In honor of Halloween, it's time for GOURD FACTS.
For every donation to the link below I will post one (1) fact about gourds, pumpkins, squash, and all the ways we use them. It's a really useful family of plants!
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mastodon
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We don't know for sure, but two things are definitely true about bottle gourds.
-They float
-They can dry up & hold their seeds for a really long time.
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Especially for plants in arid areas, floating is a good strategy to spread your seeds!
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I see you guys! We're finishing up one last event, should be back a little before 6 π
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The first members of the squash family probably weren't grown for food. They were hard and/or bitter!
Instead, people probably first started keeping them around to dry out & use as containers.
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After all, you can eat a lot of things. But there are only so many lightweight, waterproof containers out there.
If baskets are too leaky and pottery's too heavy for what you need to do, bottle gourds are your best bet!
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ack o'lanterns are from Europe, but squash aren't.
So before Europe found squash, they were making jack o'lanterns out of root vegetables. Turnips, rutabagas, beets, etc.
Credit where it's due, they really nail the "creepy" vibe.
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When people first started eating squash, we're pretty sure it wasn't the flesh- it was the seeds!
Squash's seeds are oily & tasty. The flesh on early squash was still hard, bitter, or both.
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Eventually, as people started growing a lot of squash, some of them would naturally have flesh that was less bitter. People got adventurous, started cooking it, and selecting for sweeter & sweeter fruits.
And now there's edible squash!
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The classic "Cinderella" pumpkins don't do well in tropical and subtropical conditions.
But calabaza-type squash love it.
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Had good luck with Kang Kob pumpkins in the NC sandhills.
Do they look weird? Sure. Are they tasty & grow well? Yes! They're sturdy and handle our challenging weather & soil really well.
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Seminole pumpkins have a RANGE on looks & preferred weather. The Seminole people bred them to handle Florida's steamy weather- and then the US forced a lot of Seminoles to Oklahoma in 1849.
So now some Seminole pumpkin lines are adapted to Florida, and some to Oklahoma.
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GIANT PUMPKINS let's talk about em
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You have to put them on a pallet when they're still a little baby pumpkin. So you can forklift them out of the field.
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A little over a decade ago, giant pumpkin growers were chasing a 2,000lb pumpkin. A one-ton squash.
Now, we've blown through that and growers are eyeing the 3,000lb limit.
We have no idea what the maximum size for a pumpkin IS.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/giant-pumpkin-world-record/680337/
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Giant pumpkins usually wind up getting smushed by gravity. It's kind of charming. A "yeah I'm huge but I'm tired, be nice to me" energy.
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And it's trick or treating o'clock! Showtime! Thanks for participating, have a good night everyone!
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@sarahtaber
Omg. I had to zoom in to make sure this picture is what I thought it was. ππ
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@sarahtaber oh my gourd
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@falcennial @sarahtaber Underrated toot.
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@clickhere @sarahtaber ππ
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@falcennial @sarahtaber ππ
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@sarahtaber Had to look up what a rutabaga was - we call theme 'swedes' in the UK.
MY favourite pumpkin fact is that Big Jim Martin from Faith no More is (or was) a champion pumpkin farmer.
https://blabbermouth.net/news/former-faith-no-more-guitarist-grows-monster-pumpkins
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@BonehouseWasps @sarahtaber
We call them turnips up north. Yellow turnips.
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@sarahtaber wonder if hey could be grown successfully submerged in water!
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@sarahtaber
A challenge for the International Space Station! π
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@sarahtaber Big mood, especially the day after Halloween. XD
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@sarahtaber so. many. pies.
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@sarahtaber same thing happened to Americans. Super size it.
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@sarahtaber What do they do with all these ginormous pumpkins AFTER? Thatβs a hella compost pile.
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@sarahtaber we should be making dedicated pumpkin pallets, a softer, convex pallet top to cradle these beauties, whilst providing airflow. hmmm, I am getting very into this
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@falcennial @sarahtaber and feeding them lots of silicon to help them keep their structure
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@airshipper @sarahtaber really? sounds smart but I dont know if you're being funny or not. would it affect the taste
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@falcennial @airshipper @sarahtaber Been a few years since we broke up, but my Master Gardener & Master Composter then-girlfriend would talk at length about the challenges of trying to get plant root structures to uptake nutrients & minerals in quantities greater than their natural inclination
So, not an expert but I'm not inclined to think this would work
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@falcennial @airshipper @sarahtaber My thinking here is that maybe an extra-large kiddie pool, filled w/ some sort extra-dense gel? Like the ballistic gel that they shoot bullets thru while filming w/ ultra-high frame rate cameras? That might do the trick
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@RufusJCooter @airshipper @sarahtaber π€π€π€
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@RufusJCooter @falcennial @sarahtaber plant nutrient manufacturers can say whatever they like, just like the people who make vitamins and nutritional supplements. so yeah sell the ballistic gel as a growth medium for bulletproof pumpkins. you can get beautiful photos of root structures, even!
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@airshipper @RufusJCooter @sarahtaber π€£π€£π€π€
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@RufusJCooter pretty interesting!
for that purpose, from the little I know about grafting, I imagine a scenario whereby the root and stem structures of several plants are grafted together, with the flowering and leafing structure pruned and controlled to have only one fruiting body. the Ronnie Coleman of pumpkins. The Pumpking, if u will
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@falcennial @sarahtaber Vaguely recall some 'extreme gardening' or some-such video, where a guy tried to grow his champion pumpkin on a trampoline, with a tension-gauge replacing one of the springs (to get a rough estimate of the weight), but the tramp had a structural failure w/ just a few weeks to go 'til harvest, and he woke up one early fall morn to a yard full of pumpkin puree
So, over-engineer these, whatever you do
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@RufusJCooter @sarahtaber π€£π€£π€π€π€
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@sarahtaber Giant pumpkin growers are very passionate about their giant pumpkins! A few of them on the island here are quite obsessed with trying to win biggest pumpkin of the year awards!
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@sarahtaber Giant pumpkin winners in recent BC history:
https://www.saanichnews.com/news/the-great-pumpkin-arrives-in-armstrong-via-kelowna-grower-7596475
https://victoriabuzz.com/2023/10/simply-gourd-geous-vancouver-island-pumpkin-crowned-largest-in-all-of-bc/
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@sarahtaber
ππππππππ*Holy Cow!*Amazing!πππππ
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