Ep. 151 How to grow and pick the perfect pumpkin | #GoodGrowing
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. October has arrived, and it is time to pick out the delicious, beautiful, scary pumpkins that will be gracing our dinner tables, our front porches. And so we have a lot to talk about in selecting our pumpkins today. We will get to that topic in just a second.
Chris Enroth:And, you know, I'm not doing this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson:Hello, Chris. You gotten your pumpkins yet?
Chris Enroth:Not yet. You see, I get my pumpkins and my kids immediately say, let's carve them. Carving a pumpkin on October 1, it is not going to last till October 31. And so I try to dig my heels in as long as I can because I know as soon as I do, the knives come out and the pumpkins must be carved. So I try to hold off a little bit longer.
Chris Enroth:How about yourself?
Ken Johnson:We grew some pumpkins this year and squash bugs did us in. So we don't have any pumpkins, so we will have to go find some somewhere. The last couple years our kids really haven't wanted to carve, so see if they want to this year.
Chris Enroth:Ah, you got to you got to get those like stencils where you can create all kinds of elaborate designs and stuff. Then the kids get bored about a third of the way through and then you finish it.
Ken Johnson:Actually make it a third of the way through for you?
Chris Enroth:I almost said a half, but I backed off to a third. Yeah. Well, it sounds like maybe you and I could use some some help, advice from an expert here. So let's bring in our special guest today. We have commercial ag educator Nathan Johanning in Waterloo, Illinois.
Chris Enroth:Nathan, welcome to the show.
Nathan Johanning:Thanks for having me.
Chris Enroth:Well, we are happy to have you. And so let's let's give a bit of context, for folks. I've described Macomb. We all know where Jacksonville is. Where's Waterloo in this great state of Illinois?
Nathan Johanning:So Waterloo is in the St. Louis Metro East. We're on the South Side, so we're just a little bit South of St. Louis on the Illinois side of the river. So perched up atop the River Bluffs.
Nathan Johanning:So we're not too far from the metro area, where we're at, a pretty reasonably rural area, still lots of commuters to the St. Louis work environment, but no, pretty rural farming community at least kind of its roots. And lots of lots of little mom and pop pumpkin operations here scattered around. Seems to be, as I'm sure in many areas, popular to see that little wagon at the end of the driveway with a little honor system can and, you know, few pumpkins out of different kinds.
Chris Enroth:Waterloo sound I mean, sounds like, you know, we're definitely south to where where Ken and I are are located. And so but a bit about your background too. I mean, Nathan, you've been on the show before. I think we've talked about pumpkins before a little bit, but some of your background is also in studying things like cover crops and and and how it relates to kind of that pumpkin cropping system. And so but you've studied pumpkins and cover crops.
Chris Enroth:And do you what what kind of other research do you do on the farm there?
Nathan Johanning:Sure. So so just a little more in-depth about my background, especially relating to pumpkins as it is. I've done lots of work through Extension on doing pumpkin field days. Usually every other year, this is an off year for me. So it gives me time to talk to you guys and not have the insanity of a field day and other things to deal with.
Nathan Johanning:And lots of presentations, you mentioned cover crops. I've done lots of work with no till pumpkin production. So basically we're trying to use some conservation practices, trying to preserve our soil, keep it in our fields and not in our rivers and creeps and drainage ways. So looking at that and some of the benefits there. So in addition to all of this extension work, I also am a pumpkin grower myself.
Nathan Johanning:We have a family farm South Of Waterloo, and I've been growing pumpkins. I think this is now year number 18 that I have on pumpkin. So it started off with a little bit, maybe a half acre or so and kind of on a whim and with a little bit of previous experience from a summer before helping somebody out. And I thought, I can surely do this. And now eighteen years later, we got about five acres of pumpkins.
Nathan Johanning:And so just all kinds of fun, I think over 60 different varieties. What you can see behind me is a shot from one year from pumpkin field at that time. So no, that's a little bit about me and kind of where I think my role through extension, but then also through some of the research and as a grower kind of comes into working with pumpkins.
Chris Enroth:So you're the guy to talk to. So we're happy to have you here. We have a series of pumpkin questions. So, Ken, if you wouldn't mind kicking us off this week, please.
Ken Johnson:All right. First off, how does the pumpkin crop look for 2023?
Nathan Johanning:2023 pumpkin crop. I think overall the pumpkin crop looks pretty good. I think it really depends on where you're at. That's rainfall, which is no secret, has been the biggest probably issue. For the most part lack of rainfall, although I know in a few areas once it finally did rain there was excess rain that may have even caused some issues.
