Lady Godiva, a Squash Variety With Naked Pumpkin Seeds

Image Gallery Lady Godiva! A hybrid pumpkin selected for seeds with a light cellophane film, which makes it a "revealing" treat for your kitchen! PHOTO: FOTOLIA/LEFEBVRE_JONATHAN

When growing pumpkins, it's a policy around our place to try a newly released or unusual vegetable each year. That's how we came to know "Lady Godiva ... the pumpkin with naked seeds."

My family has always loved the taste of pumpkin seeds (either as a healthy at-home snack or for "backpacking power" out on the trail), but the typically sharp-edged, leather-hard hulls really dampened our enthusiasm for the autumn treat.

Lady Godiva, the Pumpkin With Naked Seeds

Lady Godiva has changed all that! This hybrid pumpkin features naked pumpkin seeds or seeds whose shells have been bred down to a light cellophane-like film. In the four years since we discovered Lady G. we've never grown any other kind of pumpkin.

Of course, the naked-seeded jack-o-lantern does have some drawbacks. If you like a rich, golden-colored pumpkin, for instance, you'll have to look elsewhere. Godiva's hue, even when ripe, is a yellow with pale green stripes. This fruit is also more thin-skinned and just a little less tasty than other pumpkins we've grown ... though nobody will turn their nose up at a Lady Godiva pie! On the positive side, however, Lady G. pumpkins will keep (when stored at 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit) for about three months.

What To Do With Pumpkins

We don't can pumpkin "flesh" (though we do dry some for soups), so we're only able to use about 40 of the 4- to 6-pound globes each year ... (including the not-so-mature or slightly spoiled pumpkins that go to our chickens after we've plundered the seeds).

It takes about 20 pumpkins to produce 1 pound of cleaned seed.