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PUMPKIN POWER: THERE'S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO DECORATE A PUMPKIN, AND MORE THAN ONE KIND OF PUMPKIN TO DECORATE
Published on October 30, 2004
© 2004- The Press Democrat
BYLINE: MEG McCONAHEY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
PAGE: D1
They're softly sculptural, just slightly sinister and, like fallen leaves, a trenchant symbol of the fall season.
Each October, jack-o'-lantern pumpkins are heaped by the millions in front of supermarkets and drugstores across America, waiting to be claimed and carved into creepy faces. Aside from slight variations in size and shape, they're a circus of bright orange, all bred to feature shallow lines and generally thinner shells for easy carving.
So ubiquitous is the classic Halloween pumpkin that a kid could grow up never knowing that there is more than one kind of pumpkin in nature's patch. In fact, a world of different varieties of this favorite autumn fruit can be found on every continent but Antarctica. And while most supercenters stick to the basics, many local growers like to throw in a few unusual varieties to enliven the field and decorate the home through the holiday season.
A visit to small farms throughout the North Coast might turn up a a ruddy red rouge d'etemps, a squat beige-and-peach-colored Long Island cheese, a white Lumina pumpkin or a slate blue-gray Jarrahdale. ``There are hundreds of varieties out there,'' said Wendy Krupnik, garden coordinator at Santa Rose Junior College's Shone Farm. ``To me it's much more interesting to have on the porch a pumpkin of each color -- like five or six -- and then one or two regular jack-o'-lanterns you carve. The others are there to show that this is the harvest season and time to bring the squash in from the field. Those are the ones that will feed your family.'' Deborah Walton, owner of the Canvas Ranch in west Petaluma's Two Rock area, also dresses up her doorway with an assemblage of different pumpkins and gourds so naturally artistic in their shapes, colors and stems that they don't need to be carved or painted. ``I love the colors of the different varieties,'' she says. ``Like the Jarrahdale. They call it gray but it's a greenish gray. Here you've got so many earth tones out there, you've got the reds and golds and browns and then there is this very cool colored, beautiful gray-green thing. It just really stands out in the field.'' Artistic license Walton's husband, Tim Schaible, who is an artist and has been known in restless moments to take a little artistic license with vegetables at the table, finds that the white varieties such as the lumina and Valenciano make great canvases. ``You can take acrylic paints and paint a face on them. You don't have to carve it and it lasts longer,'' Walton said. When she was a kid, she remembers always going for the biggest pumpkin she could find, even if she had to find someone with more muscle to carry it to the car. But kids now seem to be drawn to the uncommon. ``We had some kids out a week ago and they were adopting pumpkins. They really liked the unusual ones. They treated them like little pets. It was like they felt kind of sorry for them because they weren't orange.'' Krupnik, who was a trials manager for a seed company for 10 years, and has grown many different varieties of pumpkins. This year she's testing for a seed production company a new new peach-colored hybrid called Rumbo that probably will be on the market next year. It falls into the category commonly called cheese pumpkins because their flatter and scalloped appearance is mindful of an old-fashioned wheel of cheese. She was impressed with the high yield from a small amount of seed. ``These are not for carving. They're too thick fleshed. But you can leave them around for decorating through Thanksgiving,'' she said. Actually, giving them time off the vine before cooking gives them a chance to cure and develop sugars, she added. That is one of the advantages of the non-jack-o'-lantern pumpkin. As long as they are not cut, they can last indoors or in a dry area for a couple of months, a quality that made them an important foodstuff for the early colonists. ``They were meant to be for food to last all winter,'' said Krupnik. ``The early settlers were so grateful to the Native Americans for turning them on to these hard-shelled squashes. It's one of the things that got them through a long New England Winter. I've had them stored through March.'' Pumpkin or squash? Actually differentiating between a pumpkin and a squash is not always clear-cut. All pumpkins are part of the Cucurbita family, which includes squash. But not all squash are pumpkins. Generally, said Krupnik, if a squash has the more scalloped shape it's called a pumpkin, even if it is not orange. Within the genus Cucurbita that are several common species: the pepo, which includes the carving pumpkins; maximas, which include the rouge d'etemps or Cinderella pumpkins, so named because of their resemblance to the coach Cinderella rode in to the ball. Maximas can be distinguished by their spongy, cork-like stems. The pepos however, have hard angled stems. One of Diane Hoskins' favorites at Hoskins Ranch and ``Spooky Old Pumpkin Patch'' in Healdsburg is an heirloom pumpkin from Canada called ``Old Zeb.'' She loves its more vertical shape, stout handle and deep ruts. ``It just looks like it's been around a long time, like an old leftover Gold Rusher,'' she says. Having a variety of pumpkins in the field and then around the house after harvest, she adds, is the perfect autumn ``eye candy.'' ``They just give us a feeling of fall and pull all those colors together.'' .You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 521-5204 or mmcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.
PHOTO: 12 by MARK ARONOFF / The Press Democrat
1: Jack-o'-lantern: The most familiar pumpkin seen at Halloween. Bred
more for carving, with vibrant deep orange. Weight varies.
2: Fairytale:
French heirloom resembles Cinderella's coach with its flat shape and deep
ridges. Buckskin color and sweet flavor. Averages 15 lbs.
8: Sugar Pumpkin: Also New England Pie Pumpkin is small, sweet; the perfect cooking pumpkin for pies, soup and bread. Also great for canning. Averages 6 lbs.
9: Rumbo: New hybrid not yet formally introduced to market. In the category of cheese pumpkins that are flatter and scalloped. Flesh too thick for carving but good to keep and bake later after its sugars have cured. Averages 14-15 lbs. 10: Old Zeb: Canadian heirloom variety, hulking old-timer stands out for its size, ruddy orange color, dense meat and stout handle. Can swell to 20-30 lbs. 11: This pumpkin, decorated by artist Tim Schaible of Petaluma's Canvas Ranch, uses various other vegetables to create a pumpkin face that will literally ``age.''
12: A pumpkin painted by artist Tim Schaible of the Canvas Ranch in west Petaluma's Two Rock area. Schaible says white pumpkin varieties such as the lumina and Valenciano make great canvases.
Infobox:
SOURCES FOR UNUSUAL PUMPKINS
Farm stands, speciality
markets and even some supermarkets feature at least one or two unusual varieties
of pumpkins. But be aware that with Halloween bearing down, stock may be low.
.
DO SOMETING DIFFERENT WITH YOUR PUMPKIN
`Aging' pumpkin: Raid the remains of your garden, your local market or the fridge for this jaunty scarecrow-style Pumpkin Head done up in veggies. Artist Tim Schaible of Petaluma's Canvas Ranch used a smaller pumpkin and a winter squash for a hat, tomato plant leaves for hair, squashes and gourds for nose and ears, baby carrots for a mouth, sliced radishes and blue-painted pumpkin seeds for eyes. Tack with pins or small nails.Add a piece of grass for him to chew on and a kerchief around his neck and watch him "age" as he dries out. .
Painted pumpkin: Smooth, white pumpkins are the best for painting. Draw or trace a design onto the shell first, covering the whole circumference. Paint in the drawings with acrylic or poster paints. Artist Schaible painted a farm scene here, complete with the farmer on his tractor hauling oranges in from the orchard to the barn. Painted pumpkins make nice Thanksgiving centerpieces. And since they haven't been carved, they will last well past the feast. Acrylic paints won't run in the rain so they're perfect also on the porch. -- Courtesy Canvas Ranch, Petaluma
Keywords: HOLIDAY GARDENING LIST
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