Nathan Johanning:But at least where we're at here in the southern part of the state, lack of rainfall is probably our biggest deficit. I think since about the, oh, probably the July, August 1, we've had less than a half inch of rain these last two months. And that was going in. We had a brief respite, a little bit of July kind of gave us a little bit of rebound with maybe an inch or two, but then we were dry for like three months prior to that. So we've just been really struggling.
Nathan Johanning:All of our crops are withered away. I haven't mowed grass in I don't know how many weeks. And it's brown and crispy, which in some ways I don't mind a little bit. It's happy to check that chore off the list. But, needless to say, things are struggling.
Nathan Johanning:And there's various, so that's but if you happen to catch some rain, you might be in a lot better position. I've known some growers that, had caught a few inches of rain in the last month, not even terribly far north of here, things look a lot better. For us, would say overall it's going be an average year. And I think across the board, the biggest thing that I think across the board hurt everyone was we were up around, everyone was close to like 100 degrees in the August. We had that really hot stand, one of the last heat waves, biggest heat waves we had.
Nathan Johanning:Pumpkins don't like setting fruit when it's super hot. If it gets above about 95 degrees, they start basically aborting female flowers, basically meaning that they don't set new fruit when they should be. And given it takes thirty to forty days for a pumpkin to bloom till maturity, the fact that about the August is when we need to be setting a bunch of fruit so they're ready late September for harvest in October. So that's, like many other crops, there's this delayed effect. The weather that happened in August is dictating our pumpkin harvest now.
Nathan Johanning:So pumpkins are, well, I would say for the most part, of an indeterminate crop that continues to bloom once its fruit set starts. But whenever we get windows of let's say adverse weather like I just mentioned, then you'll see big gaps in fruiting later on because of that. So anyhow, that's at least a few observations, but I think the dry weather has really hurt some people. A few have actually seen, we've seen some plant viruses. There are some actually plant viruses that can come in.
Nathan Johanning:They're aphid vectored. They especially love the dry weather because aphids appreciate it. They'll come in and they cause distortion of the leaves and lots of green speckling and spotting on fruit that's really weird, almost Frankenstein ish, and lots of other kind of subtle issues that are really hard to manage. There's not really any management to it just due to how they're vectored. So a few growers have some of that, and that's frustrating and kind of one of those things that happens.
Nathan Johanning:At our farm we actually have a lot of that, and that's probably one of the things that's been frustrating me, at least as a grower. But that being said, some things look great. A couple varieties that had extra sensitivity to those viruses, kinda struggling a little bit. So but but all in all, given the amount of rain we've had or the lack of, I'm I'm rather impressed with the crop. So
Chris Enroth:But with viruses that I mean, like you said, not really any control other than just getting rid of the plant, getting that out of there.
Nathan Johanning:Yeah. It's, yeah, it's just a challenge. Even some of that and, you know, to some extent you, at least on a larger scale, you're not going to ditch all of those plants because some of them have a few productive fruit they set early, but then they're starting to show symptoms later on the vine. A lot of it'll show up. The old leaves look fine, but from whenever that virus hit on, any new growth starts to get distortion or any new fruit that set.
Nathan Johanning:And viruses are a whole interesting topic, plant viruses, and how they can manifest themselves. Yeah, definitely something that is really kind of out of the growers control. There's not even any really good preventative measures you can do to help kind of manage it.
Ken Johnson:So the fruit that gets the viruses, can you still sell that or does that affect it? The biggest
Nathan Johanning:thing that affects is its color. So everyone wants the perfectly orange pumpkin fruit that has, you know, this nice consistent color. What happens is sometimes the viruses can cause the fruit to get a little bit lumpy and also cause these latent green spots. So there's spots that usually pumpkins are green. Well, spots just stay green when the rest of the fruit is turned orange.
Nathan Johanning:So you get these weird patterns. Now for a retail market, actually some people actually find them kind of interesting. And actually we'll pick them up. However, we also sell to some stores and other pieces and there's different levels of accepting of some of those dysfunctionalities in a fruit. So they keep just fine.
Nathan Johanning:They otherwise look fine. Otherwise it's not something that caused them to rot. They just don't have their normal color. No different than if you had like a mole or something on your I mean, that's kind of the thought process. It doesn't affect anything.
Nathan Johanning:It's just a difference in coloration there.
Chris Enroth:I guess, Nathan, speaking of color, I have maybe a two parter here. When I was a kid, I only remember going to the pumpkin patch and there was like one type of pumpkin. Now you go to the pumpkin patch and you have an assortment of different pumpkins, gourds, what have you. Do you have let's maybe two questions here. Do you have a favorite?
Chris Enroth:And then is there one that sells the best?
