Seminole pumpkin

Hi, all. I'm growng Seminole pumpkin for the first time. When do I harvest? Vines are aggressive and the leaves are huge (a foot wide). Flowering was/is good and seems evenly spaced between male and female BUT fruit set is awful. Finally resorted to hand-pollination and managed to get three pumpkins. They're dark green and round. One has reached the size of an acorn squash. I saw one online reference about using them at that size. But all the Sem.squash pictures I've seen online are of orange fruits, not dark green. Thanks for any info.
Gerri

Gerri,

I checked a few online descriptions and saw none which said the fruits were orange.

Go to Southern Exposure See Exchange and read there about this squash from seed received from the USDA.

They, like others, say buff colored when ripe and a small squash, about enough for one pie.

When I looked in the SSE Yearbooks I found that most say that the unripe fruits are green and white striped and ripen to buff.

What was the source of your seeds?

Carolyn

I grew some that I purchased last year, and I got all orange ones, but the shapes were all different....bought them from a guy who was in the everglades, and had the small round ones pictured but also had the 'butternut' shape as well. I want to grow out the seeds I saved, to try and get the small one, but don't have the room.

The Seminole Indians would plant them to grow up a tree, and let them hang down to ripen and harvest them. So they do have to be on the small size, as you think. I had googled this variety but lost all of my info when my computer crashed. The info is out there, try the google to get more info.

But if you have the room and the inclination, I can send you the ones that I grew out, the seeds saved from the smaller ones that might be close.

If you find the real Seminole, let me know!

Cheri

If you find the real Seminole, let me know!

Cheri

Cheri,

She may have it already and is just seeing the immature green fruits that others have described.

The long version you describe is also listed in the SSE Yearbooks.

It's clear that there's been some crossing going on thru the years.

Most Google sites and SSE blurbs seem to agree on a buff colored small squash, and that matches the one described at length that I referred to at Souther Exposure Seed Exc hange from seeds from the USDA.

Carolyn

Hi, Carolyn and Cheri,
With a freeze predicted tonight I ran out just awhile ago and harvested most of my meager crop in the dark, with the help of my hurricane flashlight. I'm amazed anything survived the elements around here this year! The two I picked didn't slip off the vine easily. The third was so small I left it -- covered it with leaves and straw as I don't think we'll dip below freezing for very long. I got the seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com). The pumpkins are listed as Cucurbita moschata, round, lightly ribbed, 3 lbs., with tan skin. The ones I harvested are smooth, round, about 2 pounds and very dark green. I noticed the start of some lighter-green striping that wasn't there over the weekend when I took pictures. Will download one to this list but it might be a few days as I seem to spend most of my life at work. Cheri I may take you up on that seed offer. Thanks. Am going to do more research including getting in touch with the Seminole Tribe.
Gerri

Please keep in touch! I am going to go through my pics from last year, and will send them to you. It is a really pretty plant, but it does grow on forever, lol!

Cheri

How did your pumpkins do? I escaped a hard freeze, although we have no blankets left for the bed, all are outside protecting plants! You must have priorities, lol.....

Cheri

Gerri, When did you plant your pumpkins? If they were planted back in spring or early summer, sounds like they needed a lot more of something, organic matter, trace minerals, or most likely nitrogen. Squashes require heavy feeding, to support he vines and then the fruit. If shorted, they don't fruit as well, and bugs tend to attack the vines.(Mostly squash bugs) Many years ago I grew the Cuban, and a decade or so back the Seminole. The Seminoles I got probably came through Marian van Atta's hands, as she gave out many seeds. I think they were a pretty pure strain. They made nice little flat buff pumpkins, extremely sweet, and maybe 3-4 lbs each. The Cubans are much larger and tend to be round. I left my mom down there with Seminole seeds, but now she is getting the same size in either flat or teardrop shapes. I doubt that any of her neighbors grew any C. moschatas to cross with them, it must have been in the gene pool. I'm in Tenn. now and found that those good Fla pumpkins are "day length sensitive" which means they won't bloom till nearly the fall equinox, which is just about too late here. I did manage to ripen 20 of them but only by feeding manure tea every week, then stopping the vines as soon as they'd set a couple of fruit, and I had to keep pinching the new shoots back to make them put all their energy into the fruit. So I'm stuck with plain old butternuts, which are very good but not QUITE as good as a Seminole squash. Donna
P.S. The immature squashes are good as summer squash, and lots easier to grow down there.

