Pumpkins and Gourds As Attractive Fall Displays

While the end of September may be the first of fall, the best way to know summer is ending is to look at all the colorful pumpkin and gourd displays at local garden centers around the state.

These displays are not only for Halloween. Fall harvest displays can add charm and interest throughout the season. What is more seasonally appropriate than using pumpkins and gourds along with fall-flowering mums and colorful marimums? Besides basic orange, pumpkin colors include red, yellow, white, blue, and multicolored stripes. Pumpkins can be miniature, flattened, necked, smooth, winged, and warty.

There are hundreds of different varieties of pumpkin, squash, and gourd; and pumpkin patches are springing up all over Mississippi. Let’s take a look at a few fall favorites.

The Cinderella pumpkin is an heirloom variety that originated in France. This pumpkin has been a fall favorite since the late 1880s. If the shape seems familiar, think back to an old Disney movie you may have seen. Popular opinion is that this pumpkin variety was used as the model for Cinderella’s carriage in the classic animated film. The flattened shape also makes this a good stacking pumpkin.

Not all pumpkins have smooth skins. One of the more interesting varieties is the peanut pumpkin, which is a cross between an unknown pumpkin variety and a Hubbard squash. This pumpkin has a warty surface that resembles peanuts. It is a great choice for adding coarse texture to any display.

While the large pumpkins get the most attention, miniature pumpkins are very versatile. There are plenty of cute mini varieties, including some that are solid white, traditional bright orange, or white with orange vertical stripes. Try displaying minis in big flowerpots or bowls. Mini pumpkins will keep all through the season sitting on the front porch.

Why stop with pumpkins when there are interesting squash and gourds available for displays?

Turban squash is a popular, hat-shaped variety that Native Americans grew. The bulb-like top makes a good fall decoration with its bizarre shape and multicolored stripes. This squash would make a fantastic centerpiece for any gathering of family and friends. Other good squash varieties for decorations include Hubbard and any of the winter squash.

Gourds come in amazing varieties. Some of the more interesting have wings and warts, and the swan-shaped gourds are colorful and spectacular.

Believe it or not, most are delicious when baked or made into a pie. A Bachman family favorite is homemade pumpkin seeds. After carving a jack-o-lantern, save and thoroughly wash the seeds. Toss with melted butter, sprinkle with sea salt, and bake at 300 degrees until slightly toasted. It will be hard, but let the seeds cool and then enjoy.

Be sure to inspect your pumpkins, squash, and gourds before purchasing. They will last longer if there is no surface damage, and that includes pumpkins for carving before Halloween. To extend their usefulness, try painting scary faces on their surfaces instead of carving them. If you just have to carve a pumpkin, you can coat the cut surfaces and inside with petroleum jelly. This will help to seal and keep the flesh firm.

Enjoy all your locally grown pumpkins, squash, and gourds in a festive displays at your home this fall.

Columnist Dr. Gary R. Bachman is an assistant extension professor of horticulture at Mississippi State University’s Coastal Research and Extension Center in Biloxi, Mississippi.

At Entergy Mississippi, the communities we serve are the communities we call home. That’s why we stay active and involved – because we know our responsibility reaches beyond the power grid. So, we invest in education and industry, while developing new solutions to power tomorrow. As a community, our successes fuel each other. We’re all on a circuit. And together, we power life.

A message from Entergy Mississippi, LLC ©2021 Entergy Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

by Virginia Postrel

Did you know that cotton once grew on trees? Yes, trees. Not in the American South, but in far-away China. From the opening page until the end, Virgina Postrel’s book The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, is filled with facts concerning every aspect of our world from the viewpoint of textiles. Her book is a lesson in history, commerce, politics, human ingenuity, in effect, in the advance of human culture from its very beginnings to the present. She begins with the Neanderthals and CroMagnons, who first began using string, then twisting it together to make it stronger. She ends with the latest of today’s innovations in textiles that make everything from seat belts to astronauts’ space suits, to cuddly baby blankets, to golden fabrics on the red carpet at the Oscars.

Postrel tells us that in the ruins of the sophisticated Minoan Bronze Age culture (3000 BCE-1100 BCE) were found over 5000 tablets with a distinctive hieroglyph that appeared to be a tower, but it was actually a fringed piece of fabric.

It turns out that the image represented not a palace but a textile. According to Postrel, more than half of the tablets related to the production of wool and flax, from the birth of lambs to how much wool each sheep could expect to yield, indicating the importance of the textile industry. It turns out that Minoan palace workshops processed fleece from 70 to 80 thousand sheep in a season, turning out 60 tons of wool in a season. They exported their woolen cloth as far away as Egypt.

She adds, “Ancient Romans wore Chinese Silk worth its weight in gold. The textile business funded the Italian Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; it left us Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. It spread the alphabet and double-entry bookkeeping, gave rise to financial institutions, and nurtured the slave trade.” (Postrel)

In the chapter on dyes, Postrel states that dyers were, in essence, chemists. She describes a piece of blue striped cotton fabric found at a ritual site in Peru that dates back 6,000 years. This blue was derived from indigo, but the color blue was derived from different material in different parts of the world. For instance, the traditional blue of Europe comes from cabbage. Purple, a significant indicator of royalty, comes from sea snails. Pliny called it “the color of coagulated blood . . . .” And it stank, a smell that could not be washed or worn away. The odor was a sign of social status! And that is only a suggestion of the contents of that chapter. The chapter on weaving, the invention of looms, and the mathematical calculations involved in making patterns such as the beautiful African Kente cloth is a lesson in human creativity and ingenuity. For thousands of years, weavers were recording or memorizing complex weaving patterns. The first woven cloth was like net. Later forms looked more like knitting. Postrel says that archeologists have found this “knitted” type of weaving in prehistoric caves from Israel to China. In 1589, a machine was invented to produce woolen stockings! Imagine such a wondrous invention for those who could afford them. In the early nineteenth century, Joseph-Maries Jacquard’s punch cards system for selecting warp threads was the precursor of the computer. Each chapter approaches fabric from a different point of view, but my favorite is Bluffs & Bayous { September / October 2021 { Page 17