The pumpkins at Hawarden have been slowly turning orange and on Saturday Rich was duly rewarded with one suitable for Halloween celebrations!

From Hawarden Estate Farm Shop
Serves: 8
Ingredients:
Pastry:
500g plain flour
350g Welsh butter
3 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp salt
1 egg
125ml water
Filling:
1kg pumpkin, cooked and mashed
1 (397g) tin condensed sweetened milk
2 eggs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
 
Method
Preheat oven to 220ºC
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, butter, sugar and salt. Rub together with your finger tips until crumbly.
In a small bowl, mix the egg with the water, and blend into the flour mixture to create a ball. Wrap in cling film and chill for 25 minutes.
Roll out the pastry …

After a successful workday on Saturday 29th, with noteable contributions from Marcus and Richard Lewis on the digging, we are looking forward to finally getting the water supply turned on in the next week or so.

We’ve put all the garlic in over the last couple of workdays. There were nine of us on 23rd but eight of us had four legs and wooly coats so weren’t much help really!

Four of us met last Thursday to start planning what to grow next year. I know it seems a bit early but you really do have to start now. 

Richard Lewis, a horticulture lecturer at Glyndwr University, has agreed to host a free fruit pruning session at Northop on 12th November. The session will be based in the apple orchard at Northop and will cover winter pruning of apples, pears and plum trees.