hi, i am growing seminole pumpkin for the first time in zone 6. so far, all i have are very green small squash looking things. one is circular and round, while the other is butternut shaped. i want to make sure that buff is a tan color and not the very dark green. should i keep waiting to pick them? coz the round one hasnt changed hardly any for a few weeks now.
thanks,
jenn k

I have grown seminoles off and on for the last 5 years. First of all, I do not think there is a better pie pumpkin available. The storage properties, texture, and taste are unequaled. If they didn't work out for you this year, try again. That said, they are a bit idiosyncratic. Many of my experiences are reflected in previous comments by others, but I will expand a bit:
1. The vines are slow to set fruit. I have never bothered with hand pollination, because it is ultimately unnecessary. Just be patient. I don't know what the plants are responding to (I was interested in the day length comment), but long after other varieties like Tennessee Vining or butternut are setting fruit, Seminoles are still just gorgeous vines. My theory had always been that the vines reach a particular length befor triggering fruit set.
2. The vines are very resistant to squash borers, but vulnerable to squash bugs. I think it is important to encourage/allow rooting along the length of the vine to ensure adequate vigor to combat any insect pests. Similarly, watering only at the site of seed placement is not optimal. The plant prefers water being available all along the vine.
3. As with most winter squash, the vines are very aggressive, easily spreading 50 feet or more over anything encountered.
4. My plants continue to set fruit right up until frost. Once the fruit turn a buff color, they will gradually darken in the sun to a medium tan. I generally harvest after the vine loses some vigor, or when the pumpkins get a good hard skin. Leave several inches a vine and store anywhere that is not hot.
5. As with any cucurbit, the sugar content is a function of not only species but also growing conditions. You should try to maintain healthy vines throughout fruit development. Additionally, the squash fruit that form late in the season will ultimately be less sweet because of increasing limited photosynthetic activity associated with the shortening days.
6. Minimally ripe fruit -- even mostly green -- will ripen a bit indoors. However, maximum storage time will come only with fully mature fruit. If you are forced to harvest unripe pumpkins, use them within a couple of weeks.
7. If you have a shorter season than central NC (frost free for 6 months), you might want to start the seed in a pot a couple of weeks before setting in the garden; though I have never tried this.
8. I have had seminole pumpkins sit on my kitchen counter for more than a year and be just as good as fresh off the vine, albeit a little dryer.
9. To use, cut in half, remove seeds and fibrous material, and bake cut side down at 325 for 45 minutes to an hour. Scrape out pulp, puree in food processor. You may want to let pulp drain in a seive, though Seminole pumpkins have very little surplus water. Can be frozen or used at once. Yield is about (with a wide range) 3/4C per pound of raw pumpkin.

"As with most winter squash, the vines are very aggressive, easily spreading 50 feet or more over anything encountered. "

Q: How many pumpkins per vine average?

I grew a squash this season which is VERY productive, resistant to everything squash get, and has grown about 50 feet long, on the main vine. I wasn't sure which of the three seeds I planted it was, as it did not resemble any of the descriptions in the catalog, but I now know it is this one, the SP. It is about 60-70 oz on average, has BRIGHT orange flesh, turns somewhat orange upon sitting, though it is always dark green in the garden, and has great flavor in the recipes I have used it in.

Has anyone saved the seeds and used them as pumpkin seeds? The only two I have cut open had incredible amounts of seeds, and with the second one I realized I could clean them up and maybe use them in some Mexican recipes.

