IT’S A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN
CROSS-POLLINATING HAS CREATED PUMPKIN PERFECTION FOR ONE FAR NORTH GARDENER
EVERY now and again a plant takes a curveball, and occasionally produces something amazing.
This can happen as a ‘sport’, a leaf or branch of a plant that has different markings from the mother plant. Or at other times when the flower of one plant is pollinated by a plant of a different variety; one day this happened in Graham Vallance’s garden.
Graham is a keen gardener, as a kid he played with grafting plants, like tomatoes and eggplant on to disease resistant rootstocks.
Vince told me how he watched the seasons, and noted in wet years, such as we are experiencing this year, to leave the planting of susceptible crops until late in the season.
Graham was interested in how pollination occurred and that started his interest in the amazing insects of the Wet Tropics, especially the butterflies. This year, Graham told me, he has heaps of butterflies in his garden, they love the bottle brush and it’s wonderful to watch them feeding.
Graham loves to grow pumpkin, Jap and Butternut are his favourites. Pumpkins produce separate male and female flowers that must be pollinated for the fruit to set.
“Some days there just isn’t a male flower around when you need one”. Graham told me.
“This particular morning I thought I’d try the male flower from the Butternut Pumpkin.”
“To my delight the pumpkin set and the fruit started forming like a butternut and then, as it grew it turned into the Jap pumpkin shape. When the pumpkin was ready, we were delighted to find dense, dark orange, fleshed pumpkin with a thick wall, and it tasted delicious baked or steamed.” Graham said.
Graham kept the seeds and planted some. The pumpkins grew and developed true to the new hybrid parent. Graham had developed a new hybrid pumpkin that seeded true to hybrid. This new variety which Graham calls the Vallance Butter Pumpkin has shown good disease resistance but best of all it’s very tasty.
Graham now has lots of seed and told me that if anyone would like some of the seed they can send a stamped self addressed envelope to P.O. Box 103 Innisfail and he’ll post them out or they can collect them, in Innisfail from the nursery.
The pollination of different varieties of the same species occurs in nature all the time and is the reason for the amazing variability of species in the natural world. The selective breeding resulting in F1 hybrids occur when two different strains of plants are cross pollinated for the purpose of disease resistance or improved vigour.
Pumpkins of all types are a particularly resourceful backyard vegetable and are easy to hybridise. They can be grown vertically in a restricted space or allowed to roam over a mound as a ground cover.
The new green tips of the pumpkin vine are delicious, try them lightly pan fried with a little oil and garlic and a tomato or two thrown in. Serve on a bed of mashed pumpkin and sprinkle with some pan fried pumpkin seed. A delicious, nutritious meal at no cost.
The pumpkin is a versatile vegetable and makes delicious soup, cakes, pies breads and of course scones.
Best of all the pumpkin is a good source of potassium, and its orange colour tells us that it’s full of betacarotene that converts to vitamin A which is important for eye health.
Pumpkin is also a good source of vitamins E and C and some B vitamins.
Graham puts his good health down to eating a lot of home grown vegetables. He is retired now, and has lived all his life in North Queensland, mostly around Innisfail. These days it’s the ducks that get him out of bed of a morning, Graham’s backyard is a menagerie of animals.
The main duck Gonzo is friendly with Hook the wallaby, who spends his day cropping the lawn. Ian the ibis thinks he’s a duck as he swims in the pond with them providing nutrient rich water for the potted plants.
The plovers, visiting Graham’s garden, spend their day providing environmental services in removing lawn grub and other beetle larva, while willy wagtail is a fan of the Cairns Post, he is very interested in print and is able to turn the pages of the newspaper while Graham sits back of a Saturday morning trying to read the Gardening Column.