Made in Kent - Tuesday 31st October 2023
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!
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
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.
11:58 [music]
12:03 [silence]
12:07 [silence]
12:11 [silence]
12:15 [silence]
12:19 [silence]
12:23 [silence]
12:27 .
12:32 You you
12:37 you
12:42 you
12:47 you
12:52 you
12:57 you
13:02 you
13:07 you
13:12 you
13:17 you
13:22 you
13:27 you
13:32 you
13:37 you
13:42 you
13:47 you
13:52 you
13:57 you
14:02 you
14:07 you
14:12 you
14:17 you
14:22 you
14:27 you
14:32 you
14:37 you
14:42 you
14:47 you
14:52 you
14:57 you
15:02 you
15:07 you
15:12 you
15:17 you
15:22 you
15:27 you
15:32 you
15:37 you
15:42 you
15:47 you
15:52 you
15:57 you
16:02 you
16:07 you
16:12 you
16:17 you
16:22 you
16:27 you
16:32 you
16:37 you
16:42 you
16:47 you
16:52 you
16:57 you
17:02 you
17:07 you
17:12 you
17:17 you
17:22 you
17:27 you
17:32 you
17:37 you
17:42 you
17:47 you
17:52 you
17:57 you
18:02 you
18:07 you
18:12 you
18:17 you
18:22 you
18:27 you
18:32 you
18:37 you
18:42 you
18:47 you
18:52 you
18:57 you
19:02 you
19:07 you
19:12 you
19:17 you
19:22 you
19:27 you
19:32 you
19:37 you
19:42 you
19:47 you
19:52 you
19:57 you
20:02 you
20:07 you
20:12 you
20:17 you
20:22 you
20:27 you
20:32 you
20:37 you
20:42 you
20:47 you
20:52 you
20:57 you
21:02 you
21:07 you
21:12 you
21:17 you
21:22 you
21:27 you
21:32 you
21:37 you
21:42 you
21:47 you
21:52 you
21:57 you
22:02 you
22:07 you
22:12 you
22:17 you
22:22 you
22:27 you
22:32 you
22:37 you
22:42 you
22:47 you
22:52 you
22:57 you
23:02 you
23:07 you
23:12 you
23:17 you
23:22 you
23:27 you
23:32 you
23:37 you
23:42 you
23:47 you
23:52 you
23:57 you
24:02 you
24:07 you
24:12 you
24:17 you
24:22 you
24:27 you
24:32 you
24:37 you
24:42 you
24:47 you
24:52 you
24:57 you
25:02 you
25:07 you
25:12 you
25:17 you
25:22 you
25:27 you
25:32 you
25:37 you
25:42 you
25:47 you
25:52 you
25:57 you
26:02 you
26:07 you
26:12 you
26:17 you
26:22 you
26:27 you
26:32 you
26:37 you
26:42 you
26:47 you
26:52 you
26:57 you