It feels wrong to dispose of the inner pulp of the pumpkin fruit along with the seeds on the compost. It doesn't have to be, because pumpkin seeds are edible and provide seeds for your own cultivation. Some tricks help with the harvest.

If the seeds are to be used for propagation, the pumpkin should be harvested when it is very ripe

Edible pumpkin seeds

In general, all pumpkin seeds are edible. In most species, the seeds are protected by a shell. These have to be peeled before consumption, which is laborious and time-consuming. The Styrian oil pumpkin is a variety of the garden pumpkin. Due to a mutation, the seed coat does not lignify during fruit ripening. It develops shellless cores surrounded by a thin dark green outer skin.

Maturity Determination

The degree of ripeness of the pumpkins provides information about the perfect time to harvest pumpkin seeds. Normally, the pumpkin is harvested when the outer skin is firm and no longer has any green spots. At this point, the seeds are usually not yet ripe. To determine their stage of maturity, you should examine the base of the stem. If this has dried up and lignified, the perfect time to harvest has come. Pumpkins harvested too early can ripen later. If you don't want to grow pumpkins, seed maturity plays a minor role.

Obtain seeds for consumption

You can split particularly large specimens such as nutmeg or Hubbard by dropping them from a height of one meter onto a hard surface. Smaller varieties like the butternut should be baked in the oven at 150 degrees for 40 minutes. This will soften the skin, making it easy to open the squash with a knife. You can get around 100 grams of dried seeds from a pumpkin fruit.

How to remove seeds:

  • Remove the seeds from the meat with a spoon
  • Pull the seeds out of the villi one at a time with your fingers
  • Put the dissolved mass in a bowl of warm water, stir through and skim off the floating seeds
  • Blow-dry the pumpkin seeds and fibers with a hair dryer and sort out the dried pulp

tips

Wash your harvest thoroughly and place on kitchen paper. The pumpkin seeds dry in a cool and dark place so that they can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a year.

Category:

Vegetable garden