Nathan Johanning:You know, the pumpkin market has shifted, you know, since I started until now. Whenever I first started, I did have access and had started into what we call some of the specialty pumpkins, the reds, the blues, the whites, and other things. Certainly there wasn't as much available. Companies hadn't gotten into really doing lots of breeding or other work around it. Most of what we had early on and still now were just winter squash that had some unique colorations and had kind of pumpkin like characteristics as you would look at them.
Nathan Johanning:And so we started not just using those for keeping winter food, but we started using for ornamental purposes. And so I think that that trend has shifted. It used to be that, oh, that's kind of interesting, you know, a white pumpkin. And then now it's like everyone wants like they go to the different colored pumpkins and they will just like go haywire. Like that's just what they want.
Nathan Johanning:And I think that's kind of where at least most of the, you know, UPIC stands or other that's kind of the market niche that you can get there. I mean, certainly some of the big box stores, you'll see the bin of some assorted things, but nothing even there, not quite what you can get at some of these local farms that really push the envelope with the number of varieties and stuff they have out there. So for me, favorite. Gosh, there's so many. I still think one of the and this is from the looks and then also the productivity of that variety.
Nathan Johanning:There's actually a variety called warty goblin. It's a predominantly orange pumpkin and it has basically green bumps all over it. They'll fade to orange eventually, but it's a nice contrasting orange background with green looks like green warts on it. Really nice fruit, just really stands out, something that people don't see. They think you've like glued stuff onto the pumpkin or something you've done to it.
Nathan Johanning:And I say, no, it's just how that variety has been bred and how it grows. So I think that's probably one of my favorites. It's really productive and it's probably overall probably one of the better sellers. I don't know. It shifts.
Nathan Johanning:Even over the last few years, you get some shift of, you know, people have gotten more into like pumpkin stacks and some of the flat pumpkins like the Cinderellas, which are reds and whites and some of the blue Jardale which is a kind of bluish gray color and many others. So there's been lots of shifts, certainly more shift towards those and those types. And so that's probably some of my favorite. And I think where the market is definitely towards that specialty side. People still love jack o'-lantern pumpkins.
Nathan Johanning:They'll always they'll get a few of those to slip in, but you know, definitely the market is going to the different colors. And that's where a lot of our local farms, I think, kind of shine is to be able to give you some of those unique things that you can't find just anywhere.
Ken Johnson:So we've got all these varieties that we can grow. Take us through the kind of the process of growing pumpkins. What's kind of the year in the life of a pumpkin farmer?
Nathan Johanning:So the pumpkin year starts off, of course, you get your seeds earlier in the season, but the actual production year will start off. And this is the thing that some people get a little caught up in is usually doesn't start until about June. Maybe if you're in the far northern parts of our area, maybe a little bit of late May for some things. But really we push it later than what we would say trying to get our other cucurbit crops, first cucumbers and zucchini and things out. The main reason for that is that very few people really have an appreciation for July pumpkins.
Nathan Johanning:And the other aside to that is that pumpkins that mature in some of that excessive heat in the July just tend to not keep as well. You have a lot longer. I mean even though in the fall you can get them to keep when temperatures cool off, but it can be hard to grow a good pumpkin and get it to actually keep if it's mature in the July all the way until even early September. So usually we get pumpkin started sometime in mid June. Actually in this area down here you can actually push even a little bit later as you head a little bit further south.
Nathan Johanning:But somewhere in the month of June is a good month to, is a good month to start. You're gonna plant seeds. We actually, we actually transplant ours, so we grow little plugs in 72 cell trays and use a mechanical transplanter that can handle no till conditions and plant them out. A few growers do that, a lot of them use, just direct seed with some kind of a modified corn planter, sometimes even just hand planters or just use a hoe and make little, hills and plant. So that's, you know, we're starting off with planting, those plants get up.
Nathan Johanning:The biggest thing we're watching for is trying to keep all the weeds out, watching for, any diseases. You know, powdery mildew is probably our most common year in year out. We get powdery mildew, looks kind of like almost powdered sugar kind of spots on the leaves. They'll start to come in, and once they hit, at a certain point it kind of goes to like pandemic level and just spreads across the field, if you don't do anything else. And I would say that almost every year, you know, any field with cucurbits that are planned most of the season is going to have some level of powdery mildew in it, especially unless you've had a extremely good preventative fungicide program.
Nathan Johanning:But that's one problem that's common and we're always watching for. And it's just a factor of our kind of hot humid summers. It loves dry as far as limited precipitation, but high humidity and high temperatures. So that's pretty much most summers in Illinois. So from there, you know, we're watching for insects too.
Nathan Johanning:Ken, you mentioned squash bugs. Squash bugs are like public enemy number one right up there with cucumber beetles. They will do a number on them. Cucumber beetles actually aren't quite as problematic. They're really easy to manage, a little bit easier.
