there are black pumpkins (link to the site where I saw them first, you might be able to find them cheaper somewhere else)
[ID: a photograph of a small pile of pumpkins with outer skins and stems so incredibly dark green that it’s almost black. One of the pumpkins has been cut open, and a slice pulled out, revealing pale yellow, almost white flesh, and lots of large, tan seeds. End ID.]
It’s called the “Black Kat F1″
F1 means it’s a hybrid, the....baby, for lack of a better term, of two different types of pumpkin, not sure which.
If you saved the seeds from this, and planted them, those pumpkins would be called F2s, and if you saved their seeds, the pumpikns grown from them would be F3, and so on and so forth.
If I grew these, and saved the seeds, and planted them, the new pumpkins wouldn’t come out exactly like this, because this isn’t, well, a breed.
Okay lets use dogs for example.
Lets use MY dogs for example because they’re a hilariously good example.
If you breed a “red”(brown) pitbull/doberman mix with a purebred black chihuahua, the puppies aren’t going to look exactly like either parent, they’re going to have the characteristics of both. Some might be big, some might be really small, some might be brown, or tan, or black, or colored like dobermans/rottweilers. Some will have short coats and some will be really fluffy.
Hybrid seeds are like hybrid puppies. They won’t look like their parents.
If you want to get consistent results, you have to keep breeding, or in this case, seed-saving and growing, the hybrids with other plants (or dogs) that have the traits you want.
If you save seeds from these and plant them, and keep seed saving and planting the darkest pumpkins, eventually you will have a stable “breed” that can be planted and will produce consistently dark pumpkins.
Everyone always says not to save seeds from hybrids, because you won’t get an exact replica of what you’re saving seeds from.
There is nothing wrong with saving seeds from hybrids, and it’s literally the only way to breed plants! You SHOULD save seeds from hybrids! It’s how, eventually, you’ll have your own breed that’s no longer a hybrid, but its own special thing!
I especially want those pumpkins because of how many seeds they have. I seed save from everything, and there’s already at least 40 seeds visible in that picture, which means it’s going to have a ton, which is what I want, because the more seeds I can save, the more plants I can give away for free!
It does say that in storage, they’ll slowly start to turn orange, but most people don’t keep pumpkins that long. AND if that’s the case, you can pick the pumpkin that turns orange last and specifically plant the seeds from that one! So that you’re breeding it to stay dark longer!!!!
All pumpkins are edible! These are edible! These even taste good enough that the seed company says they’re edible!
Looks like these are small pumpkins, so if I ever get seeds I’ll be breeding them to be bigger!
Save seeds! Grow cool plants! Genetic diversity is a good thing! I want these pumpkins!
