Family Herb Corner

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Pumpkins

Other plants can give your pumpkin a unique face! Photo by M. Jane Toth

Pumpkins are ubiquitous in Fall. Late September is the time to gather them from your family garden or on excursions to farm markets. There are so many shapes and sizes and equally as many culinary and decorative uses. Creating jack-o-lanterns and other pumpkin decorations is a fun family activity especially as Halloween nears. With some imagination, your family can make amazing pumpkin faces and figures. Do an Internet search for “pumpkin art” and you’ll find millions of sites with pictures of carved pumpkins and kid-friendly craft ideas. Martha Stewart is quite fond of Halloween. A quick check of her website turned up 296 entries about carving and using pumpkins.

This year I decided to decorate three small pumpkins by gluing various plant parts on them to make faces. I found lots of different kinds of pumpkins and corn at a farm market, and leaves, flowers, herbs, and acorns in my garden and elsewhere. Corny Pumpkin has cornhusk hair, a mini pumpkin/corn cob hat, corn cob/corn kernel eyes, a corncob nose, mouth, and ears. Glamour Girl Pumpkin has dried hydrangea blossom and leafy hair, crabapple earrings, aster flower eyes, an acorn nose, and acorn cap mouth. Her red cheeks are Japanese maple leaves. Scarborough Fair Pumpkin has parsley/thyme eyes; a sage hat, ears, and nose; rosemary hair; and a thyme mouth. I used tacky craft glue and hot glue to attach the plant parts to the pumpkins. Both worked well, so you can decide which type is safest for your kids. In your garden and on outdoor explorations see what plant parts your family can find that would make good pumpkin facial features. Then let your children create their designs. Pumpkins decorated this way will outlast carved ones. You might even be able to use them for your Thanksgiving decorations.

What else can your family do with pumpkins? How about toasting the seeds for a nutritious snack? Or, create seed art by making an outline drawing and gluing pumpkin and other seeds on it. And of course there are tons of sweet and savory recipes using pumpkin. You and your kids could make pumpkin cookies. Why not do a family recipe search and choose one everyone would like to try? And, of course, what’s Halloween without pumpkins? How did they become such a fixture for this holiday?

A great book to read to the little ones on Halloween Photo by M. Jane Toth

Halloween

Halloween has its origins in the Celtic festival of Samhein or the Last Harvest, sometimes called Summer’s End. The earth says goodbye to the God who will be reborn of the Goddess so that the cycle can continue. It’s the time to honor those who have passed on and whose spirits are said rise from the dead and wander about. Since evil spirits might also be present, the Celts wore masks to scare them off. In some cultures this date is the end of the old year. Some traditions did not celebrate the arrival of the new year until Yuletide. So the period between Samhein and Yule was considered the “time which is no time” – indeed ominous. Even now we celebrate Halloween (All Hallow’s eve) and the following two days, All Saints and All Souls Days, with a bit of wariness and much reverence.

It was customary to carry lit jack-o-lanterns while being out and about on these nights. Faces were cut in hollowed out vegetables – traditionally beets in England and turnips in Ireland. A lit candle was placed inside. American immigrants adopted the much larger and easier to carve pumpkin. Decorating for Halloween can include carving a scary or comical face into a pumpkin and placing it on the doorstep on Halloween night. This practice probably originated as a way to keep away evil spirits.

If your family wants to research Halloween traditions, a good website is www.crystalinks.com/halloween.html. And if you’d like to celebrate the holiday by reading to your pre- and primary school children, a fun book about pumpkins and scary happenings is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. One autumn night a little old lady walks through the woods and hears all sorts of sounds and gets really frightened. In spite of all the scariness, the story has a happy ending.

Autumn is a time for harvesting and preparing for the approaching dark cold months. It’s a time to reflect on one’s life and seek balance. Above all it’s a time for families to enjoy being outdoors, and it’s a time to be imaginative – during our walks in the woods, while dreaming up and making our Halloween costumes, and when decorating our spaces for the holidays.

M. Jane Toth