Growing Seminole Pumpkin, the Sweet Florida Heirloom

It’s just as good as the Butternut squash… maybe even better. It’s native to Florida, sweeter in taste, and stores for much longer!

Seminole pumpkin is a notorious and beautiful squash. They withstand the intense heat and humidity of the South, resist common pests, and produce a sweet, amber flesh. These pumpkins have been grown for over 10,000 years in Florida! They taste rich and nutty with a velvety texture that is sweeter than the Butternut squash, and comes out dense and creamy as it’s lower in fiber.

Our pumpkins are diverse in shape and colors but always super tasty. We inherited this variety over ten years ago, and we save the seeds to grow them for their great squat shape. The shape provides a stable base and optimal storage time. It also helps prevent rot, unlike round or teardrop shapes that create pressure points while sitting in inventory.

You don’t have to search far to find local and organic pumpkin in Northern and Central Florida. We love growing this pumpkin on our organic farm in Alachua County, FL. This is typically a July to October crop, and it really thrives in August and September when its leaves and vines spread with vigor and make our fields extremely lush.

The first key to success is the planting time. In Florida, pumpkins aren’t necessarily a fall crop; they do best planted in the spring and harvested in early to mid summer. By late summer, when we filmed this short, the vines were succumbing to downy mildew. This fungus puts a stop on most plantings of Seminole pumpkins as well as any other cucurbit in our fields in the late summer. But don’t worry, your pumpkins can still turn out well even if the vines are withering.

We’ve tried everything in the organic arsenal to control downy mildew, from hydrogen peroxide, baking soda to botanicals. If you happen to know something, we’d love to hear about it in the comments! We’ve learned to plant early, harvest often, and cure to the final color in storage. It is best to pick the pumpkins at about 60% color, or when a little more than half the pumpkin is no longer green. The remaining green will turn that beautiful pumpkin color if you cure the fruit at 75-85 degrees for a few weeks. Once the fruit is fully colored up, you can store it at colder temperatures but this may not be necessary for the home gardener. A perfectly cured pumpkin with no blemishes or imperfections can last many months at room temperature!

To help protect pumpkins and improve your yield, we recommend creating raised mounds covered with natural mulch. The mulch protects them from soil-borne fungus and rot, suppresses weeds and retains soil moisture during weather swings, such as the recent drought followed by heavy rains we experienced in August!

No pumpkin left behind!

Not every pumpkin cures perfectly so we sell those with minor imperfections as “chef grade”. For any price conscious chef, there’s no reason to turn a grade A pumpkin into puree. Therefore you can buy cases of “Chef Grade” for your commercial kitchen to keep the costs down this season while offering an amazing experience for your patrons.

We sell our organic Florida Seminole pumpkins whole and also pre-cut for you at the markets!

Recipes

Here’s our recipe for a Really Simple Pumpkin Soup with coconut milk and some masala spices.

If you enjoy a curry, here’s our Farm House Pumpkin Curry Lentil recipe!

Looking for a sweet pumpkin dessert with some chewiness and crunch? Try the Korean Hobak Hotteok! They’re wonderfully simple and sweet: Brown sugar and pumpkin stuffed pan-fried yeast dough pancakes.

Check out our video on our beautiful Seminole pumpkin!

---

Let us know if you’ve tried our Seminole pumpkin, and tell us what you think on our social media. We’d love to hear your feedback. Tag us in your stories if you’d like and we can highlight your creations.

@frogsongcsa