Water

SATURDAY

Working today

CROPS PICKED THIS WEEK

1.  Runner beans
2. Carrots
3. Squash
4. Beetroot
5. Celery
6. Cabbage

This milder weather has prompted the cucumbers into new growth and there are several new fruits on two of the plants. The leeks are already doing a lot better than last year and they still have plenty of time to grow bigger. The set back to the squash plants by the frost in early September has not had much effect as the squash are growing well.

The carrots, spinach and spring cabbage planted in tunnel 1 are growing well due to this mild, even warm weather and I might get an earlier crop than I expected. This mild spell has also stopped me getting on with sorting out my seed order for next year, I am waiting for a wet day to sit down and do it.

I have at last got the new shed from home onto the plot and erected it on its base, the old shed is now history and the path down the middle of the plot now extends from end to end. I can also make the manure area larger so I can get more than one load on it.

There are still crops that are no longer producing to be removed, the area can then be dug and manured for next year. This is an ongoing work load for the next few months and may become boring if repeated too often.

JOBS FOR THE WEEK

1. Manure potato plot - Done
2. Manure pea area - Done
3. Lay path in front of new shed
4. Rebuild manure area retaining fence
5. Start clearing last flower bed

WORK DONE THIS WEEK

SUNDAY

1. Dig over old shed area
2. Lay path over above
3. Pick
4. Water
5. Prepare base of path in front of new shed

MONDAY

1. Cut back hedge for manure delivery
2. Help Roy clear manure off road

TUESDAY

1. Start covering potato bed with manure
2. Water
3. Dig manure in and rake over small garlic bed 

WEDNESDAY

1. Pick 

THURSDAY

1. Water
2. Spread manure on potato bed

FRIDAY

1. Spread manure on potato bed 

SATURDAY

1. Water
2. Pick
3. Pull out last bed of sweetcorn
4. Pull up all squash plantsafter picking all squash
5. dig over main garlic bed and rake out
6. Spread manure on pea and bean bed.

CROPS PICKED THIS WEEK

1. Tomatoes
2. Peppers
3. Aubergines 
4. Chillies
5. Sprouts
6. Beans
7. Cabbage
8. Celery
9. Courgettes
10. Carrots
11. Beetroot
12. Spinach
13. Leeks

For me the year turns when the first frost blackens the leaves of courgettes, withering the stems and killing the fruit. And with the courgettes go the green beans, the summer salad and the rest of it. Thereafter it’s winter veg and food from the freezer. Of course, this change of seasons is highly individual, personal even. Two years ago, it was the first week of September that the fickle finger of frost singled out our plot. Our neighbours, on the other hand - bless them - were cutting courgettes and picking tomatoes right into November!

The other main sign of the change of the seasons is a streaming cold. So, following two nights on which the Met Office had reported zero temperatures and “a widespread ground frost in all parts”, it was with a sense of foreboding and a runny nose that I unlocked the gates to our site. At first sight our plot seemed to have been blighted. The leaves of the French beans had a blackish green fringe and a baby butternut squash lying on the edge of the road had an unhealthy, yellowish tinge. However, on closer inspection, the damage was superficial and the plot had survived its first brush with death and in the heart of the main courgette bed, the leaves were still bright green.

We grow two varieties: a standard green, the name of which I forget, and Gold Rush, which as the name suggests is bright yellow. I can’t tell them apart by taste, but for the dish which I had in mind the contrast between the green and yellow was perfect.

Courgettes & Tomatoes with Garlic and Bay Leaves

Take yellow and green courgettes. Slice them about ½” thick. Throw them into a pan of hot olive oil and fry with a handful of bay leaves, lots of garlic – it’s not necessary to peel the cloves, certainly not necessary to chop them – and more salt than you may think is healthy. The salt is important because it causes the courgettes to brown. You need to keep the oil hot, turning the courgettes with a slotted spoon or spatula. When they are nicely brown, add chopped or whole cherry tomatoes and continue to fry until the skins of the tomatoes split and they start to ooze juice. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and serve with whatever you fancy. You can have them with a plate of pasta or as an accompaniment to most meat but avoid anything with a really delicate flavour which will just be overwhelmed.

