This week, Sofia has been to Sevenoaks' Castle Farm, where they have 13 different varieties of pumpkins, from traditional carving ones to brightly coloured and even tasty ones!
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00:00 Hello and welcome to Made in Kent live on KMTV. I'm Sophia Akin and today we have a
00:21 very special Halloween edition of Made in Kent for you. We've been to Sevenoaks Castle
00:26 Farm where they have 13 different varieties of pumpkins from traditional carving ones
00:30 to brightly coloured ones and even tasty ones as well. We'll also visit Whitstable where
00:35 a group of local artists are displaying their work at the Made in Whitstable event and we'll
00:39 show you pumpkins carved from across Kent. So stay tuned for a treat and no tricks on
00:44 Made in Kent. Now most of you have probably put your creative hats on and started carving
00:49 pumpkins right in time for trick or treaters tonight. Earlier this month we paid a visit
00:54 to a Sevenoaks farm ahead of their pumpkin picking period where they have a dozen of
00:59 different types of pumpkins. If you think that's a lot that's nothing compared to the
01:02 some hundred different types that are out there. Take a look. Pumpkins can come in all
01:09 types of shapes and sizes. 150 different types in fact. For one farm in Sevenoaks theirs
01:16 have taken months to grow to this size. Especially this one. They're encouraging visitors to
01:22 guess the weight of the king pumpkin. Castle Farm has around 13 different varieties. They're
01:28 not just used for decorative purposes around Halloween but are also popular for cooking.
01:33 This one is a Turk's turban. This one's really popular for harvest festivals earlier in the
01:38 season. We've got these wonderful crown prince. These are my favourite cooking pumpkin actually.
01:44 Sweet lightning, casparitas, gold dust, rolle. We've got quite a South African following
01:51 around here and they're really really popular food in South Africa. It might be crisp and
01:55 chilly now but the start of this month saw much hotter temperatures for autumn which
02:00 had an impact on how the autumn fruit grew. Obviously because they're out in the field
02:04 there's no shade out here, no shelter for them. The sun has actually scorched some of
02:10 our pumpkins. If you have a look around you'll see some of the pumpkins have like a small
02:15 yellow halo around. That just obviously means that they haven't been burnt by the sun. For
02:22 us for quality purposes that's something that we don't really pick for sale. In the weeks
02:28 leading up to Halloween they have hundreds coming along to pick pumpkins which they can
02:33 choose from this display. As we've seen there are many different types of varieties of pumpkins
02:38 but these ones here are potentially the ones that are most associated with Halloween as
02:42 these are the ones that people often carve. So now we need to get these over to the shop.
02:47 We start by cutting the stem. So now we've got to take these over to the tractor bumbler
02:58 and they're all pretty heavy. Once the pumpkins have been picked they then get taken over
03:07 to the farm shop and added to this vast display for people to come and buy themselves. But
03:12 once Halloween is over and the pumpkins come inside how can they be correctly disposed
03:17 of? I mean they're a natural product so they will compost. The only thing I would recommend
03:21 in that is obviously if you've carved it you've taken the seeds out. You don't want the seeds
03:25 in your compost or you'll start growing lots of pumpkins. So which one would you choose?
03:30 The classic carving pumpkin, one of the smaller ones or maybe a spooky one just in time for
03:36 Halloween. Sophia Akin for KMTV in Sevenoaks. Lorna joins me now to tell me a little bit
03:43 about how the pumpkin season has gone so far. So how's it been for you this month with all
03:48 the pumpkins you've got, all the different varieties? It's been brilliant. We've had
03:51 a really full display of pumpkins down at Castle Farm and we grew a lot of them, all
03:57 of them pretty much, down near our big hop gardens on Castle Farm. Loads of different
04:02 varieties and that's something that we're finding is that people are being a lot more
04:05 experimental about trying different pumpkins, different tastes, different flavours and using
04:10 them for different recipes as well. I had no idea that there were this many different
04:15 types and I remember Hazel was sort of telling me the different kinds for different things.
