Ah, autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, as some dead poet once said. (Think it was Keats, but to be honest I probably only remember the poem because the next line contains the word 'bosom').
As Lorna has already pointed out in the increasingly enormous Main Page comments section, there are pumpkins to be eaten but it's best to keep them small-to-medium or they lose flavour. However, our great triumph thus far has been corn-on-the-cob, simply microwaved for three to five minutes in a covered glass dish with a splash of water.
They are hot when they come out, and much as you try to run them under the tap to cool them the cob stays boiling so you have to set them aside for a while until you're sure it's safe.
Then chop the cob into 1-2 inch pieces, take a bite yourself to get things started and voila, one happy, occupied child. Some children can eat the whole thing (please see above photo and the impressive Little Wriggler) but I just chop them up to save wasting a whole cob at a time. Babybear tends to get bored about halfway through so I just cut the rest of the corn off for her and let her exercise her pincer grip for maximum time wasteage.
And I know that I said I would look into baby sweetcorn ages ago… I have tried to buy them but while there are so many local veggies around it seems too naughty to clock up that many air miles. (My corn-on-the-cob came from Spain, which is hardly round the corner but still…) I have no doubt, however, that faced with a farmers' market filled with turnips I will cave in this winter and try the baby corn, wherever it has flown in from.