Download: 5 Best Pumpkins To Grow
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From the 19th century notion of utilizing pumpkins for jack-o’-lanterns to Cinderella and her bewitched pumpkin carriage, pumpkins pique the imagination.
However, in addition to folkloric festivals and fairy tales, pumpkins may help you be more creative in the kitchen. While most people associate pumpkins with pie, there are many more delightful ways to eat these members of the Cucurbitaceae family.
Best pumpkins to grow
To make your decision a bit easier, Here are 5 of the finest cultivars to grow for cooking.
1# Casper
You might not think of white pumpkins as edibles rather than distinctive decorations, but ‘Casper’ contains excellent sweet flesh. The 15-pound fruits may be harvested 115 days after planting, and the bright orange flesh is delicious in both sweet and savory meals.
2# Cherokee Bush
This is one of the few bush kinds that can be grown at home, however it does require some room because it may spread four to five feet.
The fruits weigh five to eight pounds, and the gold-yellow flesh is delicious roasted, as a foundation for a cream soup, or pureed to add to pancake or muffin batter.
3# Cinderella
Orange fruits roughly 15 inches across resemble the well-known fairy tale carriage. They also need a very short length of time, roughly 110 days, from direct seeding to harvest.
This allows you some more time to stock the freezer and fire up the canner for pumpkin savory dishes ranging from butter to soups to pickles.
4# Dill’s Atlantic
If you enjoy the “biggest pumpkin” contests at your local county fair, you might be surprised to learn:
This behemoth yields edible flesh in addition to being the variety of choice for growers seeking to blue ribbons and even world records (a 1,500-pound pumpkin!). From direct seeding to harvest, ‘Dill’s Atlantic’ takes 120 days.
5# Fairytale
‘Fairytale,’ another whimsical-but-practical heirloom, is designed like Cinderella’s modest pumpkin-turned-haughty-carriage.
When ripe, the fruits weigh around 15 pounds, and the straight seed to harvest time period is 125 days. The deeply lobed fruit has excellent dark orange flesh that is solid and silky, great for cooking, and this patience will pay off for the determined home cook.
Which pumpkin is the most suitable for cooking?
Sugar pumpkins (also known as pie or sweet pumpkins) are tiny and spherical and are ideal for cooking. Long Island, New York Cheese pumpkins, which are more oblong and resemble a wheel of cheese, are also edible. Field kinds are bigger and have watery, stringy flesh, making them ideal for decoration.
What kinds of pumpkins can you prepare and eat?
Except for the stem, you may eat the entire pumpkin. Smaller kinds, such as onion squash, have beautifully edible skin, but bigger types’ skin may be too rough or unappealing to eat.
Which pumpkins are the finest for roasting?
Butternut pumpkins are finest roasted, but this robust oblong type is one of the most flexible pumpkin selections. Butternuts are somewhat sweeter and dryer than pumpkins and may be used in soups, roasted with cinnamon, or in most prepared pumpkin recipes.
Conclusion
Pumpkins are quite simple to grow if the site has good soil and a long enough growing season to support their growth. To ensure a robust yield, these plants demand frequent fertilization and an average amount of trimming.
Further Reading
- Pumpkin Varieties: Best Bets and Easy-to-Grow
- 11 OF THE BEST PUMPKIN VARIETIES FOR COOKING
- 11 Types of Pumpkins You Can Grow In Your Backyard
