Growing Pumpkins

I don't know about you, but it always frustrates me to see all these seasonal magazines showing gorgeous pictures of unusual types of pumpkins and then suggesting that you "pick them up at your local produce stand".  What?  Where are these people shopping?  I've never seen more than the regular jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins at my grocery store or pumpkin patch.  In particular I've been coveting the all white Lumina pumpkin for years now, but I've never seen it anywhere around here.

So I grew my own!

Exactly one white pumpkin grew, but I was still excited that it worked at all.  I put it front and center in my display so all the other pumpkins could be jealous of it.

What didn't work so well were the Cinderella pumpkins I planted.  They were supposed to be deep orange and slightly flattened looking and resemble the pumpkin coach from Cinderella.

Not so much...

It still looks pretty cool though if you didn't know what it is supposed to look like and it adds a nice splash of yellow to my balcony.

So if there is a particular type of pumpkin or squash that you see in a magazine and want to get your hands on, don't wait for your "local produce stand" to start carrying it.  Try growing it yourself!

I bought all my seeds on amazon for less than $3 a packet so this was a very affordable experiment.