Florida Gardening: Tropical Pumpkin AKA Calabasa

 Last Summer I discovered an adorable little pumpkin.
One that grows and thrives in our harsh, tropical climate while producing an abundance of tasty, fast growing gourds.

It's called Calabasa, or Tropical Pumpkin! I prefer to call it Tropical pumpkin just because I REALLY love being able to say I grow my own pumpkins! It's not something you hear often in SW Florida (Zone 9)

I purchased a small sack of seeks from ECHO in North Fort Myers on a whim, while I was attending one of their fantastic Farm Days!

I planted 4 seeds mid August and three sprouted, slowly forming a little circle of Pumpkin vine over the next couple of weeks.

Cute, right?! It started sending out these lightening fast growing tendrils every which way! I had to start training it to stay out of other beds and pathways. Every day these vines would gain a foot or so of growth.

Well, once a couple of summer time rains fell and really got this beast going it was all over the place! And that's a good thing! It's beautiful and broad leaves make a really nice ground cover.

By Thanksgiving we had enough mature pumpkins to trade with friends and family and to make some of the BEST pumpkin pie I've ever tasted! In the beginning I was very impatient and I picked them while they were still green. Which led to seed saving failure. The squash themselves were still totally great for eating, but the seeds weren't viable.

So I learned to let them stay on the vine until they started to blush and turn yellowish pinkish. Almost the color of a butternut squash but still some green on the skin.

Now I have seeds to share with my Florida gardening friends and family too! Which is very exciting to me! I'm so in love with this squash that I want to share it with everyone!

During the short days in the winter the vine died back a little. We got a touch of frost that killed off a lot of leaves. I just left everything to die where it stood and re-nourish the ground with the composting, fallen leaves.

In late march/ early April the vines came back with a vengeance! Here it is mid March and I've just harvested 8 squash of all different sizes!

Once I planted these seeds back in August I have not had to feed the vines once. They grow all over the place and I water them with everything else. They need zero special attention!

They do seem to like  morning shade and afternoon evening sun. I have a vine in a different location that was full sun and it really didn't do nearly as well.

It's a simple and very rewarding crop! The only pest I've encountered has been a rat here or there. They like to slip in at night and nibble just enough to wreck a perfectly good squash! Very aggravating, but not such a nuisance that I've needed to retaliate... yet.

I like to cut the tops off like a jack-o-lantern and scoop out the seeds. Then I roast them for about an hour. This makes it so you can either eat it as is, with some maple syrup or butter, or you can scoop out the flesh to blend into a puree for other recipes. Treat it like you would any large squash! It makes amazing soup, bread, pie and stands alone as a very yummy side dish!