Cucurbita pepo.
The real pie pumpkin — not to be confused with its big cousin the Jack O' Lantern, good for carving but disappointing in the kitchen. Sugar Pie, also known as Small Sugar or New England Pie Pumpkin, is a venerable heirloom variety listed in the Burpee house catalogues in the 1860s, selected not for spectacular size or perfect silhouette, but for the gustatory quality of its flesh. Small squat fruits of just 1.5 to 3 kg, with smooth bright orange skin and dense, fine, sweet, fibreless flesh — exactly what you're looking for to make a real pumpkin pie worthy of the name: grandmother's pie, Thanksgiving pie, the one that justifies a whole season of garden work.
A small amusing fact to share at the kitchen table: almost all of the canned "pumpkin" sold at the North American grocery store isn't really pumpkin — it's a squash called Dickinson, closer to a butternut than to a true pepo. Sugar Pie, on the other hand, is the real thing — the authentic pumpkin of pumpkins. Beyond the classic pie with evaporated milk, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, it lends itself magnificently to a velouté with cinnamon and maple syrup, to an autumn risotto, to a soft pumpkin bread, to homemade gnocchi, or even roasted in caramelized quarters with a drizzle of olive oil and sage. And don't forget the seeds — toasted in the oven with a little oil and salt, it's the autumn snack par excellence. Honest storage: 2 to 4 months in a cool dry place after a 1- to 2-week skin-curing period in the sun.
Grower's tip: 100 to 110 days is long for Québec, but more accessible than for the big pumpkins because the fruits themselves are smaller and ripen more easily. Indoor start 3 to 4 weeks before transplanting (no more — cucurbits hate long stays in a pot), transplant in early June once the soil is solidly warmed. Vines more compact than those of the Jack O' Lantern (2 to 3 m instead of 3 to 4), which makes it an acceptable variety even for medium-sized gardens. One plant can produce 5 to 8 fruits per season. Harvest when the skin is hard and no longer marks under the fingernail, ideally before the first serious frost, keeping 5 cm of stem for storage.
- Open-pollinated. Monoecious, bee-pollinated; crosses with other Cucurbita pepo (zucchini, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, Jack O' Lantern) — isolate for seed saving.
- Vine length: 2 to 3 m.
- Maturity: 100 to 110 days after transplant.
- Exposure: full sun.
- Rich, deep soil, heavy with organic matter. Space plants 1.2 m apart in all directions, or grow in mounds.
- Indoor start 3 to 4 weeks before last frost, or direct-sow in a mound in early June once the soil is at 18 °C minimum.
