The Quest for Gramma Pumpkins

In Melbourne some time ago we found a gramma pumpkin at the Queen Victoria Markets and came home to bake a wonderful gramma pie. We kept the seeds hoping to produce lots of big gramma pumpkins in the next season, however most of out gramma plants were never pollinated, apart from four gourds that began to grow. This is how they turned out:

(The thin long orange ones look like proper gramma's but the rest have obviously been crossed with neighbouring veggie patches.)

Pumpkin Seeds

It has come to the time of year where I need to start planting seeds in small pots to put in our little green house for spring. Every year I grow pumpkins - and this is the end product of one of my gramma pumpkin seeds. I'm thinking my neighbour had a different variety of pumpkin that a bee had visited, all of my pumpkins look different to one another.

The inside colour..

Washing and drying the gramma cross something seeds so I can grow more in the future.

Roses

It's winter at the moment so I decided to prune the roses in my garden. I thought the colours in the stems were pretty, I cant wait for them to be in bloom this spring.

Chilli Plants

We have two varieties of Chilli plants growing in our backyard, one is a big bush and the other is a small variety that we grow in pots.

Russian Tomatoes

This year we had heaps of luck growing our russian tomatoes. These seeds were given to us by our Grandmother who has been growing vegies her whole life.

Here is an inside view of what a russian tomato looks like. The patterns on the inside are amazing.

This is what our veggie patch looks like when we grow tomatoes - a sea of white netting and wooden stakes! sadly half of our crop always seems to go to the birds and beetles.

Berry Picking!!

We had the pleasure of visiting a blueberry farm near Myrtleford, Victoria. The owner of the farm had about 6 acres of blueberries needing to be picked since her farmer friend couldn’t get down to help out. We had heaps of fun and it was such a pretty area surrounded by green hills and serene lakes.

 

Flowers

Here are some of the flowers we grew last summer.

Strawberries

I had some luck at growing strawberries by keeping them close to the kitchen door this year where I could water them constantly, they didnt like being left right down the backyard in the harsh sunlight.

Cucumbers

Every year I try and grow lots of cucumbers as we end up pickling most of them. I always have a huge problem with garden slaters and little orange beetles that eat the stems of my plants. It was a battle this year to keep the cucumber vines alive!

My Pumpkins

Over the years I have grown many kinds of pumpkins..

These ones are

We decded to try and grow some gramma pumpkins so we could make gramma pie. Most of the tiny gramma pumpkins seemed to look healthy at the start, but then they would shrivel up and die as if they didnt get pollunated. I was getting worried that we wouldnt produce any fruit at all, but then we managed to get one or two to grow into the right shape. This one stayed green rather than the pale yellow colour we were expecting.