21 Spooky Pumpkin Facts

As we enter into the fall season, we’re starting to see pumpkins starting to pop up on porches for fall décor. A fairly new fall decoration trend you may have noticed is white pumpkins. Did you know there are other colors of pumpkins? Check out these pumpkin facts.

The word pumpkin comes from the Greek word “pepon”, which means “a large melon.”
Pumpkins originated in Central America.
It is one of the oldest crops in the western hemisphere and has been grown and harvested since around 3500 B.C.
Native Americans cultivated and ate pumpkins long before Pilgrims landed in North America. Pilgrims learned how to grow the fruit from the Native Americans.
There are over 150 different varieties. They come in different shapes, sizes, and colors.
Not only are there white, green, and yellow pumpkins, but there are also blue and red varieties.
Ohio holds the world record for the largest pumpkin pie ever baked, weighing in at 3,699 pounds.
White pumpkins are also known as the ghost pumpkin, albino pumpkin, Snowball, Casper, Cotton Candy pumpkin, and other nicknames.
While white pumpkins have been around for a while, Brent Loy, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, successfully bred a white pumpkin with a sturdier stem than other white variety pumpkins.
According to Statista, about 154 million Americans plan to carve pumpkins for Halloween in 2023.
White pumpkins are orange on the inside.
Orange pumpkins have thicker skin than white varieties.
They are related to cantaloupes & watermelons.
Illinois is the largest producer of pumpkins in the United States.
In 2021, Illinois grew its pumpkin acreage to nearly 18,000 acres, producing double the number of pumpkins grown by other top states.
Morton, Illinois is the self-proclaimed pumpkin capital of the world.
Six states produce a majority of the pumpkins - Illinois, California, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
In 2022, the top-producing states harvested over 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins combined.
A 43-year-old Minnesota educator, Travis Gienger, grew the heaviest pumpkin on earth, weighing in at 2,749 pounds.

Photo credit: USA Today, Eric Risberg
The tradition of carving pumpkins started in Ireland where they would carve faces into turnips to scare evil spirits away during Samhain, a Celtic holiday when it is believed spirits of the dead would walk to the earth.
Early settlers would dry pumpkins shells, cut them into strips and wove them into mats.