Pumpkin question #2...

[nao57]

So I have a pumpkin question for you guys. Plus, you might find this interesting also.

Anyway, I was watching youtube under a channel called David the good, for the video named 'We grew over 350 pumpkins in lousy dirt...'

At a few minutes into the video he starts saying that 'Seminole Pumpkins' don't taste good right away. That you have to store them a few months before their savor develops good enough to be tasty.

I didn't know this about pumpkins... for this case he meant seminole pumpkins only. But it raised questions with me, like, I wondered if other pumpkins are like this? Or are also some of them the reverse where their taste gets bad the longer they age? And are some more prone to spoil or have worse aged taste than others?

I had used sugar pumpkins only really for most of my garden history. Those are wonderful. Japanese kabucha pumpkins are great too in taste but I haven't tried to grow them yet. So my pumpkin experience is limited to only 1-ish variety. And this is what brought up those questions.

Plus, on another thread I was curious and posted a question if you can make some kind of dry pack noodle with squash or pumpkins... because people have trouble with wheat. But most of the US isn't suited well to growing rice. It seems like you could feed people with pumpkins if you had too. And so its bringing up a lot of questions.

Thank you for reading this.

 

[Acre4Me]

Most pumpkins are C. pepo, but the Seminole is C. maxima (a group that includes butternut). The different groups of squash wont cross pollinate, and have different susceptibilities -for example, C. Maxima is resistant (not immune) to SVB attack, so if a preferred squash is around (like in the C. moscato or C. pepo group) , they generally leave the C. maxima alone.

Some things need a bit of age to taste right. Sweet potatoes need to be cured for about 2 weeks or longer at higher temp (80-90F) with good level of humidity to become flavorful and sweet. Not a Seminole pumpkin, of course, just an example.

 

[nao57]

Most pumpkins are C. pepo, but the Seminole is C. maxima (a group that includes butternut). The different groups of squash wont cross pollinate, and have different susceptibilities -for example, C. Maxima is resistant (not immune) to SVB attack, so if a preferred squash is around (like in the C. moscato or C. pepo group) , they generally leave the C. maxima alone.

Some things need a bit of age to taste right. Sweet potatoes need to be cured for about 2 weeks or longer at higher temp (80-90F) with good level of humidity to become flavorful and sweet. Not a Seminole pumpkin, of course, just an example.

Thank you very much.

 

[nao57]

I tried sweet potatoes. But our climate and our clay soil, sweet potatoes don't do well in.

 

[Acre4Me]

I tried sweet potatoes. But our climate and our clay soil, sweet potatoes don't do well in.

I’m in Ohio zone 6A. We have clay soil.

To grow sweet potatoes I recommend using black plastic to pre warm the soil. Then, just cut a slit in the plastic when planting the slips. We also add a pvc ring to mark the spot and keep the plastic off the flip. They love heat.

Use only short season varieties.

It’s better to plant la bit later when no risk of cold weather than to plant when the slips will get chilled too much -and I’m not talking about frost.