Moss Hey Gardening Club
Tuesday 20th October 2015
Weather :
Children:
Year 4 lunchtime
Minnie
Francesca
Luke
Jack
James
Thomas
Year 3
Matthew
Amelie
Oliver
Sana
Year 5
Sophie
Harry
Scarlett
Owen
A little bit chilly but dry
Year 6
Sam
Mia
Freddie
Aimee
PUMPKINS!!
We all love carving Pumpkins at Halloween, but these big bright
orange fruits have a very interesting history. Did you know that
the tradition of carving faces and putting candles inside started in
Ireland?
The Irish used to use potatoes and turnips to
carve and light to ward off evil spirits, but
when the first Irish people settled in
America and saw Pumpkins growing they
thought these would do a much better job! (have a look at the scary story
of Jack – why Halloween pumpkins are sometimes called Jack-o-lanterns).
We weighed the pumpkins we had, guessing first how many kilos we thought
they would be. They were about 2.5kg. Then we cut them open and had a
look inside. There were
lots of seeds (a medium
sized Pumpkin has about
500) and lots of stringy
orange stuff which we
gave to the worms. (They
will turn this into compost
that we can use to grow
pumpkins next year!)
We scooped out all the seeds with our hands or spoons, and then
washed the seeds. Pumpkin seeds are very good for you and make
a great snack, so we decided to keep some for planting next
Spring, and use the rest for eating – you can
roast them with some oil and salt – yummy!
We made our own seed packets to store the
seeds for growing next year and decorated
them, and some children wrote the recipe for
roasted pumpkin seeds on the back!
We will need to make a big “Pumpkin patch”
next Spring as they need lots of room to grow
– maybe we can do this down by the chickens
as they will need lots of watering, and we have
a water butt there?
We looked at some more interesting
pumpkin facts :







Pumpkins have been growing for 5,000 years
A pumpkin is made up of 90% water
Pumpkins are from the squash family, as are cucumbers and
melons!
They contain lots of vitamin A and are very good for you.
You can eat pumpkin flowers, seeds and the flesh
The largest pumpkin ever grown weighed over 1,000kg
Americans use pumpkins to make pies, soups, desserts and
bread.
Have a wonderful Halloween and remember to save the seeds!
Mandy