Seminole Pumpkin - A Garden Favorite!

Seed catalogs are arriving now, so it's a good time to share one of my garden favorites with you, Seminole Pumpkin. I was enticed by the Baker Creek seed catalog description "The wild squash of the Everglades… sweet flesh … productive vines … resistant to insects and disease." Squash bugs are often attracted to my organic garden, and I'd lost hopes of growing my favorite butternut squash ever again. (Note: winter squash and pumpkins are in the same vegetable family). But Seminole Pumpkin gave me new hope, and I figured a plant native to the Everglades should find happiness in my hot, humid Tennessee garden. So I ordered a package of seeds in late 2012.


Big squash plants need lots of space for their vines to spread, so I ended up only growing one Seminole Pumpkin plant in the 2013 summer garden (two are recommended, for optimal pollination). But it proved true to its description, growing strong with no damage by insects, and giving me a good harvest of about 5 big fruit, shaped much like bird house gourds. It was a lovely plant too, with large distinctive variegated leaves and huge yellow flowers (edible by the way). I enjoyed the taste just as well as butternut squash, so more good points for the pumpkin.

This past season I left the vegetable garden unplanted, as I renourished the depleted soil. Low and behold, in early summer a couple of healthy plants began to grow out of my compost bin, and I recognized the leaf as that of the Seminole Pumpkin. Evidently, some of the seeds discarded in the compost bin when I cooked the vegetable the previous fall had survived. Never one to throw away a good healthy plant (which explains why I have too many flower gardens!), I carefully dug three seedlings and planted them in the big pile of rich composted mulch from a nearby mushroom factory, which had been left from tilling some into the garden a few months previous. Wow, did they grow! A few times I gently re-directed the vines, as they spread across one of our walking trails.

By early September, ten big squashes had matured from green to tan and the skins were thick, indicating ripeness. Amazingly, I still had one Seminole Pumpkin left from the previous year, stored in our basement which maintains a year-round temperature of about 60°F... so it stores very well. I picked the ripe ten squashes and  continued to harvest individual pumpkins for several weeks. When a heavy frost threatened in mid October, I read that I should pick any remaining squashes and let them ripen indoors; these would not be as good for longterm storage as those which had ripened on the vines. So I picked about 10 more which still had some green skin. Not wanting to line them up in the living room, where the room temperature would be closer to the recommended 80 degrees for ripening, I placed these on my open shelves in front of the south-facing basement window. It took many weeks, but eventually these fruit did ripen, and tasted just as good as the others.

I also recommend Seminole Pumpkin because it is very nutritious, easy to cut, and the seeds roast up as a delicious snack. My raw harvested squashes cut very well with my best bread knife. You can roast, boil, microwave, and cook squashes in a variety of ways; I find it quick and easy to cook large batches in my pressure cooker, unpeeled. Once cooked and cooled, the pulp easily scoops out of the shell. To use fresh pumpkin in baking (especially in recipes calling for canned pumpkin), it is best to drain off the excess liquid from the pulp. After I mash the pumpkin in the food processor to make a smooth consistency, I either

• drain the puree in a colander lined with coffee filters and discard the liquid 
• put the puree in a container and refrigerate overnight, then pour off the liquid which separates from the pulp

This pumpkin freezes well; I measured about 3 cups of puree from each harvested squash, and stored it in zip bags which stack flat in the freezer.

If you want to grow Seminole Pumpkin, just ask me for some seeds and I'll save some I don't eat!

Also, check out these recipes which use fresh pumpkin:
Pumpkin Chai Snickerdoodles
Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
and watch for my future posts (like the yummy pumpkin cake shown here) using this nutrituous delicious vegetable!

Mother Nature's Timing

All these tiny seeds from one poppy!

If you've been saving seeds from your own plants, you might have encountered the terminology "cold stratification." This is a process which mimics what Mother Nature does in the wild to control the timing of new seedlings. It is a necessary "pretreatment" for certain seeds (but not for all seeds), which will not germinate otherwise.

Cold stratification subjects the seeds to cold and moist conditions for one to three months (varies with species), either outdoors in the natural environment, or in similar conditions you create indoors. Without this exposure, the seeds will not germinate, so this requirement dictates the timing of next season's growth.

Take wildflowers as an example. If my wild poppies flower in May, I will leave the spent flower on the plant to create seedpods which ripen in late June. The pods bend over and dump hundreds of tiny seeds on the ground. If these seeds were to germinate right away, new young poppy plants would start growing right away and flower again in a month or two. But Mother Nature didn't intend these wild poppies to be flowering again in late summer. To prevent the dropped seeds from germinating immediately, cold stratification is required before wild poppy seeds will germinate. So they must be exposed to winter weather, sitting dormant in the soil before they can germinate and begin to grow the following year. So if I gather those seeds in June, store them in my 60°F basement in an envelope until next spring, they most likely will not germinate when I plant them.

