Absolutely not. Blue pumpkins come from a big family rich in colors and types – way beyond the familiar orange. According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, pumpkins are part of a large and diverse plant family, Cucurbitaceae, which includes squash, gourds, watermelons, and cucumbers.
Dr. Joe Masabni maintains in Agrilife Today, that pumpkins, whether blue, red, yellow, orange, or white are actually berries – fruit – “because anything that starts from a flower is botanically a fruit.”
Pumpkins have varieties that feed the imagination, like Blue Moon, Cinderella’s Carriage, Goosebumps, Black Kat, Hooligans, and Jack-Be-Little. Sizes range from miniature – less than 2 pounds – to giants, like the one horticulture and landscape teacher, Travis Gienger, grew in his Anoka, MI. backyard. Gienger named his pumpkin Michael Jordan for the legendary basketball player’s retired number 23 or the year the pumpkin was grown. Michael Jordan broke the record, weighing in at 2,749 pounds!
A bit heavier than its namesake.
The most recognizable pumpkins are classic orange varieties like Autumn Gold, Harvest Moon, and Captain Jack. If you’re looking for canned pumpkins, head over to Illinois where you can find Libby’s Select Dickinson variety and the company (now owned by Nestlé) that processes 500,000 pumpkins a day during harvest season.
Cook’s Info reports that “The variety has an ideal taste and texture for pumpkin pies . . . when cooked and pureed, the meat of the Dickenson is luscious, creamy, and naturally sweet.”