Nathan Johanning:Squash bugs are just tough, especially the adults. If you look at them, they're very armored. They're gray. They look like little miniature tanks like, you know, running through your pumpkin field to destroy them. You know, they're all kind of armored up.
Nathan Johanning:And so they you'll see some of the squash bug eggs sometimes early. They're little like kind of, a reddish orange little spots on the underside of the leaf that look like little drops hanging there, usually in clusters of maybe a dozen or more. Once those come, you know, after a little bit those start to hatch. You'll see these little gray nymphs running around. I actually saw some in my field which gave me increased my blood pressure a little bit whenever I saw a good number of them as I'm like trying to like stomp on them and other things and contemplating my plan of attack.
Nathan Johanning:Yeah, those are pretty big things. And cucumber beetles feed a lot on leaves. Sometimes they'll kind of feed on green fruit. They're kind of minimal. They fly around.
Nathan Johanning:They look like little ladybugs that are green instead of red in their background. You can tolerate some of them, but the squash bugs will get into a lot of them will at the base of the plant. So they'll start basically sucking the life out of the plant, sucking that sap, and just you'll see plants that start to wilt and they just literally they're just you know, sucking that basically all the nutrition from that plant to the point that that plant just kind of succumbs earlier than it should. What happens sometimes with that, depending on the maturity of your pumpkins, is you'll end up having fruit that mature, but they really get ripe. They'll get this kind of pale yellow color, the stems kind of shrink up, and even the fruit will kind of get shrunken, they get kind of soft.
Nathan Johanning:And basically what's happened is that fruit was green. It wasn't really physiologically mature as it should be. It needed more time on the vine. The plant died. Its natural instinct through the plant hormones is to go ahead and change colors, but it's really not a ripe pumpkin.
Nathan Johanning:And because of that, it doesn't have that tough outer skin and the durability that it really needs to hold up. And that's why those pumpkins sometimes when you do have that happen, you pick those pumpkins and they look kind of okay, and then they just kind of rot and shrivel up and they just don't hold up. So those are all probably the biggest pest things we're looking at mid season. Then we go on later in the season we're just watching for fruit set, trying to make sure hopefully supporting our pollinators, wanting to encourage them to come to our pumpkins. And then from there it's just kind of monitoring, a lot of which I mentioned there are pests.
Nathan Johanning:Common things we'll do is spray preventative fungicides. No one wants to. It costs a lot of money, but especially things like powdery mildew can just kind of ruin the quality of a pumpkin crop. And very few customers appreciate that small shrunken ugly looking pumpkin, which is why we try to keep those plants healthy. Any pumpkins that I pick, I want to pick them off of a green healthy vine.
Nathan Johanning:Some people think that that field should be all brown, like the leaves all down, you should see all the pumpkins. So my idea is that I should almost be a jungle of leaves I have to wade through to find the pumpkins. There's a happy medium there because that can get old when you're just hunting for pumpkin after pumpkin acre by acre. But no, you just want to keep those vines healthy, keep the diseases and keep those insects at bay. Now, I try to practice my integrated pest management as far as trying to balance things.
Nathan Johanning:I scout and if I don't see anything, I tend to hold out on making any sprays. So, you know, I think this year I maybe made maybe two fungicide sprays, and I think I'm pretty well good. I maybe make one strategic insecticide spray. I think what I mentioned, those squash bugs, there may be another one just because my tolerance for squash bugs and what they do is not very high. But anyhow
Chris Enroth:Everyone's tolerance for squash bugs is very, very low. If you've ever grown a pumpkin before, you know how awful they are.
Nathan Johanning:No. And so, yeah. No, that's that's the biggest things. Then you're just looking towards harvest. So we, you know, when a harvest comes, people ask, you know, how do you get all these stems?
Nathan Johanning:We cut all of our stems. I have a really nice pair of hand pruners that open real wide that I use. Some people use larger loppers. I'm very biased and I have my favorite brand and pair that I use. And so that's my tried and trusty.
Nathan Johanning:It's worn, it's probably heck, it's probably in my pocket right now. It's got its little holster and then we go through and we cut them nice and clean. Always keep the stems as long as they can. There's so many varieties that have lots of character in the stem and that really makes the fruit. And I always tell people, people when they first start, I had a friend that helped me once pick pumpkins, we load them into a wagon.
Nathan Johanning:Every pumpkin I heard, I heard it picked up and I heard a roll and a crunch. And I was just like, after about five or six of those trying to be nice, I said, You know those stems on the top? Those are pretty important because they're pretty well worthless without them. And he's like, Oh, oh yeah. So we had a little discussion about the importance of that.