I noticed when peeling them that they were extremely hard, so tehy should store well...hopefully, given that I have 16 of them, with 4 or 5 more almost full grown. These things have been blooming since about Aug. 1, and I planted them rather late, so I may get more next year.

The number of fruit per vine is largely a function of the time between first fruit set and the date of the first freeze. In other words, once they start to set fruit, they will continue to do so as the vine grows. (seemingly without limit)

Also, if your pumpkins are dark green then they aren't ripe. They may be edible -- perhaps even good -- but they are not as sweet as they will become. I bring mine in with the first freeze, ripe or not. There is a very noticable difference between the buff colored fruit and anything greener. Anything other than solid green will produce a pie of at least some merit. The riper the squash, the larger the cavity.

I and friends have been growing squash we call seminole pumpkins in Gainesville Fl for a long time. The leaves have white markings on them. The fruit shape is quite variable, even on the same vine sometimes. They usually range from flattened pumpkin, to flattened pumpkin with a bump on the stem side, to tall pumpkin shape. They are somewhat resistant to stem borers, but not impervious. They ripen to a pinkish tan color, I don't know what "buff" is. Sizes are quite variable too, averaging about 4-5 lbs, some as much as 10lbs. They climb up trees, fences, my tomato trelis, etc. The weight of the developing fruit will pull them out of things or pull down the things they climbed on.
I have stored them for more than a year, but most of them don't make it quite that long, sometimes melting on the shelf without warning.
I have planted right before the last frost, and I think I started getting fruit set while day length was still increasing. Early plantings do seem to run out of vigor before winter. It might be nematodes, fungus, I don't know.
We've also grown another C. moschatta called "Chocktaw sweet potato squash." I saw one monopolize 1/4 acre and produce about 100 fruits. They have teardrop shaped fruits, pinkish color, and bear more heavily on a smaller vine than seminole pumpkins. I don't think they taste as good though.
I once grew a cross of Chocktaw with "Tahitian melon squash". I grew one that was 24.5lbs before nematodes killed the plants.

Did you save the seeds?

When is the best time to plant Seminole Pumpkin seeds? I live in South Florida half way between the Town of Palm Beach and Lake Okeechobee.
I plan to plant in the traditional manner of the Seminole Tribe. The Seminoles traditionally girdle a tree that has many branches, killing it, then plant the pumpkin seeds at bottom of the tree allowing the vines to grow up it. This ends up with pumpkins hanging from tree limbs, a curious sight described in some of the early Florida pioneers' journals and letters. On our five acres we already have dead trees of the right configuration for such plantings.
I was unsuccesful at getting seeds from the Seminle Tribe or from the University of Florida, but eventually found and purchased the seeds on-line at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, at www.southernexposure.com
Best I can figure, February is a good time to plant. I'd just like some confirmation of that, or to be told of a better time. Thanks.

I grew Seminole Pumpkin/squash here in upstate SC from seed bought from Southern Heritage Seed Exchange. They were planted in red clay loam well amended with composted sheep manure. The plants grew like gangbusters, with the 2 plants covering a 100' by 50' area and producing close to a 100 fruit when I harvested them prior to first frost in Oct. They started setting fruit by late May and continued doing so all summer. I let them run out into the pasture where fortunately the sheep found both plants and fruit unpalatable. The plants had no disease or insect problem (unlike the Thai Large pumpkin that lost some immature fruit to pickleworms in late summer, they were also MUCH more productive than the Thai Large). They were extremely popular with the local bumblebees whom I would find packed, 4 to 8 to a bloom, early in the morning. Right now I am eating my way through the immature (green skinned) fruit, saving the mature tan-colored fruit for later in the winter.

i was delighted to see this info on squash. "florida gardening" had an article on indian squash several years ago.the one thing i remember about the article is there was an area in south fl where some squash had been growing for nearly a 100 years. the vine runs out a way puts down a root and grows a squash.it continues to run , put down a root and make another squash i tried to find it online with no luck .i lived near okala and was given an indian squash. i can't remember the name but it was named after a creek. its round, dull green with lighter stripes when ripe and get about as big as a basket ball.any one know anything about about them? i am all so looking for seeds of a squash i grew years ago i got from the georiga farm paper that was called "sweet potato squash"
it looked and tasted like butternut but much larger.

