Pumpkins of many colors
Mmmmmm, pie!
Orange may predominate, but these days, pumpkins come in all kinds of hues. “We have white ones and red ones and blue ones and green ones,” Bishop said. “It’s actually a lot of fun buying the seeds, because the seed companies come out every year with something new, and it’s always fun to try the new stuff.” There’s even a pink one, called Porcelain Doll; its breeder donates the proceeds to breast-cancer research.
Most any pumpkin makes a good jack-o’-lantern, Bishop said, but Winter Luxury is his go-to variety for pie making. “It has a really thick flesh,” he said. “It has a lot of sugar in it naturally, and when you cook it up, it’s just really nice and smooth. It’s not as stringy as most pumpkins are when you’re trying to cook it. There is no other pumpkin that I would recommend for pie.”
People-watching
The rest of the year
What kinds of pumpkins do young people go for? Bishop said his dad had lots of fun finding out. “He really enjoyed watching when you would bring a class of kids out to the field on a field trip, and watch them select their pumpkins,” Bishop said. “It seemed like the smaller the kid, the smaller the pumpkin they would want to choose. And a tall kid might pick a tall, skinny pumpkin.”
After Halloween, the land on which the pumpkins grew is planted in a forage crop for dairy cows. Bishop also has walnuts—and a “hamburger garden.” “We have a field where we plant all the crops that it takes to make a hamburger and give the kids a tour of that, and then they get a hamburger lunch,” he said. Of course, that was before the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to field trips. “It’s been a real bummer to lose the two seasons of that,” he said. Kevin Hecteman khecteman@californiabountiful.com
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