That's been popular for a while, and it's been really trendy the last few years."Ĭharles Martin and his wife, Rosa, stand amidst some of their favorite gourds and squash from this year's harvest. "You have a huge demand for squash and gourds that are aesthetically interesting and different from each other. "Everyone wants to have the new, really cool gourd that everyone wants to buy, that Martha Stewart posts on her blog," says Adam Pyle, a horticulturalist at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. As the weather turns, the Pinterest-loving sorts among us increasingly look for odd, eye-catching pumpkins, gourds and squash to decorate homes and offices. In the last 30 years the amount of American farmland devoted to pumpkins has tripled, and most of those big fruits aren't filling pies. These colorful gourds aren't just a hobby for Martin: They're big business. It's a new variety a seed company is toying with, and it doesn't have a name yet - it's Experimental 133.
"It's supposed to resemble a bloodshot eye," Martin says, laughing.
A few feet away there's a white-and-red-striped pumpkin called One Too Many. Today he grows 55 varieties of gourds, squash and pumpkins, and he's always looking for something new.Īs he walks through his half-harvested patch, Martin points out an orange pumpkin covered in green bumps - the Warty Goblin. When Virginia farmer Charles Martin first got into the pumpkin game a decade ago, he started small, with a half-acre plot of traditional round, orange jack-o-lanterns.
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