Science Thursday: Pumpkins

Happy Science Thursday! This week we’re talking about one of my favorite plantables, pumpkins!

He’s so cuuuute!!!

We will not, however, be talking about pumpkin spice. pumpkin spice goes on or with pumpkin, and so doesn’t contain any pumpkin, and so has no place here. #nopumpkinspice

Cultivation

Pumpkins are from the squash family, and are as such native to North America. They can actually be grown on all non-Antarctica continents, but we had them first. Pumpkins are a winter squash, meaning that they’re picked as a mature fruit late in the summer growing season, and they have a longer shelf life than “summer squash” like zucchini. They’re pretty easy to grow, too.

Because pumpkin seedlings are very sensitive to the weather, seeds should be planted after all possibly of frost has passed (around the end of March for PA). After that, pumpkins have no problem taking control. One year I thought it would be fun to plant pumpkins in my front yard gardens, and since the garden was mostly mulch I planted 12 seeds, thinking I would get one or two plants and it would be great. All 12 seeds took root. It was the hardest thing in the world to have to decide which of my little pumpkin babies would survive and which wouldn’t.

Once you have seedlings, you have to keep an eye on things, because the seedling will quickly become a vine, and you want to make sure the vine doesn’t go where you don’t want it or choke out other plants. Other than that, it’s a matter of waiting for cute little flowers to appear.

So pretty.

When flowers appear, and they’ll appear in abundance, you will need to start pollinating. If you live in a place with a lot of bees or butterflies, you might be able to leave it up to nature, but in most cases you’ll have to do it yourself. Don’t worry. It’s not as messy as animal husbandry. You have two kinds of flowers on your vine, male and female. The female flower has a green ball right beneath the bloom, where the male does not.

All you need to do is put the pollen from the male flower on the pistil of the female flower. People have varying ways of doing this, but I found that taking out the male stamen with a pair of tweezers and rubbing all over the pistil worked pretty well. Once your pumpkins start to grow, you can leave them be until you’re ready to pick them, or you can turn them so they don’t get a flat spot. I also recommend singing or talking to your little pumpkins, because it makes them happy and they grow better.

Eating

If growing pumpkins isn’t your thing (but seriously what’s wrong with you?) you can still enjoy them. Everything except the thick ropy part of the vine is edible, and most of it’s pretty good (I’ve never tried the leaves or flowers, but they’re pretty, so I assume they’re good).

The squishy pulp inside of the pumpkin is what goes into sweet pie filling (along with sweeter butternut squash), but you can grill up the rind if you’re into something more savory. As for the seeds, they can go either way. My mom and I roasted pumpkin seeds this weekend, and we did some with salt and some with honey and unrefined sugar. Candied pumpkin seeds is where it’s at!

If you roast the seeds without the white outer husk (which we didn’t do. Too much work.) you will have pumpkin seed oil as a byproduct. And here’s a fun little factoid for you: pumpkin seed oil is green! The oil is high in fatty acids, and supposedly improves prostate health.

The rest of the pumpkin is pretty healthy for you, too. The seeds are high in protein, magnesium, copper, and zinc (tasty metals) and the pulp and rind are high in good things like Vitamin A (helps your immune system, eyes, and skin), Vitamin C, and Potassium. Pumpkin is also very low in fat. 100 grams of raw pumpkin, you have 0.1 gram of fat. 100 grams is about the size of a stick of butter, half an apple, or two fried eggs (depending of the density, the volume can differ).

Pumpkin is even good for your pets. Canned pumpkin can help with intestinal problems such as constipation, diarrhea, and hairballs, and raw pumpkin is sometimes given to poultry to maintain egg production in the winter.

Fun

If growing or eating pumpkins aren’t your thing, there is still plenty of fun to be had with these winter squash. Because they have a substantial shelf-life, they make lovely fall decorations, carved or whole. If you’re creative and like a little bit of mess, carving Jack-o’-lanterns is for you! How detailed you get is up to you.

You could make your own herd!

For the more industrial, there is pumpkin chunking or liquid nitrogen. Pumpkin chunking is a competitive building competition, where teams or individuals build machines to launch pumpkins large distances. Immersing a pumpkin in liquid nitrogen for a couple of hours will not only make the pumpkin stone-like (and very cold), but if you wait until dark and smash the pumpkin (by dropping it off of a tall building and onto concrete, for instance) you should be able to witness luminescence when it shatters (pumpkin SMASH!).

And if after all of that you still haven’t found a reason to love pumpkins, then you’re not a real human and I can’t help you. I’m sorry.

My Drinking Problem

Sometimes it takes me more than one time to learn a lesson. Usually it’s because you can have several causes that create the same effect. Like putting metal in the microwave. I put and aluminum tumbler, a clay figurine with metal wire, and a battery operated thermometer (don’t ask) into my microwave on three separate occasions, two of which ended in fire. Or staying hydrated. I love to forget that water is necessary for proper human function.

