Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Warts and all

The very interesting Agricultural Biodiversity linked to an article about these people who have somewhat graspingly decided that they should patent all warty pumpkins to be their own, claiming that they invented them.

A lie, clearly. Warted pumpkins have been around for a long long time, the first one that came to my mind was the French Galeux D'Eysines which was in lists by 1883. Another very warty sort is Hungarian, the Óvári hengeres which is shaped like a banana squash. The Americans have the Blue Hubbard amongst others.

There is also the extremely lumpy Italian MARINA di CHIOGGIA, the COURGE du MAROC and the Japanese SHISHIGATANI not to mention the many decorative varieties of gourd that develop knobbles and excrescences. All these are available from Graines Baumaux by the way.

And that's just a few of them.

So, although it's a bit late in the year for getting and starting new plants, if you have a chance, grow a warted one this year, and stop those money grabbers in their evil plans.

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