For this reason, I commonly sow my wildflower seeds between September and December, directly on the soil where I want them to grow. I'm not fussy about this, since they'd normally just drop off the plant, so the most I might do is to rake the soil to roughen it, then throw the seeds out of my hand. This is how I scatter my collected wildflower seeds - poppies, black-eyed susan, oxtail daisies, blanket flower, larkspur, columbine, Mexican hat and others. This gives me a great crop of little seedlings in late winter, and they are strong little plants by the time the spring temperatures warm up.

But if you want to harvest and store seeds which require cold stratification - many seed catalogs and other online sources can identify the plants which require this for germination - and plant them early in the next season, you can artificially simulate nature's cold stratification process. Here's how:

Wild Columbine

1) Clean the seeds so no other plant materials (leaves, pods, etc.) are mixed with them

2) Place cleaned seeds in a zip bag with a paper towel or sterile vermiculite or sand, slightly dampened moistened but not so wet that mold will form. A little powdered fungicide can be added.

3) Store the zip bag in the refrigerator, preferably in the veggie/fruit compartment (temperatures from 34 to 41°F are recommended). Do not put in the freezer. Length of time in the fridge varies; do you research online or mimic your winter conditions.

4) Check seeds regularly for fungus or mold or early germination

Read more about cold stratification and about saving heirloom seeds.

Starting the Gardening Year

I started seeds last week for a few of the slow growing vegetables and herbs I want in my garden this year. Remember, I am in Zone 7, so I can plant tomatoes outdoors safely by our average last frost date of April 10th. Of course, my garden season runs year-round here, and right now I have a choice every day of picking collards, kale, spinach, chard, pea leaves, beet greens, and scallions. To review my process for starting seedlings, read my post from last February. By the way, the two seed catalogs illustrated here are my favorites. I highly recommend you send for the Baker Creek printed catalog - the varieties, the photos, and the stories about where the seeds come from are amazing.

This has been an unusually warm winter. In fact, I spotted my first crocus flowering today in one of the rock gardens, and my lenten roses (hellebores) are in bloom. But it's also been wet, with rain every few days, it seems. So there's no telling exactly when I'll be able to plant directly in the garden. Meanwhile, these seeds are now warm and wet and hopefully will germinate soon:

TOMATOES - I'm diverting from my allegiance to heirloom seeds in this category, due to my ongoing battle with blight. I bought some hybrid tomato seeds called "Iron Lady" from High Mowing Seeds, which are described as early- and late-blight resistant. I want to get my own good harvest of tomatoes, which I've missed out on during the last couple of years. I'm also trying a second variety from the same company, called "Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes".

PEPPERS - I've started 3 varieties, all of which I have grown in past gardens and enjoyed:  Jalapeno, Marconi, Albino Bullnose

PARSLEY - curly and flat, both of which I use abundantly, particular in tabbouli.

STEVIA - in case mine doesn't come back from last year

Garden HUCKLEBERRY - I grew these blue berries in the garden 2 years ago and enjoyed cooking them into a sauce, similar in taste to blueberries. Except for a bug eating the leaves, they were easy to grow and produced continuously all summer. Read more about them here.

QUINOA - I cook quinoa grain and decided to experiment this year and try growing my own. This variety comes from Baker Creek and it is called "Cherry Vanilla Quinoa" because of its big bi-color flower. The plant's leaves and seeds are edible. My climate might be too hot, but I hope, at the very least, that I get pretty flowers and leaves for my green smoothies.

PANSY - Just for fun, I'm starting some Giant Swiss Pansies. They are so lovely, flower abundantly before the weather turns hot, and the flowers are edible.

I'll be starting more seedlings indoors next month and I'll keep you posted on my varieties. Get some seeds going yourself!

The Pea Report

Oregon Sugar Pod II (left) and Sugar Ann Snap Peas (right)

I'm harvesting big quantities of two varieties of heirloom peapods now. The ones shown in the photo on the left are Oregon Sugar Pod II. I took a chance on our mild winter weather and planted these seeds on January 29th, and the gamble payed off. I purchased these seeds from Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds. The plants are vigorous and highly productive. Equally sweet and crunchy are the variety shown on the right, Sugar Ann Snap Peas, which I planted at the end of February. The pods are fatter, with the peas developing larger inside. These can be eaten as edible pods or shelled... I don't bother with the extra work of shelling. I love peapods raw, with a dip or in a salad, as well as lightly stir-fried. I mixed some into a yellow squash casserole too (I'll make that recipe a future post, since I had a request for it when I served it.) I picked both types today, and I am going to experiment with dehydrating with a wasabi coating, like those wasabi peas from the supermarket, great for snacking.

Both of these peapods are considered "bush" varieties. The Sugar Ann plants were shorter - about 18" tall - but they were in a newer part of the garden where the soil is not as rich, so that might be why. Both types were easily supported in my usual manner of sticking branches about 30" tall into the garden soil among the emerging seedlings. The pea plants grab onto the sticks with fine curling tendrils, and are supported as they grow taller. If I only grow one type in the future, which would be smart if I intended to save the seeds, I'd choose the Oregon Sugar Pod II. Remember that pea and bean plants add nitrogen to the garden soil, and it is fine to rototil or turn the plants back into the soil when you are finished harvesting. Try an early planting of peas in your garden next year!