Back to the plot. The plant in what had been a hot-bed puzzled me. It had been the most productive, benefiting from protection from the wind and from the bed of now rotted manure into which it had been planted. Although the leaves were still vigorous, it appeared to have given up producing fruit. It took me some minutes to discover the cause: four and a half pounds of cause, in fact, hidden in the undergrowth. A yellow monster, too big to photograph.

“Have you seen this?” I called to my neighbour, who was also down inspecting the frost damage.

“You could always do stuffed marrow,” she suggested. “Split it in two, scoop out the insides…”

In my opinion the trouble with the overgrown-courgette-as-vegetable-marrow solution is that the heat of the oven forms a crust on top of the stuffing while at the same time driving out the liquid from the courgette which is trapped in a pool beneath the stuffing. What you get is not so much baked as boiled. It’s much better, I think, to cut the courgette into generous slices, cut out the seeds and fill the resultant rings filled with stuffing and roast on a baking tray. Onions sautéed in olive oil, mixed with chopped tomatoes, mushroom and fresh herbs and combined with breadcrumbs works well.

The other trouble with the stuffed marrow solution, of course, is that it wasn’t going to work very well with the courgette and tomato dish. So this is what I did.

Marrow Ginger

Split the courgette/marrow lengthways and scoop out the seeds. Then peel it. It is important to remove all the peel and the fibrous bits around the seeds as they will never soften in the cooking. Cut it into ¾” cubes and put into a heavy pan. For 4lbs of prepared courgette, grate or finely chop the peel of one lemon, and add to the courgette with the juice of three lemons. Peel and finely chop a 2” piece of fresh ginger. Add to the courgette. Take about 20 green cardamom pods, extract the tiny black seeds and add these. Add three pounds of sugar and slowly bring the pan to a simmer, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Cook gently for half and hour or so until the courgette becomes translucent. Then allow to cool.

Marrow (or courgette) ginger will keep for months in a jar in the fridge. The exact proportions are not critical. If you use an equal quantity of sugar to fruit, you will end up with marrow ginger jam. The cardamom seeds are optional and the quantity of ginger can be varied to taste. The dish is very rich and a little goes a long way. Serve with Greek-style yoghurt, which cuts through the richness, rather than cream.

And after all that garlic, lemon and ginger, the streaming cold with which I woke up was gone. The sun is shining and, who knows, perhaps we’ll be picking summer veg into November.

Even though there are plenty of plants growing and producing crops the work at this time of year tends to be split into two main areas. Picking the continuing crops and, once they have finished cropping, clearing the ground and digging over for next year. The other difficulty is finding something to photograph, the plants still growing are in many cases looking pretty tatty.

The old strawberry bed is now no more, though I decided to keep 8 of the plants because they were still producing well after 5 years and the plants are healthy. The rest of the bed has been dug and manured ready for the garlic , which should arrive soon.

I have cleared and dug over the area occupied by one block of sweetcorn and the dwarf french beans, pulling the squash over to one side and reducing the growth where there were no fruits on the stems.

The first load of manure is arriving this week and I have cleared the area for it to be tipped on. I also intend to bring the shed from home  down and re erect it on the plot this week, the old shed can then be removed.

JOBS FOR THE WEEK

1. Tidy up round old shed
2. Finish levelling area for new shed
3. Start spreading manure
4. Bring shed from home and erect
5. Clear last block of sweetcorn

WORK DONE THIS WEEK

SUNDAY

1. Pick
2. Water
3. Dig over area of second sweetcorn
4. Remove side of manure area
5. Start burning rubbish.

MONDAY

1. Plant up tunnel 1 with last seedlings
2. Water
3. Clear old path to one side of shed

TUESDAY

1. Manure delivered, fill manure area and tidy up.

WEDNESDAY

1. Pick

THURSDAY

1. Water
2. Start spreading manure 

FRIDAY

1. Pick
2. Water 

CROPS PICKED THIS WEEK

1. Beans
2. Cabbage
3. Peppers
4. Sprouts
5. Lettuce
6. Tomatoes
7. Chillies
8. Water melon