Nathan Johanning:And so there's nothing that breaks my heart more than I can tell it from like a half mile away is the sound of a pumpkin stem getting crushed. Little piece of my soul dies every time that happens.
Chris Enroth:Lift from the bottom.
Nathan Johanning:Yeah. Lift And from the there for the and I shouldn't say pros, but for the pros, there are ways that you can handle a pumpkin by the stem. It's more of them rolling and self destructing whenever you're trying to put them into like their truck or something. There's nothing worse for about three pumpkins than a wide open truck bed and a 10 mile ride home on a country road. They'll be all over 10 different directions on Sunday Get rid of that truck.
Nathan Johanning:And if you have any stems left, you're a mighty good driver.
Chris Enroth:Smooth roads. Yeah.
Nathan Johanning:Yes. No curvings.
Chris Enroth:So we've talked squash bug. Would you say that's the most difficult pest to manage for a pumpkin patch? Or would downy mildew be a contender?
Nathan Johanning:So downy mildew is another one. I didn't mention it. So the nice thing, if there is a nice thing about downy mildew, is that it is not a annual occurrence. It doesn't overwinter here. So it has to blow up from usually for us down south.
Nathan Johanning:If you get a little further north or in the Chicagoland area, sometimes it'll overwinter in some greenhouse cucumber production up in the Michigan, New York area and kind of migrate around a little bit. But for most of us it's got to blow up from some kind of cucurbit production down further south. When it does affect fruit, is pretty devastating. It'll basically takes down the leaves and just kind of defoliates the pumpkins prematurely. And then we already talked about your vines aren't healthy, your pumpkins aren't healthy.
Nathan Johanning:And pumpkin quality goes down. So yeah, downy mildew certainly can be, but I'd say the saving grace is that, I think it's been maybe, I want to say three years since we've had Downy Mill due to any great extent. So I would say maybe two to three out of ten years, at least to be a little bit conservative, would be the occurrence we may see it. And sometimes it's a little less than that. But certainly midsummer there I get I don't know how many text messages I got from and pictures of pumpkin leaves, Is this downy mildew?
Nathan Johanning:Is this downy mildew? This downy mildew? Half of
Chris Enroth:them work for me.
Nathan Johanning:No, because the early symptoms are the leaves start to turn yellow and then they'll just die prematurely. Well, in drought conditions when they can't get water, the old leaves turn brown or turn yellow and they start to die, which is not disease related, it's related to other things. There's some minor nuances and differences that kind of distinguish it, some of which I have a hard time even telling. Needless to say, to date, I haven't heard of any downy mildew in Illinois for this season. So that's a positive that I can always appreciate.
Chris Enroth:Okay. Well, so back to the squash bug, I will throw in squash vine borer as one of my nemesis as well. So I read from MU Extension the maybe the technique of trap cropping. Some of these insects, it seems like they're attracted to some older types of squash like blue hubbard. Is that a technique recommended in Illinois to utilize squash like blue hubbard to draw the squash bugs or squash vine borers in?
Chris Enroth:And then I think like you probably have to chemically treat that plant, right, to kill them. Is that a viable alternative for us?
Nathan Johanning:It does have some viability. So I'll give you an example of that and that I actually use this year. So I plant a lot of those older varieties. So things like your blue Hubbard, blue Jerrodale, any, there's a whole group of families in the, the Cucurbita moushata, or excuse me, Maxima family. They're all the round stem, the winter squash types that we see, a lot of white pumpkins, etcetera.
Nathan Johanning:So those are really good culprit, especially for cucumber beetles. Cucumber beetles love them. I don't know about vine borers and squash bugs. I guess I haven't tracked them quite as well. I think they're a little more nondescript in their palate, but cucumber beetles will flock to those varieties if given the opportunity, given the chance.
Nathan Johanning:So I somewhat out of a logistical organization, I block all my varieties together that way when I'm harvesting, you know, some are separated and it's a lot of what we pick is we pick off the farm and then take it to farmer's markets or to stores. So I don't want a scattering of everything all mixed together. I want to know exactly where I can find variety X so I can go to it pick what I need and move on to the next thing. Because of that all those I tend to group together, and so what I did I held out as long as I could, but at the point, and I'm sure we've all seen this, whenever you go out especially with those varieties, and I literally walk through those areas and it's just like a cloud of cucumber beetles. They just start flying up literally by the dozens if not hundreds everywhere you go.
Nathan Johanning:Actually a little before that, but you know that it's time. So what I did, you know, we have five acres, and I sprayed about an acre and a half, and I just sprayed those areas. I didn't I left all I mean, I had ladybugs out, so I'm trying to, relent and not do anything. But my solution was I'm only going to spray, you know, those areas first. Now later the squash bugs have come in.
