Sugar Pumpkin | New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (2024)

FAQs

What is a good substitute for sugar pumpkin? ›

If you were hoping to cook a sugar pumpkin, but none are available, don't purchase a carving pumpkin. The next best cooking substitute is another winter squash. Some examples include Butternut Squash, Baby Pam, Autumn Gold, Ghost Rider, New England Pie Pumpkin, Lumina, Cinderella, and Fairy Tale.

Pumpkins are quite frost tender and can't be planted until all danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed up. Don't put them out before the temperature reaches 65˚ F daily. Pumpkins are sprawling plants, notorious for taking up a lot of room; so do not plant them in the middle of the intensive garden.

Storage. A whole sugar pumpkin will keep for up to nine months when stored in a cool place away from sunlight. Once it is sliced, it will keep for up to a week in the fridge. When trimmed away from the rind, the flesh can be frozen, and it will keep for up to six months in the freezer.

Pumpkins are in the squash family, called “Cucurbits,” and all parts of all squash are edible – leaves, vines, fruit, seeds, skin and roots!

Sow Outdoors: After any danger of frost has passed. Pumpkin seeds require relatively warm soil to germinate. Vegetative: Can be cloned by burying part of the parent vine in soil. Water and fertilize the child vine and, after 7–10 days, cut away from the parent plant.

Pie pumpkins, also called sugar pumpkins, usually weigh 1 to 6 pounds. Their flesh is denser and sweeter that the bigger ones, which are called carving or jack-o'-lantern pumpkins. The biggies have a moister, softer interior with a bigger seed cavity, and the flesh tends to be stringier.

Pumpkins are a superfood because they're high in many nutrients essential for a well-functioning body, including: fiber, carotenoids, potassium, vitamins A, E, and C, omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, selenium, iron, magnesium, and beta-carotene.

All squash skin is edible. However, in the same way you wouldn't eat a banana peel, edible doesn't necessarily mean you want to eat it.

Sugar pumpkins have firm, sweet flesh, with delicious flavor. You can roast sugar pumpkin flesh and use it in soups, salads, and baked goods. The roasted pumpkin can be eaten in chunks or pureed. One sugar pumpkin roasted makes about 2 cups of puree which is a bit more than you would get in an average can.

Before storing, cure squash and pumpkins by keeping them dry and warm (80 to 85 degrees), if you can, for several days to heal minor abrasions from harvesting. Give them moderate humidity and good air circulation.

Will sugar pumpkins ripen off the vine? ›

As long as a pumpkin has started to turn its mature color, it will continue to ripen off the vine (but it's always best to allow pumpkins to ripen naturally on the vine). Frost harms pumpkins and shortens storage life.

As mentioned, a typical pumpkin plant requires about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) of water per week. However, this amount may need to be adjusted based on rainfall, temperature, and evaporation rates. During hot and dry periods, increase the amount of water supplied to the plants to compensate for the rapid evaporation.

Cinderella pumpkins, also known as Rouge Vif d'Étampes, are a similar shape to fairytale pumpkins, but they have a bright red-orange color as opposed to the orange-brown of a fairytale. Additionally, Cinderella are less flavorful and more watery, making them less suited for baking.

The Pumpkin Coach was a carriage made for Cinderella by her Fairy Godmother so she could attend the ball. At the stroke of midnight, it turned back into a pumpkin.

Cinderella ran into the garden and picked a big, orange pumpkin. The fairy godmother touched the pumpkin with her magic wand and it turned into a golden carriage.

Think vertical, and train your pumpkins to grow on a trellis with the fruit supported with netting or old pantyhose. This works best with varieties that bear smaller fruit, such as 'Small Sugar,' 'Baby Pam' and 'Cotton Candy,' but larger varieties can be grown vertically, too.

From a standard pumpkin vine, you can expect an average of two to five pumpkins. But that all depends on the size of the pumpkins. Some smaller varieties can produce as many as 12 per plant, whereas growers of giant pumpkins limit growth to one pumpkin per vine. There are other environmental factors involved as well.

When growing pumpkins in a small space, look for miniature and sugar pie pumpkins, as well as pumpkins that maintain a bush-like growth habit. Some of the best pumpkins for container gardens are 'Jack Be Little', 'Spooktacular', 'Small Sugar', and 'Baby Boo'.

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potatoes

These ingredients, in these amounts, are interchangeable in most recipes to achieve the same texture and most similar flavor. For 1 cup canned pumpkin or pumpkin puree, substitute 1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potato or butternut squash.

What is a good substitute for canned pumpkin? ›

Butternut, buttercup, honeynut and acorn squashes are all suitable substitutes. Each of these types of squash has a similar texture to pumpkin and some natural sweetness. To substitute these squashes for pumpkin, prepare them as you would pumpkin for fresh pumpkin puree: clean, roast, puree in a food processor.

Sweet Potatoes: If you are using canned sweet potatoes, drain the can and save the juice. Blend the potatoes, adding enough juice to make a paste the same consistency as pumpkin. Substitute the sweet potatoes for the amount of pumpkin called for in the recipe.

To get 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, use ¾ teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon ginger, allspice, cloves or nutmeg, whatever you have! If you have two of the above spices, use ½ teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon of whichever two spices you do have.