04:19 Some of them are slightly better for cooking and some of them are slightly better for display
04:22 aren't they? So briefly tell us a little bit about that. You were saying this is your favourite
04:26 one for cooking. It is, yes. This lovely grey skinned one is called a Crown Prince and it's
04:30 really lovely, full of rich flavour and that's a brilliant one for soup. Actually one of
04:35 the ways that I cook it is when you're sort of cooking down the chunks of pumpkin, I cook
04:39 it in a red curry paste. So I put a pot of red curry paste in and some onions. Then once
04:44 you blitz it all up you mix in a can of coconut cream and that is beautiful. That sounds amazing.
04:48 It's a really lovely red spice, Thai pumpkin soup which is great. But they look like props
04:54 don't they? They look amazing but they're all completely real. This is a brilliant one,
04:58 this is onion squash and this one's excellent for roasting. You can sort of cut it all into
05:03 quarters and roast those quarters whole, just sprinkled with lovely spices or just salt
05:07 and pepper. Everybody knows a butternut squash. So you can get those quite a lot in the supermarket
05:12 but they've probably got one of the mildest flavours and some of the others have got slightly
05:16 more interesting flavours or sort of peppery, stronger flavours. Yes, some people might not
05:20 realise that a butternut squash is in the same family. They all look so different don't
05:24 they? But essentially you can cook with them, you can use them as display. I wish we could
05:28 have our display like this all year round. I guess today is probably the last day people
05:33 will have their pumpkins out for Halloween, won't it? But what can people do after Halloween?
05:39 Can they still cook with their pumpkins even if they've carved them? Absolutely. I mean
05:43 it depends how long it's been sitting on your doorstep. You can make a call whether you
05:46 want to still eat it or not but it's something that's been carved today and put up for display
05:50 purposes this evening for trick or treating. You'd still be able to eat that, that wouldn't
05:53 be a problem at all. One of the first things you should do though is when you're preparing
05:58 your pumpkin for decorating or for carving, when you take out all the seeds, put everything
06:03 to one side, you can sort through everything later, hollow out as much as you need and
06:08 make sure you keep some of that flesh because even these big pumpkins are used for carving
06:12 traditionally, they can all be eaten as well and every part of the pumpkin is edible from
06:16 the seeds you can roast in the oven through to all the lovely flesh and even the skin.
06:22 Some people make pumpkin crisps out of the skin. Incredible, so you can really use pretty
06:27 much every part of a pumpkin then can't you? They're very versatile. And for those people
06:31 that maybe don't want to eat them, how can they correctly dispose of them in a way that's
06:34 sort of environmentally friendly? Well obviously using the pumpkins, if you've got a compost
06:39 bin, once they've finished being on display outside then you can put them into the compost
06:44 bin. One thing you've got to remember though is don't put your seeds in your compost bin
06:48 and forget about it because in 12 months time you'll have a whole heap of pumpkins growing
06:52 out of your compost. So remove the seeds before you put them into compost. If you don't have
06:57 a compost bin and maybe you've got a smaller pumpkin but you have got a garden, something
07:01 quite nice to do is cut it up into lots of little chunks and you can bury them about
07:06 20 centimetres deep in the soil and that's great for worms and bugs and beetles and all
07:10 that sort of thing and that will feed them for a little bit as well. Or birds, you can
07:15 leave it at the bottom of a garden for it to rot down and wildlife and birds will be
07:19 able to eat it. But if you've got lots or if you've got whole ones that you're not using,
07:23 another idea is also to have a look locally or sort of hop onto Google and see if there's
07:27 any animal rescue farms who often will take leftover Halloween pumpkins to then be able
07:33 to feed to their animals. And do you have any sort of different plans for next year?
07:38 I know this year you had that huge pumpkin and you were getting people to guess the weight
07:42 of it. Has that been announced yet, the weight of it? It has, yes. The winner was announced
07:46 last Friday I believe. How much did it weigh? Because I was intrigued, I was trying to figure
07:50 it out myself. It weighed 48.7 kilograms. Oh my gosh. And the winner guessed 48.9 kilograms.
07:57 Oh that's impressive. It was absolutely ginormous. If you think these ones are big, it was huge.