Nathan Johanning:So usually at least once a year I have to spray the whole thing. But, we really try to encourage growers and they're on that is that there is an old mentality of well, you know, I need to spray preventive fungicides, which they often will do weekly during the prime, especially August season. Well, I may as well just throw an insecticide in too. And no, you really don't need to. You know, if you're not seeing many and even just a few cucumber beetles, they really are innocent.
Nathan Johanning:Like I say when they hit that epidemic level, know, then the cucumber beetles need to be reigned back in. Squash bugs the same way. If you just because you see one out there, you can tolerate a little bit. Although I will say the threshold for those is a lot lower than what cucumber beetles are because they are harder to control and manage. Yeah, if that answers your question, there is a very distinct attraction, especially for cucumber beetles to those.
Nathan Johanning:And they'll be in those. You can manage them there and then basically kind of trap them in there, manage them, then not have to worry about them quite as much in your other areas. It's not going be 100%, but you can gather you can really knock the population down to a lot more manageable level.
Ken Johnson:So we've talked about the importance of stems on the pumpkin. But say people are going out to the pumpkin patch, going to store buying pumpkins. What should they look for when they're picking pumpkins and what's the best way to store them until you want to carve them or use them otherwise?
Nathan Johanning:So for me, no matter where you're going, you know, I like to look over the fruit. Certainly if you're on the farm, you're trying to look at the stem and hopefully it's, you know, cut and not it should be it should still be even if it's dry, it should be kind of firm and not all soft and squishy. The fruit itself of course should be firm. If the fruit feels kind of spongy like, yo, that's not a good year off to a bad start just to start with. Look for any major blemishes, especially if it happens to be in a box store or something.
Nathan Johanning:No big bruises or gashes in it or anything like that. Overall, a pumpkin that the fruit is healthy doesn't have any spots or rotten spots or other things on it usually will keep pretty well without a lot of extra effort or anything. The biggest things once you get them home, if you put them out in the direct sun, sometimes for one thing the color may fade a little bit, but some varieties a little bit more than others are very susceptible to sun scald or sunburn even after harvest. Basically that sunny side just gets a little bit of an off color to it, And no different than if one of us, you know, got a really bad sunburn. And then it just kind of, that spot basically it weakens the cells, then it opens up, for other infections.
Nathan Johanning:And so it'll just get kind of soft on that sunny side and then kind of goes downhill. So that's probably some of the biggest things I see is, you know, if pumpkin sound intense direct sun. Worse whenever we have, I it was, I don't think it was last year or the year before, there was a fall where we had that it literally stayed in the 90s up until like the middle or latter October. Like September was like ninety, ninety five degrees. Even the first week October, it like summer like temperatures.
Nathan Johanning:Usually, which we have now is more, you know, some 70s and 80s, maybe even a few cooler days in September. And at that point, our light intensity and heat to be such as not such a big deal. But if we get some intense heat that rolls through and you got pumpkins that are sitting out in the sun, especially, no different than sun scald on any of our fruit. If that pumpkin was in a really dense canopy of leaves and that's where it developed, it tends to be a little more problematic with some of the sun scald. Probably I'm just going go on a limb here.
Nathan Johanning:No different than if if all three of us went outside on the beach without any shirt on, I'm guessing we would probably be, toasty lobsters, and that's kinda what those pumpkins feel the same way.
Chris Enroth:Well, Ken is the variety that's that sunburns the most.
Nathan Johanning:Yeah. See. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Enroth:When we talk about we've we've got our pumpkins and and we've used them and unfortunately, lot of us don't eat our pumpkins. You know, as you mentioned, we use the jack o lanterns. We carve them. We have fun with them or they're decorative. You can't eat them, that is something you could do.
Chris Enroth:But disposing of pumpkins, like millions of people buy pumpkins, that means at the end of the season we have to deal with millions of pumpkins. Our local parks department, they've had kind of a a rash of every fall now, they have just pumpkins in their parks, on trails, on roadways, people just dumping them where they really shouldn't be. Do you have any tips for what we should do with our pumpkins when we're done with them?
Nathan Johanning:I mean, obviously, some a little bit of it depends on your individual situation as far as, you know, especially if you're in an apartment or something else, you know, that can be a little more challenging. Certainly, the last thing you really want to do is just to throw them in the garbage. Most of our garbage systems, any that I've worked with or know, don't want any kind of plant materials. And a pumpkin, even though it's not a house plant or leaf clippings or leaves, it's a plant material, right? So we want we really ideally want that to go to like a facility that takes compost.
