Rumpy Pumpy

Since I wrote my first post for UK Handmade, two of my pumpkins have fallen off the vine! 

*Boom boom* indeed. Serves me right for teasing my pumpkins *waaaaaaail*

So we brought him in and decided to try and eat the little chap. I threw him into an aubergine and minced pork stirfry I was making, and he was quite edible, but what a little bitter gourd!

My mum-in-law, who lives in Devon, mentioned that plants could use a little help with fertilisation to increase fruit yields. So she's been using her hand to do the job, dibbling her fingers in the male, then female, flowers of her nectarine trees down south.  Her efforts have yielded a bumper crop of nectarines this year, and while It's not often one gets advice on how to have great plant sex from the MIL, I decided to try it. So I've been getting my fingers dirty in the garden... dibbling away... but since the little pumpies fell off, I guess I simply wasn't doing it right     *droop*

Then my next-door neighbour told me that I need to put the male bit in the female bit. Ahh, yesss...so in my zealousy, I broke it off and showed 'im where to put it!  Now, I don't know if I'm allowed to publish this, so parents please shield your children's eyes from this next picture of explicit pumpy rumpy *hand over screen*

She tried to act all coy, hiding under the foliage, but her wide-open petals told me she was ready...

I think this might be a good point to break the tension with the sensible birds and bees bit:

Female flowers each bloom on a small baby pumpkin, which, if left unfertilised, will eventually fall off the vine. I learnt this the hard way, so here's hoping you'll have more success than I did at my first attempt to grow my own pumpy. You can rely on the birds and bees, but this is more uncertain, so taking Nature into your own hands will increase your chances that you'll have a Jack O'Lantern for Halloween. You can tell the boy and girl flowers apart very easily. The boy grows on a long thin stalk and has a single stamen when they bloom so he's Willy all the way, whereas the girl sits on her ovary (the tiny pumpkin)...much like Henrietta sitting on her eggs, I suppose. Nature is so consistent...and feminist! You can so tell she's a woman. In this case, it's the girl who wields the pistil, and there are numerous boy flowers to each girl one. None of this one-bullock-to-an-entire-herd-of-cows pat (geddit? cow...pat...) or one-cock-for-all-the-broody-chickens lark. Morning nookie is best, as the flowers tend to close-shop later in the day. If he's mature enough, the boy should release his pollen if you rub his stamen gently with your finger. Then make sure the pollen comes into contact with all segments of the girl's stigma. You can leave the stamen in the girl flower - I inserted it (see picture above). Hey, might as well go all the way, right?

There're more details about this, and many other bad jokes about rumpy Pumpy at the Pumpkin Nook.

In my eagerness to bear fruit, I also opened a slightly withered flower and pollinated that one too. I don't know yet how I feel about all this pumpkin pimpin'. These ladies don't give much away, but ask me again in a few weeks and I'll let you know if they've moved on yet.

The Rise of Middle-Aged Kingdom

This is the first year that my husband, Andy, and I have decided to cultivate a kitchen garden even though we’ve both longed to for many years. He comes from a biology background, so his interest stems from a geeky passion for wildlife. I’m Singaporean Chinese, with a double dose of appetite that those nationalities imply, so obviously I just want to know if I can eat everything!

To be honest, I don’t know a great deal about plants, so two years into having bought our own house, I’m still trying to figure out what was planted in our garden by the sweet old lady who used to live here. It’s mostly low-growing flowers, tulips, daffs and primroses in the spring, poppies in the summer and a few ornamental shrubs.

We’d had a few experiments in the past. There was the year that Andy’s landlord let him plant a few rows of cabbage, lettuce, beets and carrots in the mostly paved and unweeded garden in Botley, Oxfordshire. The carrots came out round and stumpy in the shallow soil, and the cabbages so overrun with caterpillars that Andy decided to sacrifice those to protect everything else. The lettuce and beets were excellent, though, as they have been in our garden this year.

We enjoyed a series of serendipitous discoveries whilst housesitting for our friends John and Kelly in a sweet little cottage near Stratford-upon-Avon. They’ve now moved permanently to Washington D.C., but Kels had a penchant for strewing seeds and putting plants in unexpected places. So, mint grew out of the drainholes all year round, cornflowers sprouted from the pebbled backyard, there was a little herb pit, and, one year, we were delighted to find a fragrant blackcurrant bush hidden under the other shrubs. That garden also had the best apple tree in the world. I wish I’d known what sort it was.

Back to the present, our garden is pretty tiny, but it’s all ours! Try to imagine a manageable size that a lady in her 80s could keep under control and you’ve got the right idea. 

That's it.

Oh, and this corridor...but we even have spare room!  Check out the empty basket tower... Yet, the number of different herbs and veggies we’ve managed to fit in this year has been staggering! I scribbled everything down while on the train the other day, and here’s the list I came up with: Herbs - Basil, Borage, Coriander, Chocolate Mint, Chives, Mint, Olive herb, Oregano, Sage, Sorrel and Tarragon Fruit & veggies - Cox Apples, Beets, Chilli, Courgettes, Lettuce, Peas, Potatoes, Pumpkins and Strawberries

We’ve also got tiny quinces and roses poking through from next door, and an avocado seedling that I’ve been experimenting with, but I guess they don’t really count.

I wouldn’t say we’ve had abundant harvests or anything, but we approached all this with only the desire to see what would happen. Above all, this really proves that you don’t need a lot of space to grow your own food. You don’t need a lot of time either, but having the patience to keep everything well watered during dry spells will go a long way. Really, for the effort that’s gone into our crops this year, the joy we’ve had from it has been immeasurable. But, if you’re reading this and considering a kitchen garden yourself, then you probably know that already.

We started in May, which is quite late, so it remains to be seen which crops can reach their full maturity. But we’re still looking forward to our apples and beets which are coming along nicely, we have 1 weeny pumpkin and 2 weenier ones on the way, our third courgette is swelling to a nice size, the herbs are still going and we’ve been self-sufficient with lettuce for about 2 months now. And there’s little to do except watering on dry days. Not bad for a patch the size of a cosy living room!

A brief glimpse at my current line-up:

King Courgette III

Courgetters jostling for attention...but who'll be Courgette IV, V and VI?

Enter their close cousin, Pumpkin! *boom boom*

We're also rooting for the beet, but he prefers to lie low.