10/24/08 Time for Pumpkins

Time For Pumpkins. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Every year at about this time pumpkins become the main feature of decorations and celebrations all over. From a trip to the pumpkin patch and now extreme pumpkin carving, the orange wonder seems to be everywhere. Sheila Case-Smith and her husband Mike are the owners of Case Farms north of Oak Harbor, Washington and have been hosting a U-Pick pumpkin patch for many years. CASE-SMITH: Mike and I have been doing pumpkins not quite 20 years. It started as just kind of a few extras that we sold to one group and the demand was good so we increased. Jack-O-Lanterns are the big item with Halloween only a few days away, so what makes a good carving pumpkin? CASE-SMITH: There's a series of pumpkins called "Autumn" which are easy to carve because the flesh is light and the skin isn't too hard. It makes a real nice glow when you put a candle in it  not just where the light shines through the cut spots but the whole pumpkin itself can glow. Well I was a bit surprised to find out that there are more than one variety of pumpkin, not just the run of the mill Halloween Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin. CASE-SMITH: There are so many different kinds of pumpkins that it kind of depends on what the customer is looking for and since we have a wide variety of people that come out to the farm for pumpkins we try to grow a wide variety of types of pumpkins. Tomorrow Sheila Case-Smith talks about pumpkin pies and we'll discover whether the pumpkin is a vegetable or a fruit. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.