Nathan Johanning:You know, if you're in a municipality where they pick up, you know, other leaves and sticks and other things, I would certainly inquire to see if they would take pumpkins. Most of those go to be composted, and I don't really I would think that most of those would be no different than any other plant materials that they're compost. I could maybe conceive a few places and may have some thoughts, but that would be one thing to do. Otherwise, if you do have especially a yard or a garden area, feel free to leave it out. You can if you don't mind the wildlife coming up, a lot of things will eat on them.
Nathan Johanning:They'll naturally just freeze, kind of melt down into basically a pile of mush, you really won't notice them too much in the spring. Do be wary though, of course, of volunteer pumpkins because there's never so many in the tail of I threw the pumpkins out back, and the next year I have all these, you know, all these pumpkins, coming up. So just be mindful where you put them. Nothing that can't be managed. But, you know, yeah, consider that or use it to your advantage for that matter.
Nathan Johanning:So but I mean, that's certainly a few thoughts. Remember, it is a plant material. So let's you know, it's it'll naturally compost and turn in some some some really nice, recycle those nutrients those pumpkin growers gave you, turn them back into your garden, flower beds, wherever, or try to find some place that, you know, will take and compost them. I know just for us, any extras we have, we have kind of a compost pile we have. Sometimes we'll even just put them back in the field so they can just naturally, you know, decay and those nutrients just kind of go back in for the next crop to come through.
Nathan Johanning:So yeah, that's probably where I would lean towards. But remember also you mentioned the edible side. There's lots of things. Almost all of those specialty pumpkins have some edible purposes. So the blue Jeradales are probably one of the the culinary favorites by many, although there's lots of favorites in there.
Nathan Johanning:They can be roasted, fried. There's many of them that could be baked and scooped out to turn into pumpkin breads and butters and other things. So certainly that is a really good option as well to think about. So remember that because a lot of people more and more people do ask about that than what they used to. But still, know a lot of them it is decorative and that's fine too.
Chris Enroth:Well, just promotion here. A lot of extension offices around the state are hosting a pumpkin smash in partnership with the Illinois group called Scarce. So here where I'm at in Macomb in McDonough County, we are going to have a pumpkin smash on November 4. So anyone can bring their Halloween pumpkins the Saturday after Halloween to Veterans Park. And we have all these different methods to smash pumpkins.
Chris Enroth:And then they will go in a dumpster and Better Earth composting and Peoria is gonna take them and compost them for us. And so check it out. We got one in McDonough County. I know McLean, Lake, Cook, DuPage, and McHenry all also have pumpkin smashes. So check it out.
Chris Enroth:We'll I'll put a link below here in the for an event.
Ken Johnson:You know, so if you're leaving your pumpkins out to just rot on their own, take them off your porch first.
Nathan Johanning:Yes. Do yes.
Chris Enroth:They'll stay on
Nathan Johanning:your porch. Yard, garden, somewhere that you don't mind because yeah, don't leave them on your porch. They can leave some nice little stains in the concrete and other things and not real pretty. And get them off your porch before it freezes, before they freeze solid. They'll handle the upper 20s a little bit.
Nathan Johanning:A little protection maybe on the porch or something, maybe a little more. At a certain point, once you've seen it, you'll kind of know it that yeah, they need to move because they're gonna that pumpkin stack is starting to lean a little bit. And that's a telltale sign that it's time to get them before they thaw out and you have a big mess in your hands.
Ken Johnson:You're getting the snow shovel out.
Nathan Johanning:Yep. Been there, done that.
Ken Johnson:Me too. It's not fun. All right. Our last question for you, which may be the most important question. Most controversial.
Ken Johnson:That too. What are your thoughts on pumpkin spice everything?
Nathan Johanning:You know, I am not a terribly big pumpkin spice person. I will say that personally, my biggest pet peeve, I do not like cloves. Anytime I make anything with pumpkin, any pumpkin products, cloves is always left out of it. For the cloves lovers, I apologize. That's just my own palate.
Nathan Johanning:So a little cinnamon nutmeg made a little ginger in there, it's good to go. But anything beyond that's just not necessary. So I'm kind of a purist when it comes to the pumpkin. Like I like the true pumpkin flavor. If you have a really good pumpkin, you don't need to spice it up with all this stuff.
Nathan Johanning:You really just need to taste the pumpkin. A little cinnamon, a little bit of nutmeg in there, and you can just enhance things. If you have too much pumpkin spice, you're just covering up some other insufficiencies there that's really just unnecessary. So yeah, and from there, like, I like that pumpkin side. So whether it be the pumpkin spice beer, the lattes, or whatever, it really it's more about the spice than the pumpkin, and I'm more about the pumpkin than the spice.