When I was about 13, I went on vacation with a friend of mine and her family. We went to Cedar Point, and we stayed in this super awesome hotel that had a small indoor water park and arcade in the basement. It was great. We spent all day at Cedar Point, which was my first big-kid adventure to an amusement park. The first ride me went on was this roller coaster called the praying mantis or something like that. It was the kind of ride where you sit down, but your feet are free to dangle, and the little handles up near your shoulders to hold onto. It was freaking terrifying. There were spins, and upside-downs, and many other terribly frightening things I can’t remember because I had my eyes closed the whole time. It was my first roller coaster ever, cut me some slack. I’ve gotten much better since then.

Anywho, for dinner we went to the Outback Steakhouse (I’ll spare you any Aussie-themed jokes), where they were serving my all-time favorite drink: raspberry iced tea. Before I knew it, I had downed 16 of those suckers. The waiter made a joke about cutting me off, but since I had yet to be introduced to alcohol-humor, this wasn’t funny, but instead terrifying. I was thirsty, dangit! Who was this yahoo to tell me how much I was allowed to drink?? It did occur to me that maybe I should switch to drinking water, but the iced tea was too darn good, and I couldn’t just throw away what we had!

When all was said and done and I got back home, I woke up and had to poop in the worst way (I know, TMI, but just keep reading). The only problem was that I couldn’t, as in I was physically incapable. After a very panicked phone call to my mother, we came to the conclusion that I was constipated due to dehydration, and I armed myself with a bottle of chocolax (disgusting stuff) and a glass of water. I’ll spare you the uncomfortable details and just say that it was a long day. I was very careful after that. I carried a water bottle with me everywhere (and still do), and I learned to always order a water in addition to whatever else I drink at restaurants. Case closed, right? Well…

A couple of summers ago, we had what I’ll call an Indian Winter; there were just a couple of days that were blissfully cool. It was nice weather to workout in, and I was kind of bummed when I had to go back to sweating bullets in the hot weather. It didn’t help when I woke up with the worst combination of flu-like symptoms (being any kind of sick when it’s hot outside is eight different kinds of uncomfortable). I stumbled from a visit to the porcelain gods straight to my mom’s room. Have you ever noticed that parents’ bed are so much more comfortable, than, well, anything? I spent the day sweating and shaking it out in front of the TV, taking a break to make an herbal concoction to try and quiet my stomach. I was quickly revisited by said concoction.

By the time my mom came home from work I wasn’t in good shape. I was curled up on her bed on top of the covers in a ball massive discomfort, since anything that was touching my skin felt like 80 grit sandpaper. I know that I couldn’t focus on anything, but I don’t remember if that was because I wasn’t wearing my glasses or I was doing that far off glassy-eyed stare of the mortally wounded and pathetically ill (guess which one I was).  When I tried to get up to walk, I swayed backwards, blacked out, fell forward to my knees, and somewhere in all that threw up the orange popsicle I had just eaten. Because of the tilt of my house, the liquid nature of the vomit, and the fact that I was in motion while the whole thing was happening, that orange popsicle was spread over three rooms, which my mother told several people once we made it to the hospital.

As it turns out, it’s very common for people to get dehydrated when the temperature goes from cold to hot very quickly. Your body doesn’t need as much water when it’s cold out, and when it gets hot, you forget that you need more water, and BAM your cells get all dried up screaming for water like

If you haven’t ever watched Spongebob Squarepants I command you to go find an episode on TV or online. It’s worth the lost time and drop in IQ.

It took three nurses (one of whom was a delightful but very hairy Scotsman) and a doctor to hook me up via IV to what I called my “Happy Bag of Fun,” administer an EKG (which involved completely exposing my boobs – always wear a bra to the emergency room, even if you’re experiencing hypersensitivity due to dehydration) and in various other ways putting me in various forms of discomfort to try treat me. The lady who tried to take blood from me wasn’t even trying to find the vain, I swear she was trying to break off that needle in my arm.

Since then I have been very careful about my water intake, trying to always stay slightly over-hydrated for emergencies (you never know, someone would spontaneously demand I run 5 miles…). However, several days ago my single-minded desire to run overshadowed any thoughts of water in any form other than sweat. So my first workout since I’ve been home for the summer was a 4 mile run. In 86 degree weather. With crazy humidity. Needless to say I woke up the next morning feeling more than a little cruddy. I call it the “Workout Hangover,” because honestly, that’s the best descriptor there is. Aches, headache, cottonmouth, I woke up thinking I had gone out for $2 margaritas the night before before I put the pieces together. Luckily, there was a Swamp People marathon on so I was able to park on the couch all day and watch “gatah” hunting while I slowly re-hydrated.

The bottom line is dehydration is one of the biggest pains in the rump and totally avoidable, I’m just hard-headed. Water is good for you, peeps. A bottle of ice-water with lemon is just as effective at waking you up as a cup of coffee, fun fact. So don’t neglect water, agua, H2O, or whatever you choose to call it, because water does not respond well to being neglected.

Do NOT stay thirsty. I don’t care how interesting you are.