My pumpkin harvest - too many for one wheelbarrow

Whangaparaoa Crown

and

Queensland Blue pumpkins,

harvested April 29.

For the first time ever I have finally grown more than enough pumpkins for our household. The fifteen plants that went into the ground at the end of October had produced 38 pumpkins between them by the end of April. Most of them are a good size; some weigh more than ten kilograms. 

I raised four different varieties from seed – mainly Queensland Blue and Whangaparaoa Crown, with a few Marina di Chioggia and Galeux d'Eysines. 

I think a Triamble seed got into one of my seed packets by mistake, as one of the pumpkins I raised looks much more like this variety than it looks like any of the ones I thought I sowed. 

To get such good results from my plants I followed some advice I read somewhere which turned out to be the most useful pumpkin growing advice I have ever had, so I pass it on here. As well as giving the pumpkins rich soil (mine were growing among sweetcorn in ground heavily manured with horse manure to meet the corn's needs), plus lots of water, pinch out the growing tip of each pumpkin and pull off any new flowers as soon as it has set two or three sound fruit. This way the plant's energy goes into growing two or three big pumpkins, not lots of little ones, or ones that come too late in the season to amount to anything.

 

Now - if anyone has any good pumpkin recipes, please share! 

  Marina di Chioggia, Galeux d'Eysines and Queensland Blue.