Food Pumpkin Seeds

[AlaskaSue]

Channeling my inner Momma Hen (Kathy in Fl)...

My brother brought home a huge pumpkin while I was down in Florida this past fall. Yesterday I figured it was time to make use of it so I cut it up (so glad my brother has sharp knives), baked it /// and salted the seeds to work on today.

The pumpkin turned out great - I put 22# of peeled flesh in the freezer and then (a la Kathy) I roasted the seeds today after soaking them in salt water 24 hours.

Yep, turned out to be a fantastic idea. I don't even have to shell them as I thought I would. They are amazing. I'd do this again in a heartbeat and only hope that maybe this year I'll figure out how to get my little pumpkins to grow to full size

Couldn't hurt and Alaska is known for growing champion pumpkins. I just have to figure it out, lol ~

 

[summerthyme]

If you want pie pumpkins (they tend to be small, but have fine grained flesh and are much sweeter and tastier than the big jack o lantern types) try Baby Bear. It's a PvP variety, so in the event TSHTF, you can save all the seeds you want... it breeds true. The fruits are small (1-4#), but there are often 8-10 on a plant! (The big pumpkins generally only produce 1or 2 ). And the seeds are semi-hulless.

This is really good, because hulless seeds have germination issues... I presprout mine and transplant when they have a decent root. But the semi-hulless are still wonderful for roasting and eating, but are much less fragile.

If I could only grow one pumpkin variety, it woukd be Baby Bear.

Summerthyme

 

[AlaskaSue]

Thank you, good tip Summerthyme...I’m not interested in growing the monsters, and Baby Bear sounds about right. I do like to save seed too, so a bonus. Adding it to my order tonight; thank you for the help! These will be planted in one of the two new raised beds this spring - repurposing a couple of feeders I found out back and should work great where I’m going to put them.

The black eyed juncos love to congregate under the larger-leafed veg in my main bed on sunny days, so I’m looking forward to seeing them enjoy the new things this next season!