Into the Woods

Last year, a friend sent me a gift from his garden. He called it a squash, I called it a little pumpkin. Save the seeds, he said. Plant in early summer, he said, feed it well, give it lots of room, and it will become a kraken plant. The vine will spread like kudzu, and it will eat you alive if you don’t watch out, he said. They’re still blooming! The photo is of two baby kraken with a teacup for scale.

These little things are outrageously magical. They mature just before Hallowe’en. They’re probably winter squash. Like winter squash, they like to be cured, and they keep for ages. But in a pie they taste just like pumpkin.

Next year, I’d like to have a lot more of these things and do a better job of cultivating them. A good crop of them probably would last for most of the winter.

Update: The friend who sent me my first little pumpkin identifies these as “Long Island cheese pumpkins.” Here’s a link to some history. They’re an old variety, rescued by an heirloom seed project in the 1970s. He bought his first one at a farmer’s market, he says. Nothing could be easier than saving pumpkin seeds, by the way.