08:01 It was this big, it was amazing. We would not have known to carry that through. And
08:07 what, yeah, do you have any different plans for Halloween next year? Anything you've got
08:11 in the pipeline so far? No, there's particular varieties that are always much more popular
08:15 than others. And I think that's sometimes if people have seen them being used on cooking
08:18 programmes or social media. The Turk's turban, which are these lovely colourful ones, which
08:24 are often displayed whole as opposed to being carved, these ones sell out every year. They're
08:29 almost the first ones to sell out. So the Turk's turban are ones we like to grow lots
08:32 of. And then also these beautiful little white ones, which are called... I love those ones.
08:37 ...Casparitas, which are ever so pretty. People use them to decorate along the middle of a
08:41 dining table if they've got people coming over for dinner during autumn. And so they're
08:45 absolutely beautiful. So these two we will probably grow more of. But no, we're happy
08:51 that we grow lots of different varieties on the farm for people to be able to try. And
08:55 we saw a little bit of sort of... the weather at the moment isn't too great. It's very,
09:00 you know, storm predicted. But at the start of the month, it was quite warm, wasn't it?
09:04 And some of your colleagues were telling me how this actually has an effect on how the
09:07 pumpkins grow. Some of them were scorched, we saw in my piece. So is that something you're
09:11 seeing quite frequently with the sort of weather changing over the years? It very much depends.
09:16 If you remember last year, it was a lovely hot summer, but then we had quite a sort of
09:21 a rainy autumn. So that sort of affects the pumpkins a little bit, a little bit differently
09:26 as well. Whereas this summer, we had sort of rain throughout the summer and then a very
09:30 dry autumn. So I mean, they're very adaptable. They're still going to grow. They may not
09:34 grow as big as 48 kilograms, but you will still have beautiful big pumpkins in the garden.
09:40 And one thing that you can do for yourself is also to grow them at home. So even if you've
09:44 bought beautiful big pumpkin like this, and you're, you know, composting it or giving
09:48 it to animal rescue, if you keep a few of those seeds, wash them, keep them dry over
09:52 winter and then plant them in a little bit of compost. It's something great for the kids
09:55 to be able to do. Pick out a few little seeds, plant them in a little pot of compost indoors
10:00 in April and then plant them out in May. You'll have your own pumpkins for free.
10:04 There you go. That's a really good tip. And I guess the next holidays is Christmas. So
10:09 what do you have planned? Christmas is going to be here before we know it. So what are
10:12 you doing at the shop for Christmas?
10:13 Well, once the pumpkin, some of the pumpkins, the big orange pumpkins will mostly go away
10:18 and we will send some of us to animal rescue at the end of this week once Halloween is
10:22 done. But all the other lovely edible pumpkins, a lot of people keep these because if you
10:25 keep them in a cool, dry place, people serve them up for part of Christmas dinner. So all
10:30 of these pumpkins are still going to be available. It's just the big orange ones that come to
10:33 the end and then Christmas takes over at Castle Farm. And it's a lovely time of year. There's
10:37 fairy lights galore and the farm shop is like a little Aladdin's cave of delights from gifts,
10:44 unusual gifts. We like to go with a lot of sort of local Kent producers as well as our
10:47 own gifts and lovely decorations as well. And our Christmas tractor comes out. So the
10:52 big Fergies, which we use all the time every year throughout all the different harvest
10:58 seasons, they get decorated up with fairy lights. You can come down and take pictures
11:01 on lovely Christmas tractors.
11:03 Perfect. We came for summer when you had your lavender season. We've come for autumn, so
11:08 maybe we'll come for Christmas as well.
11:10 We'd love to welcome you.
11:11 Thank you very much for joining us.
11:13 Pleasure.
11:14 Now, just before our break, let's take a look at some of the spooky pumpkins that have been
11:18 carved across Kent. Starting off with Casper, it's a charity providing support for those
11:24 with physical or learning disabilities. They've been busy carving those this week. Look, really,
11:30 really good. The next one we've been sent in is actually from one of our reporters,
11:34 Bartholomew. Did a couple there. Pretty good as well. And finally, we've got a couple from
11:39 KMTV's channel director, Andy Richards. The ones that are coming up on the screen now
11:44 were carved by his children, Jack and Eloise. Really good.
11:49 Well, it's time for us to take a quick break now, but coming up, we'll visit Whitstable,
11:54 where a group of local artists are displaying their work. See you soon.
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