Dickinson Pumpkin

Great!

After a number of years of trying to grow the Dickinson pumpkin I have finally gotten them to grow to fully ripe.
Currently on the tail end of the growing season here in Zone 3B (18-September-2023).
planted out two hills this year after starting them in the house 8 weeks ahead of transplant.
Planted them out the first weekend of June and like other years after a week or two they were not looking so well. I just kept them watered and weeded and hoped for the best.
After some time I has flowers and a couple pumpkins starting to grow. Once I felt they were going to make it I tipped the vines to focus on the one pumpkin per vine.
The end of July they took off and went crazy.
I ended up with three huge pumpkin and later in August I saw a couple more growing.
One of the August growth is nearly as big as the other three and beginning to ripen. The other few that started growing in August are also ripening just not as big as the others.
Keep in mind these are NOT supposed to grow beyond zone 5 as I am told. But don't tell my garden that. It don't know any better.
With success this year I will have a much hardier and much more successful year next year from the seeds of these pumpkins.
Every year should get better and better from here on out and I should start to see this pumpkin ripen a littler earlier after a few years of growing in my climate and environment.
I am really looking forward to tasting these pumpkin and cooking with them.

We grew these for the first time in 2022. It was a very dry year here (eastern Kansas) and the 20 foot vines did require some extra watering but the pumpkin/squash were very much worth it. From three hills we grew 11 squash weighing 10 to 20 pounds (estimated). I think the large ones weighed more.

The squash has a great flavor and is sweet enough that I cut back on the amount of sugar I put in pie fillings. They make an excellent squash soup, much better than Butternut squashes.

The flesh is very moist and easy to purée after being baked. We still have five that we have not worked up and they are keeping well. The last one I processed was the third largest one and it made nearly 22 cups of beautiful orange puree.

After growing these, the only reason I would grow another variety is to keep the garden diverse in case of a crop failure. We did not have any problems with disease or insects. Our guineas roam the squash and potato areas keeping them insect free.

If you want pumpkins to eat, grow these. If you want pumpkins to look at, grow something else.

I tried some of these in 2020, just on a whim, and I am glad I did. This plant produces a lot of food per square foot, with little effort and little care. The pumpkins are large and they keep well -- it's now early March, and I still have one of these from last year's harvest, sitting on my kitchen counter. The flesh is fine for cooking and the seeds dry and roast well.

It doesn't look like a traditional pumpkin -- it looks like a tan watermelon. And, technically, it's not a pumpkin, it's a winter squash. But so what. One of these probably contains as much edible material as a dozen of the "sweetie pie" type pie pumpkins. And these are just plain good eating.

The sole issue I had was powdery mildew, but I had that all over all my cucurbits last year. I'm growing these again this year, and I'll spray them pro-actively (potassium bicarbonate, mostly) to keep the powdery mildew down.

Anyway, here I am, back to buy more seeds for 2021. This is now my go-to pumpkin variety.