I love my pumpkin – favourite things to do with it include baste in olive oil, sea salt and rosemary from the garden and roast (delish), Fetta and Pumpkin frittata (yum), pumpkin soup, and also Thai pumpkin and coconut soup.

I was surprised when I first ventured across the globe to the UK and Holland to find they don’t have a very impressive fruit and vege section in any of their supermarkets, and they basically consider pumpkin to be pig food. The pumpkins they had were tiny (enlarged squash). Can you imagine living without them?

So a few months ago, a plant started growing wildly in the garden (like most of them do), and I had no idea what it was. Could have been anything. Lucky for me it was a pumpkin plant, and even luckier, butternut pumpkins.

Strangely, little flowers with tiny pumpkins would sprout and then simply die. I was perplexed. Then my friend Fran showed me how you use the male flower to fertilise the female flower. I call it ‘secksing the pumpkins’, and I have to say, both Tom and Conor are fascinated by it. If a female flower blooms, and there isn’t a male flower ready, their is a competition between the two to get home to it first. We have nearly had tears because Conor has been going away for a weekend, and would miss his turn.

So, I have 5 in total, and they are beautiful. I cooked one the other day for the Dutch relatives who are here for a holiday – simply roasted in sea salt, olive oil and rosemary from the garden. It was lovely. I have also blended some up for Amber as one of her first foods. She is still spitting 90% of whatever I put in her mouth out, but I am happy she is eating something that I know has been grown free of any chemicals or pesticides.

So here’s a few photos of one of my little pumpkins.