Nathan Johanning:So yeah, that's pretty where pretty where how I fall with that. How about you guys? Ken, I could see you being a big pumpkin spice person.
Ken Johnson:I'm not a pumpkin spice person.
Chris Enroth:He loves it. He's got like 10 cups of pumpkin spice coffee on his desk right now. No. I think I'm in the same boat too, Nathan. I don't quite I'm not a big pumpkin flavor person.
Chris Enroth:I actually got, like, a sampler pack of a local craft beer, and they had pumpkin flavor in it. I like pumpkin ale. This was like pumpkin pie beer, and it had that pumpkin spice in there. And I'm just like, I will drink this, but I'm not gonna enjoy it. It it was it's a little rough for me.
Chris Enroth:Yeah.
Nathan Johanning:Yeah. I've I would say, I don't the cloves is usually what tends to everyone you know, that tends to be the predominant thing, at least that's what my I tend to taste first whenever I hit some of those. And they're not yeah, again, it's not about the pumpkin so much as about the spice. And this is like, I don't know, it just doesn't do it for me. There's lots of other fall ways I would include.
Nathan Johanning:Another thing just as an aside on the consumption I think of is that we do have some varieties, and one of the varieties you guys can find is called Naked Bear. If you like pumpkin seeds, Naked Bear is actually a hulla seed variety. So if you've seen like the little green seed pumpkin seeds that you tend to see, a little more prevalent sometimes in granolas or other things like that, you can actually grow those. They're nice little, I don't know, maybe three, four, five pound pumpkin, really packed with seeds. Roast those seeds.
Nathan Johanning:I always grow a few of them. And I'll roast a whole batch of seeds. I get the whole family in there trying to pick pumpkin seeds out, and we'll just chop the pumpkins in half, pull the seeds out, ditch the rest of them. The flesh isn't really particularly good. I think you could maybe make pies out of it.
Nathan Johanning:There's better pumpkins for that. And now we'll roast up those seeds, and boy, I don't know, that's almost better than popcorn. So yeah, that's another just another sideline thing that's and of course, just general roasted pumpkin seeds in general. But the hull less ones, some people are like, oh, they don't like the hull and that extra crunchiness and stuff. But try those hull less pumpkin seeds and yeah, you'll make you a believer out of them.
Ken Johnson:Yeah, they're not they're not the best pie pump. We grew them one year. I try them as pie pumpkins too and they're not they're okay. But yeah, they're definitely better.
Nathan Johanning:Yeah, yeah, I know the seeds are good. The flesh isn't really much to you know, it's just like an average Jack o'-lantern kind of flesh to them. But yeah, no, seeds are definitely a treat. Yeah, the pumpkin spice, yeah, I know. I applaud those that love it in whatever form it comes, but yeah, not I think we're all kind of agreement on that one.
Nathan Johanning:We can have a unanimous vote on pumpkin spice can stay at home.
Chris Enroth:We've had many debates over fall flavors on for good growing before. And we'll put a link before and about apple versus pumpkin down below. And there's actually a little survey that people can take apple versus pumpkin. Surprisingly, butter wins all of it. So just makes everything taste better.
Nathan Johanning:Is true. This is very true. Yeah. The apple versus pumpkin, that's kind of a tough one. There's some I like a little bit of both.
Nathan Johanning:There's definitely a good, if nothing else, a good crisp apple right now. I picked up some Crimson Crisp the other day from a local orchard.
Chris Enroth:Those are good. That's that's one of the best. I love Crimson Crisp. Yes. Oh, yeah.
Nathan Johanning:But anyhow, we don't need to get off on apples. Is a pumpkin discussion. What are we doing?
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Hang on. Hang on. We're getting off the rails here,
Nathan Johanning:guys.
Chris Enroth:This is out of control.
Nathan Johanning:So can rein us in.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Well, that was a lot of great information about pumpkins. I we're we have a lot of information to put down below in the show notes, so so check that out. The Good Roy podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by me, Chris Enroth. A special thank you to Nathan for being here with us today.
Chris Enroth:It's always a pleasure to speak with you, Nathan, and best of luck. Have fun on your upcoming time off with your new little one. So we do appreciate you carving out time to talk with us.
Nathan Johanning:No problem. I always enjoy talking pumpkins and of course, love being on the podcast with you guys. So thanks again for the opportunity.
Ken Johnson:Yes. Thank you, Nathan. Enjoyed it. And Chris, let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth:Oh, we will do this again next week. We will be talking once again with M. S. Weihart about water conservation or kind of a water wise landscape. And what does that mean?
Chris Enroth:What does that look like here in Illinois? And that should be a fun show. So listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, that is listening. Or if you're watching us on YouTube watching, and as always, on growing.
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