Trader Joe's Flat Pumpkins - Seedlings Sprout

Last fall, Nat came home from Trader Joe's with an odd-shaped, flat, soft-orange colored pumpkin.  If you look carefully at the photo below (from my scarecrow blog post last fall), you can spot the pumpkin on our front porch, at the top of the stairs.

After doing a bit of web research, I figured out that saving the seeds from this beauty and attempting to get them to re-grow was pretty easy.  You scoop them out - just like you would if you were going to eat them - rinse them off, then let them dry on a piece of newspaper for a week or so.  Once fully dry, you can pop them in an envelope and keep them in a cool/dark place.  With Elmhurst winter's, finding a cool/dark place is pretty easy.  I stuck them inside a drawer in my office.

I had about a dozen seeds, so I put one seed in each compartment of one section of my non-peat greenhouse and crossed my fingers.

So far, I haven't had a ton of luck with them, but there *is* hope:  one seed germinated and up has popped a very strong seedling.

I'm still hopeful that I'll see more action from the other seeds because I'd like to grow a few of these pretty pumpkins for the fall.  With the addition of the Big Max Competition pumpkins, I have to figure out a good trellis system to keep these pumpkins from overwhelming the garden.

For those of you garden snobs, I know that I may have started these seedlings a bit too early - but I'm hopeful that they'll hang on until late September/early October for our front porch.