This one small gardening tip completely changed the way my pumpkins taste! 🎃

Published: Sun, 10/31/21

Happy Halloween, Rural Sprout Readers,

This week it was clear that fall is finally here to stay. We enjoyed rainy, foggy days all week long, which are a personal favorite of mine this time of year. The gold and red leaves always pop in this kind of weather, and there’s something almost magical about the way the fog hangs around the mountain tops.

All week, I was in full nesting mode like a busy squirrel getting ready for the cold winter months ahead. I cooked a turkey and made bone broth. I started another gallon of mead. And I roasted the first of our pumpkins.

These pumpkins are rather special.

They represent food sovereignty in my self-sufficient journey. Do you see the pale orange cheese wheel pumpkin in this terribly grainy photo?

I bought it at a local farmer’s market two years ago. And I used it when I wrote our article - Pumpkin Seeds – How to Save and How to Toast.

This past winter, I poked two of the seeds I had saved from that pumpkin into seed starting mix and watched as two small pumpkin seedlings grew. Later in the spring, my sweetie and I planted them in his yard in nothing more than a few shovels full of compost.

As you can see, those two little plants flourished.

And here we are, enjoying pumpkins that we grew from seeds I saved two years ago. My efforts have come full circle tonight as I saved seeds from the pumpkin we grew so that we can plant more next year.

I’m not sure why, but this pumpkin tastes especially good. Maybe it was a good year for pumpkins, maybe it’s the taste of food independence, or maybe it’s both.

All I know is, there’s something truly gratifying about knowing the food you are eating came not only from your garden but from your efforts to save a tiny piece of the harvest from the previous year.

If you’re a gardener and haven’t yet started saving seeds, I can wholeheartedly say that it’s worth the time and effort. Gardeners already enjoy the added mental health and stress-relieving benefits of their craft, but when you add food sovereignty into the picture, it becomes something life-altering.

Plus, it’s fun to brag about over Thanksgiving dinner as you serve your pumpkin pie.

I hope you’ll check out the piece I wrote two years ago about saving pumpkin seeds. And I hope you take the time to save those seeds this year. It will be the beginning of a whole new chapter in your gardening story.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, dear reader, I have pumpkin soup to make.

Pumpkin Seeds – How to Save and How to Toast

Save some pumpkin seeds to grow next spring this fall. Pumpkin seeds are one of the easiest seeds to start learning how to save seeds for future gardens.

Click Here to read

Start This Delicious Spiced Mead Today & Drink It Next Month

If you’ve ever wanted to try making mead but were intimidated by how long it took, you’ll want to check this article out. Start this batch today, and you’ll be sipping mead by Thanksgiving through Christmas. And the equipment list is the bare minimum.

Click Here to read

How To Propagate Spider Plants – With and Without Spiderettes

Who doesn’t love spider plants? Did you know they are one of the easiest plants out there to propagate? Learn how with or without spiderettes!

Click Here to read

That's all for this week, Rural Sprout Readers.

Sincerely,

Tracey

Editor

Rural Sprout