Photo by Mark (CC BY 2.0).

Scientific Name: Cucurbita maxima

Common Names: Pumpkin 'Golden Hubbard', Pumpkin 'Genesee Red Hubbard', Golden Hubbard Squash

Family: Cucurbitaceae

Origin:

The Golden Hubbard squash is an open-pollinated heirloom pumpkin variety first grown in the USA.  The earliest mention of this variety being available to home gardeners is in the Ferry Morse Seed Company catalogue of 1898.  

Culinary Uses:

Golden Hubbard has dry, mildly sweet, bright orange flesh with a traditional pumpkin squash flavour and a hint of nuttiness making it ideal for roasting.  Seeds can be roasted and eaten as pepitas.  Young shoot tips can be eaten as a cooked green vegetable in stir fries.  Young immature green pumpkins can be cooked and eaten and taste similar to button squash.  Flowers can be stuffed with fillings or coated in tempura batter and fried.

Growing Tips:

Choose a growing site for your pumpkins that receives full sun or very light shade.  Pumpkins are vigorous growers and will often smoother other plants so be sure to give them their own dedicated patch in your garden.  Pumpkins are heavy feeders, so be sure to dig lots of organic matter, fertiliser, worm castings, compost or well-rotted manures through the soil prior to planting.  Pumpkins need good drainage to grow well, one way to achieve this is by pushing your soil into mounds to plant your pumpkins into.  Pumpkins have separate male and female flowers on the same plant, female flowers will have a small immature fruit below them whereas male flowers will have a straight stalk below them.  Pinch out the growing tip of your main pumpkin vines once they reach a couple of metres in length to encourage your pumpkin plants to produce more lateral shoots with additional female flowers.  If your young pumpkin fruits turn yellow and fall off it means that insect pollination isn't occurring and you will need to pollinate your pumpkins by hand.  To hand pollinate pumpkins take a male flower and remove the petals, then rub the pollen containing anthers of the male flower onto the stigma of the female flowers.   Water your pumpkin plants regularly to prevent their leaves wilting and ensure that any fruit fill out evenly and don't split.

When To Sow:

In temperate regions of Australia sow Golden Hubbard pumpkin seeds in September or October, ensuring any chance of frost has past before sowing.  In subtropical and tropical regions of Australia you can sow Golden Hubbard pumpkin seeds all year round.

How To Sow:

Sow Golden Hubbard pumpkin seeds directly where they are to grow as they don't like being transplanted.  Sow the seeds 3cm deep spacing plantings about 1m apart to allow the pumpkin vines room to ramble.

Germination Time:

Golden Hubbard pumpkin seeds take between 8 and 14 days to germinate once sown.

Time To Harvest:

Golden Hubbard pumpkins take between 13 and 14 weeks to produce ripe fruit.  Immature fruits, flowers or young shoots can be picked as soon as they are big enough.