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Pumpkins?

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Tashsteve:
We have  pumpkins growing from seeds from a pumpkin we grew last year. For some reason the pumpkins are not Growing round but longish? Why would this be?

GrannieAnnie:
It probably is a cross with some other squash that grew nearby.

galina:

--- Quote from: GrannieAnnie on August 16, 2014, 20:08:46 ---It probably is a cross with some other squash that grew nearby.

--- End quote ---

Pumpkins are often from F1 hybrid seeds in the first place, which don't breed true.  Additionally, as GrannieAnnie said, they can cross very easily with any squashes of the same family.  Their big yellow flowers attract all sorts of pollinating insects and they visit flowers far and wide. 

And that plant family is very large:  Anything from an orange halloween pumpkin, to a green or yellow courgette, an acorn squash or a flying saucer type pattypan squash are all in the same family (cucurbita pepo) and can cross.

Hope you will enjoy eating them all the same.  Unless you were very unfortunate and they were crossed with some bitter decorative squashes in the same family, your pumpkins should be fine to eat and not a write-off.

Tashsteve:
Thanks for the reply.

Hopefully they will be edible will they still orange?

I will be so annoyed if they have cross pollinated with a non edible plant that would be annoying!

We done so well last year with pumpkins and we were looking forward to eating them again this year

galina:
Here is a thread about squash, isolating and handpollinating for pure, true breeding seeds, especially the last few posts.

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,78164.msg792195.html#msg792195

You can do this and make your own seeds reliably, but you have to make sure the pumpkin seeds you started off with are not F1 hybrids.  If the packet says F1 hybrid, you have to buy new ones because they won't breed true, even if you isolate and handpollinate.  If you have harvested seeds from a halloween pumpkin from the shops, you could get anything because it is not known if it was hybrid (most commercial ones are) and it is not known what the pollinator variety was. 

A lot of pumpkins will eventually turn orange, but with an unknown like what you have growing, there is no guarantee of that either. 

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