With Halloween just around the corner, you likely have carved your pumpkins already, but you might want to consider keeping the blue ones for soups or curries – if you can get your hands on some of course.
One man with plenty to spare, somewhat of a Halloween harvester, is Gerry Toner.
Agriland recently visited Ballymad Farm in Piltown, Co. Meath, where Gerry and his wife Sarah started growing pumpkins about four years ago.
Growing 12 different varieties on their farm – orange ones, white ones, green ones and blue ones – the Toners opened the Piltown Pumpkin Patch as a thank you to the local community which bought directly from the farm gate last year.
“All our pumpkins are grown on the far side of the farm and then stored at our farmyard, and moved onto a stubble field for ease of picking for all of the families that come and visit.
“What we like about having the patch here is the fact that we can bring young people to the farm and show them where produce is actually grown and where it comes from,” Gerry told Agriland.
What is now a horticulture and tillage farm with cut-flower production at the core of the business, originally began as a dairy and tillage enterprise four generations back.
Produce grown at Ballymad Farm also includes three types of flowers, a small amount of rhubarb, corn and recently harvested spring barley – some of which has been transformed into scarecrows to decorate an on-farm woodland walk.
Ballymad Farm
Gerry has been involved in the family farm from a young age, however he always liked the crop and tillage side of farming the most.
“You couldn’t really keep me off the farm,” he told Agriland.
After finishing school and spending one year at Ballyhaise Agricultural College, Gerry decided to study agriculture with mechanisation at Harper Adams University in England, where he met his wife Sarah, who is a veterinary nurse.
Coming back to the farm in Ireland about five years ago, it was an easy decision for Gerry and Sarah to get into pumpkin production because the equipment needed was similar to that used for flowers.
The crops for the pumpkins currently on the patch were planted in May, and the couple started harvesting in the middle of September, before storing and distributing them around the patch.
Gerry and Sarah also encourage bumblebees to pollinate the pumpkin fields. The smaller varieties – particularly the gourds – are open pollinated, which can result in pumpkins with different shapes and colours growing on the same plant.
In some parts of Europe pumpkins are kept throughout the winter, especially some of the eating varieties (blue and green), which are quite sweet and good in soups or curries, according to Gerry.
“But I think, possibly, over here it is more of a Halloween thing,” the farmer added.
When asked why that is the case, Gerry said: “Well, I know what the Irish answer to that is.”
Halloween – an Irish tradition?
He explained: “People would have carved turnips originally, and when the Irish emigrated to America they carved pumpkins because they were easier to find and to cut. Coming back they then spread the tradition across Europe.
“It is definitely an Irish tradition.”
The name ‘Halloween’ derives from it being the evening before the Feast of All Saints, and many celebrations owe their origins to customs associated with the ancient festival of ‘Oíche Shamhna’ celebrated by the Celts, according to the National Museum of Ireland.
While the eve of Oíche Shamhna (Samhain), which falls on November 1, was one of four important seasonal markers and signalled the onset of winter, it was also known as ghost night, when the souls of the dead were expected to return to the family home.
Evil spirits were thought to be active and people avoided travelling alone on this night, while ghostly masks were made to frighten neighbours, according to the National Museum of Ireland.
Despite Halloween being around the corner, Ballymad Farm is already planning next year’s crops; what varieties they will grow on the land; and what they will offer families visiting the patch next year.