Post-harvest analysis. Above, I greatly underestimated the number of fruit harvested. That was just a guesstimate made during the rush of collecting up the 4 wheelbarrow loads of squash in the evening prior to the first fall frost. When I finally made a count later, I counted 168 fruit. So 84 fruit per plant, far outproducing the 4 to 5 fruit normally produced by a vine of its close relative, the Waltham Butternut squash. About half of these were green-colored immature fruit, but the immatures were still good eating, although with yellower flesh and not quite as sweet as a tan, fully-mature squash. The apple-sized immatures only lasted a couple of weeks before starting to shrivel, but the larger size immatures are holding up well. I am still eating off the full-sized immatures, and have lost only a few immatures to rot so far.

Even though the literature describes the Seminole Indians growing the vines up girdled trees, in my experience, the plant is a scrambler, not a climber. Even though I provided a stout 20Т high tripod of branched timber bamboo to it to climb and encouraged it to climb up it, the growing tip of the plant wanted to get back down to the ground and then run, putting down roots and forming fruit as it went. In a frost-free climate, this squash could grow theoretically as a perennial, since it has an open-ended growth habit. By contrast, the Waltham Butternut was bred to produce a usable number of fruit in the short summers of New England, so it has a more determinate growth habit and produces a shorter more limited vine. All in all I am very pleased with it and it is going to be my sole Cucurbita moschata cultivar in upcoming growing seasons.

Regarding the practice of growing the vines up trees, it's my understanding the Seminoles of Florida did so inside the thick wooded hammocks where they planted their gardens, which probably means the vines grow up trees in order to get to full sunlight at top of the hammock. I've had the same experience as a previous person has had. When planted to grow up a tree, the vines preferred spreading out on the grown. But I'm assuming this is because the trees the vines were planted near were in an otherwise open and sunny area.

Sadly, I've found that squirrels love these things! Out of the first 6, only one has grown to full size. It looks like there will be many more...I hope to find some way of protecting them!

I'm definitely going to look for seeds for this next year! mikemary, have you considered a dog? :) Our garden is in our dog yard and we haven't had a single nibble.

Yes, bobbic, we have a daschund that does his best! However, I'm starting to wonder if the culprit isn't birds...I saw a cardinal flying away from the vine the other day. The vine has grown up through my plumeria, and the foiliage seems to have provided some protection...there are two more maturing fruits that are unscathed! I'm out of garden space, so I've just been putting hooks on my privacy fence to keep it off the ground...what a fun plant!

When are they ready to harvest?

I'm trying this one for the first time this year, and am trying the tree thing as I have a dead tree that would be perfect for them if they'll go. Perhaps they'll need some encouraging. Otherwise I'll guide them around the edges of the garden, what the heck.

BTW re small fruits - unless you controlled the pollination of your flowers (i.e. taped the flowers of the small-fruited plant and pollinated off the same plant) you'll have no particular advantage in saving the seeds of the small fruit, because they're just as likely to have been pollinated by flowers of large-fruited plants as by small. If they are off occasional small fruit from a plant that produced both large and small, then they have the same genetic material as the large fruits of the same plant; you'll get plants that again produe large and small fruit.

Update - mine are definitely climbers! I got my seed from Baker's. I tied a couple of ropes from the raised bed (deep planter actually) up to the point the dead tree branched. They climbed right up and into the tree, and now have been growing through the English ivy that is covering the very high retaining wall. Other vines are scrambling up through the tree; the only time I've had one try to come down is if I get 3 or so nodes where the tendrils can't find anything to grab onto. It was a little late to produce female flowers, and now has two squash forming with more females on the way. The one that has some size has a bit of a neck on it. (There's some pictures on my blog.) I hope I get some to ripen; our first frost date here is generally very late.

