Years ago I read a short story about a person who cuts open a pumpkin and finds a diamond or pearl ring inside. I can’t remember much else about the story except that it added to my fascination of pumpkin patches.

When the soil is just right, a pumpkin patch can be a vibrant and mysterious quadrant of the field. This year’s patch has been exceptional and the vines spread like spilt liquid over the garden, covering two sets of Cubanelle peppers, rows of cabbage, and streamed into the staked Brandywine heirlooms. Mixed in were the vines of butternut squash and spaghetti squash which all succumbed to the raging Long Island cheese pumpkins. The spaghetti squash were the first to harvest as the plants mature earlier and the vines are susceptible to vine borers. Then I was able to harvest a few butternuts when the green star near their necks disappeared and the skin was tough enough not to be marred by a thumbnail press. The vines are still growing and so are the cheese pumpkins.

Long Island cheese pumpkins do not taste like cheese. They are shaped like wheels of cheese, think Swiss cheese from which a wedge is cut. Flat and round like a tire, calling them cheese is more appealing than calling them tires, lol. This heirloom pumpkin was domesticated in New York before the Civil War. Its genetic heritage comes from some of the oldest squash lines from Central and South America.

The flesh of a mature Long Island cheese pumpkin is dark orange, high in beta-carotene and sugars. These factors make the cheese pumpkin a favorite of chefs for pumpkin pies. Its stable shape and advantageous ratio of meat to seeds, lends the fruit to stuffing and roasting.

Cut open the top like a Jack-O-lantern and scoop out the seeds. Save the seeds! Stuff the cheese pumpkin with rice, sausage or chopped meat, onions, garlic and peppers, maybe a tomato. Place the top back on and roast in the oven at 350 for as long as it takes. Some less confident chefs may precook the rice and sausage but after you do one from scratch you’ll know what it takes. So good! Feeds the whole family.

Pumpkin leaves stand straight up in the field about knee high and get as big as turkey carving platters. It’s the leaves that add the mystery to the field or garden. They cover everything underneath like a natural solar farm. A casual observer standing outside the patch has no idea what’s under the leaves. It’s a maze of vines and greenery. A secret zone of growth exists out of sight.

The farmer enters the patch judiciously, cautiously trying not to crush the tubular vines carrying the good stuff from the soil to the blossoms. In his back pocket he carries a sheathed harvest knife; in his right hand a bushel basket or black plastic tray with sides. He pushes the leaves to side with his foot. The lace less Merrill lands on the ground between the vines. He spots a pumpkin. Cheese pumpkins, more often than not, end up on their sides not their bottoms, by way of their stem’s attachment to the vine. A hard slice through the stem and the pumpkin is in the basket. A couple more and retreat is in order. The weight can come on fast. “Oh look, a lost spaghetti squash, and here, what’s this? The overgrown Italian frying peppers! Damned, of hell, that’s where they’ve been!”