Long Island Cheese Pumpkin | Curcurbita moschata | Certified Organic
Superb flavor for pies and soups.
Ken Ettlinger grew up on Long Island in the 1950s, where his family would pick up a cheese pumpkin so his mother could make Thanksgiving pie. In the 1970s, Ken noticed that the once common squash, one of the oldest cultivated in America, was becoming a rare find. He didn't want the pies to become just a memory, so he started saving seeds. Due to this local seed steward's efforts and the work of the Long Island Regional Seed Consortium and Glynwood's Kitchen Cultivars, these pumpkins are here to stay!
Linked to cheese through appearance only, the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin has been revered for centuries thanks to its smooth flesh and string-less interior (not to mention the high nutrient content). It's one of the oldest squashes domesticated for food, which we think speaks well for its taste and grow-ability. Choose this cheese-wheel-like squash for your autumn sweets and buck the canned stuff once and for all!
Our founder Ken Greene helped ensure that the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin made it to the Slow Foods US Ark of Taste, a catalog of over 200 delicious foods in danger of extinction. By promoting, sowing, and growing Ark products we help ensure they remain in production and on our plates.
Direct sow after frost, or start under protection up to 3 weeks before (but no earlier—grows very quickly at this stage). Plant in well-fertilized hills of 4-8 seeds with hills spaced 3' apart. Thin to three plants per hill. Harvest when color is well developed and rind is hard. Cure for a week in sun and fresh air, but protect from frost. Cured squash will store all winter.
Days to Germination 5-10 days
Days to Maturity 100 days
Planting Depth 1"
Spacing in Row 24"
Spacing Between Rows 72"
Height at Maturity 24"
Sun Preference Full Sun
Artwork by Todd M. Casey. Like an heirloom seed saver, Todd is a collector of antiques. To tell the story of this heirloom, he assembled the book Cucurbits of New York, a vintage map of Long Island, and an antique trunk for storing seed collections.
About Hudson Valley Seed Company
They are a values-driven seed company that practices and celebrates responsible seed production and stewardship. Hudson Valley are best known for their beautiful artist-design seed packs (Art Packs) that appeal to gardeners, gift buyers, and lovers of art and nature.
These Art Packs, most fundamentally, tell stories. Hudson Valley challenges artists to convey in a manner that is fully their own, the history and meaning of the seed variety contained in each pack. These stories were once integral to traditional societies-stories of seeds were often origin stories for entire communities and peoples, and the lore and beliefs that accumulated around seed varieties reflected the nearly familial way in which gardeners and farmers regarded their crops. Our society is, by and large, no longer connected to plants this way. But we like to think these Art Packs help to stitch our fragmented world back together: useful seeds, evocative art, both equally valuable to our experience of being human.