Grow Pumpkin Seeds at Home

The wonderful thing about hulless pumpkins is that the seeds don't have those tough outer shells you find on regular pumpkin seeds. Forget having to peel every single little seed! With these pumpkins, each green seed is a little treat, ready to eat just as it is. Grow a few hulless pumpkins in your garden, and you can harvest your own pumpkin seeds instead of buying them at the store.

Read more: Homemade pumpkin bread

This is what hulless pumpkins look like straight after harvest. The fruits often haven't had time to ripen fully on the plants and are still green.

As the pumpkins ripen, they turn orange. The seeds are attached to long strands of flesh in the center of the fruit. This pumpkin was harvested in September and cut open the following April. So you can store these pumpkins indoors for a long time!

The pumpkins you want to look for are called hulless pumpkins, sometimes also known as naked-seeded pumpkins or oilseed pumpkins. You can find the seeds at some seed suppliers, although they are usually easiest to track down online.

I particularly like to grow pumpkin seeds from the variety 'Olga', but there are others to choose from too.

Grow them just like regular pumpkins and harvest them in fall, before the first frost comes. Bring the pumpkins indoors and let them continue ripening at room temperature until the skin turns a beautiful orange. Then it's time to cut them open and scoop out all those lovely seeds!

Harvesting Pumpkin Seeds

• Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds with your hands or a spoon.
• Put the seeds in a colander and rinse them under running water, or soak them in water, while removing any bits of pumpkin flesh that are still attached.
• Spread the seeds between two kitchen towels and rub them gently to dry them off.

You can eat the seeds completely fresh. It's a little luxury that comes with growing your own hulless pumpkins! Eat them just as they are, or add them to salads, pesto, dressings and all kinds of other dishes.

Perhaps the most popular way to enjoy them is to roast them in the oven for a tasty snack. We love doing that! The kids think it's so fun when the seeds start popping in the oven.

You can also air-dry the seeds. The easiest way is to spread them out on parchment paper and leave them until they are completely dry. Then store them in a glass jar, or any other container you have at hand.

A simple cup filled with roasted pumpkin seeds is the perfect afternoon snack.

A Great Alternative

Pumpkin seeds are incredibly useful in the kitchen. When I get a good harvest, I can use my homegrown pumpkin seeds instead of nuts and almonds in all kinds of recipes.

And with all the concerns about how many resources are needed to grow almonds, it feels especially good to be able to use something I've grown myself in my own garden.

Each pumpkin contains quite a lot of flesh. I grate it and use it in homemade bread.

So, how many seeds can you actually harvest from one pumpkin?

Well, that varies quite a bit. I usually count on getting around 5 ounces (150 grams) of fresh seeds from each pumpkin, but sometimes it's more and sometimes a bit less.

Read more: Indoor gardening in winter 

One last thing. I know some of you reading this are probably wondering whether you can eat the pumpkin flesh too. And isn't it a waste not to use it? Well, I suppose that depends on how you look at it. The pumpkin is perfectly edible, of course. You can use it in soups, stews and all kinds of other dishes. But we don't really eat pumpkin in our family. We just don't like it! So I enjoy the seeds instead, and every now and then I bake bread with some grated pumpkin mixed into the dough. Take a look at the recipe in this article to learn how to make it. I hope you try to grow pumpkin seeds in your garden too!

/Sara Bäckmo