Pumpkinland

The Halloween holiday is getting closer and closer so here is the post about pumpkins. The photos were shot during my assignment to Prekmurje on the end of August. Prekmurje is very flat region and people there say that when you step on a pumpkin, the whole region is at your sight.

I was driving around Prekmurje looking for scenic shots when I noticed old lady sitting in the middle of the field. She was busy with something so I stopped the car and approached.  Her name way Marija and she was from Zenkovci. Marija was very friendly and she told me a lot about pumpkins and how they produce pumpkin oil.

The pumpkin seeds. This is the only part of the pumpkins that is used to produce oil. The rest of the pumpkin is left on the field the enrich the soil. The fresh seeds are soft and sticky and it takes years to extract all the seeds from the pumpkins on the fields. All the work is done by hands.

Harvested pumpkins.

Pumpkins are actually quite usefull vegetables! They can be used to produce oil as mentioned before, the seeds can be dried and used for bird-feeding or even in cooking. The pumpkin cream soup is just delicious while pumpkin marmalade still needs to be tried out. Sounds tempting. There is even a book full of recipes where you can use pumpkins. And of course the Halloween.

Mellow pumpkins, ready to be harvested.

Pumpkin field. In Prekmurje there are hundreds of fields like this one.

The “Ded” (old man). There is a tradition that on special occasions people make this kind of puppets to show traditional peasant labour.

Cut the pumpkin! i bet i will do it – at the end of the month!

Related posts

• Prekmurje – a different Slovenia (6)
• Over Mura moving cake (5)
• Old Water mill on Mura River (3)
• Welwitschia mirabilis (1)
• The spring is finaly here! II. (1)