Not Pumpkins

It’s that pumpkin harvesting time of year! Except, I don’t grow pumpkins because they don’t do well for me. Instead, I plant other kinds of winter squash. This year, I tried two varieties I’ve never grown before: a landrace variety and sweet potato squash. Amazingly, both are shaped like pumpkins.

The three small ones in the center are the landrace squash. (To learn more about landrace vegetables, check out my post, “A New Paradigm for Gardening & Seed Saving.”) Three was all I got, but considering that the parent stock originated in the Pacific northwest, it’s amazing they managed to produce anything. I will save all the seed from these and see how they do next year.

The four larger squashes are the sweet potato squash. These are still producing, so depending on when our first frost is, I should get several more. They don’t look anything like sweet potatoes, but they are said to be similar in taste and texture. I’ll let you know!

Speaking of sweet potatoes, I’ve just started harvesting these.