The village of
Slindon in West Sussex is famous for its annual Pumpkin Festival, a tradition which was started almost accidentally by the late Ralph Upton when he laid his pumpkin crop out on the roof of his barn to cure the skins. The pumpkins attracted attention, so Ralph started making pictures on the roof using different sized, shaped, and coloured pumpkins - while the rest of the world measures pictures in dots-per-inch, this is a display is more inches per dot!
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| The 2011 display - a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins! |
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| A few of the 20+ different varieties of pumpkins and squashes. |
As well as the pumpkin artwork to look at, the produce is also available for sale. There were at least 20 different varieties of pumpkins and squashes from the tiny We Be Little to the somewhat larger Atlantic Giant.
The pumpkin-sellers are very knowledgable about what to do with your pumpkins once you've bought them, and can advise which are best for carving, curries, pies, soups or roasting.
Pumpkins also last a long time, which is just as well, given the number we came home with!
Just a quick post to blog this year's pumpkin carving. I'd love to claim originality for the design, but I spent a fair while doing Google Images searches for pumpkins, and found something similar there to use as a starting point.I drew out the design with a dry-wipe marker first, then went over the marker with a scalpel, before using a small kitchen knife to finish him off. We had lots of Trick Or Treaters this year, and he was a big hit with both the children and the parents!