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

BTW here are some pictures of the Seminoles as they are now.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dolichos/BadSeminolePics#

I have three plants and each is producing a different shape. One is quite round with the largest fruit so far about the size of a small canteloupe; it's got a "blip" rather than a neck. The second is larger and has a distinct neck; one is nearly a foot long. This plant produced one squash then held back for a while but is now setting several more way up high in the tree. The third shape is intermediate; a bit more than a "blip" but not a neck to speak of, I'd say "marginally pear-shaped." So far there are around twelve or thirteen squash total including newly-set ones.

I live in Orlando and planted two Seminole pumpkin seeds around Feb or March. I got them from the Southern Seed Exchange. They grew beautifully--large and far, which was ok because we have a big patch of dirt next to a fence. The fruits were slow to come, but once they started, they really started. I did absolutely nothing for them, did not fertilize, use any pesticide, or even water. Nothing. Just left them, and sometimes yanked them out of the grass. I think the neighbor even mowed some of the stragglers that went over to his side, but this had no effect on them. Yesterday I found that the leaves had been decimate by green worms, and I did not want to deal with it. So I harvested. I got about 30 pumpkins from the two seeds. Many of them are not ripe yet, they are still green with white stripes or spots. But about 8 are orange (kind of orangey-tan). I will try them all and see how it goes. But I am really happy with this crop. It was by far the easiest thing I've grown since we moved to Florida. Most everything else gets destroyed by bugs. While there were bugs on these leaves (including lots of snails), nothing was able to penetrate the very thick skin.

Oct.4, 10 I bought this seed from Baker's Creek, as Above Ground Sweet Potato Squash, but didn't read about the hanging habit. These squash climbed a wall, and hung from the tall trees there. My whole garden space is about 50 by 30, and these huge vines covered just about everything before they climbed. The leaves are big, with white markings. I will plant them earlier next year, though it was pretty early this year, for WV. I will also plant them where there is easy access to climbing. We had a very cool spring. I only got five squash - one is at least a foot in diameter! So these are, as I thought, the almost extinct Seminole hanging pumpkins!

Upper Ground Sweet Potato squash is another moschata, and may have a similar climbing habit, but it isn't Seminole! Check Baker's catalogue, you'll see they are two different varieties.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Freak in Istanbul

I planted 6 Seminole Pumpkin seeds (got from SESE) in 2 hills back in April in South Florida. Meant to thin but never did. The vines ran and ran, and didn't want to climb. They keep setting roots as they go. We had a hellishly hot and relatively dry summer; during that time there were only male flowers. In the mornings, Cardinals, Orioles and other birds congregated to eat the bugs and caterpillars in the flowers and vines. We too had lots of bees and also a moth which were pollinating. I picked a lot of those male flowers and used them like squash blossoms - good in omelets, etc. Now that it's cooler I'm getting fruit set, but the vine is also dying - nematodes, I think. Two Pumpkins we've picked were pinkish-tan, 14 & 20 ounces only. Glad to hear we can still enjoy immature green fruit. Regarding a dog - one of our greyhounds was "caught" yesterday trying to carry off one of the pumpkins and playing with it like a ball! so it's not a perfect solution either.

I wonder if deer like the vines or fruit?

I have so thoroughly enjoyed this thread, as I just got my Seminole seeds in and will be planting this spring. The info and experiences and pics were so cool! Since y'all say and show they have large vines and leaves, I will use them at the bottom of my property to shade out some horse nettle weed that I can't seem to kill any other way. I'll till up a hill and enrich with plenty cottonseed meal and let them go. I doubt they'll get any water but rain. We'll see what happens by fall and see how they do against horse nettle. Any fruits I will get would be a wonderful bonus. Thanks for all the awesome info!

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