Pumpkin Sprouts
Okay, gang. Here’s my latest new experience. I know others have seen this,
and I’ve seen it happen just a little before – last year Tony’s big pumpkin
that he donated had a few seeds that were starting to sprout a little when
we opened it up.
I cut up Lub’s big pumpkin this week (I hope you all saw it in the
Washington Post and New York Times and probably lots of others… great
backdrop for some of those VP news conferences!). We retrieved it a week or
so ago, and it’s been sitting on the back of the truck here. The last few
days, when I walked by and gave it an affectionate thump, the thumps had
been getting less solid sounding, so out came the slicer.
When I opened it up, it was a total jungle. HUNDREDS of seeds had sprouted
and were growing. Many were 6 to 8 inches high. It looked like a terrarium
in there. They were leggy, like seedlings that accidently stay in the dark
too long, and only had cotyledons so far, but here’s the weird part: they
were a rich, dark green. There were no holes in this pumpkin. It was
starting to soften, but no real rot yet. The walls were 6 inches or more
thick at the stem end, tapering down to between 2 and 3 inches thickness at
the blossom end, but solid the whole way around including (especially!) near
the stem.
This got me thinking about Diana/Vince’s Theory. While I didn’t join in
that discussion very much at the time, I thought it was a bit loopy. I
believed that the stuff inside was an airlike mixture of gases produced
during fruit development, with maybe small amounts oxygen or whatever
traveling through the stem. I did not believe that air would permeate the
walls of the pumpkin, and I did not believe that there would be enough
heating of the interior of the pumpkin to create big pressure differentials.
I guess I still don’t think significant pressure differentials happen, but
that part about air seeping through… ?? It doesn’t make sense, but it
also doesn’t make sense that enough light would get through to make these
sprouts so green.
Any explanations??
Thanks
Beth
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