It has two down sides, firstly the pumpkins are a little big for my liking. Secondly it has a thin skin. Thin skin means it is easy to cut and the skin is soft enough to eat, but it doesn't store as long as thicker skin varieties of pumpkin.
Unfortunately the last few years have been very dry. This means my plants don't get much water. When not watered well the flesh tends to be thinner than it otherwise would.
After being dry for too long, when we do have any rain the skin tends to crack and the cracks fill with cork. When the skin has cork like this is makes it more difficult to cut and while the flesh is still nice it renders the skin inedible. The easiest way to remedy this is give the plant regular water.
Kaempw melon rilon has a lovely habit of setting down roots along its stem where a node touches the soil. This means the plant gets more water and nutrients than it otherwise would. I wish all my vegetables would do this.
Sometimes a pumpkin vine sprawls over onto the lawn, it throws down some roots and collects nutrients and water that otherwise were unobtainable. What a great trait for a pumpkin to have.
Last time my pumpkins fruited something strange happened. Can you see it in the photo below?
Have a closer look at this pumpkin. At first I wondered why this pumpkin was so heavy, then I realised what was really happening. It grew roots on the pumpkin stem!
While this may never win a beauty contest I don't care. I want productive plants that are simple to grow. Having roots like this right next to the pumpkin meant that the pumpkin grew faster and had more flesh than other pumpkins produced that year.
If you are a seed saver you should grow this pumpkin. I sell seed through my for sale page, but if anything happens to my stock then I worry that I can never get this variety back again. I am running low on seed and this year my plants are not performing very well as I don't have enough water for them, this variety needs more seed savers taking care of it.
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