The front porch pumpkin, fall’s favored feature

Pumpkin. (Photo by Anita Westervelt)

Published October 25, 2025, in the McAllen Monitor

Story and photos by Anita Westervelt

American pumpkin, Cucurbita pepo, is native to North America; it is a cultivated winter squash. The oldest known domesticated pumpkin seeds were found in caves in the Oaxaca highlands of Mexico, possibly 10,000 years ago.

Pumpkin was designated the official Texas state squash by House Concurrent Resolution No. 87, in 2013, stating, “the diversity of Texas agriculture is one of the strengths of the Texas economy and over the years, the pumpkin has become an important crop in the Lone Star State.”

Although statistics fluctuate from year to year, Texas has become the fourth leading state in commercial pumpkin production. Historically, it has had an economic impact of $7.4 million to the state, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Crop Brief.

There's always room for one more pumpkin. (Photo by Anita Westervelt)

Annually, 5,000 to 8,000 acres of pumpkins are planted in Texas; 90 percent are in the west Texas region. As conditions change, pumpkin growing has been expanding to counties outside that traditional range. More than 90 percent of the pumpkins grown in Texas are for Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving ornamental use, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension’s Pumpkins Crop Guide.

The top national pumpkin producer is Illinois, which grows 90 percent of the nation’s pumpkins, producing upwards of 630 million pounds of pumpkins annually, nearly all of which are for canned pumpkin production. Pumpkins used for canning, for baking and cooking, have a higher sugar content and denser texture than pumpkins used for decorations. The world’s largest pumpkin processing plant, Nestle Libby, is in Morton, Illinois.

There are about 200 varieties of pumpkins, ranging in color from orange, red, yellow, white and green. The United States produces 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkin annually. Texas produces around 108 million pounds of pumpkin a year, but that can vary significantly due to weather.

Bins full of traditional orange pumpkins abound. (Photo by Anita Westervelt)

A favorite artful pumpkin is festive, too. (Photo by Anita Westervelt)

Growing pumpkins can be tricky; perhaps not a crop suited for the Rio Grande Valley, especially in a drought year. Pumpkins are 92 percent water. They need deep and consistent watering and excellent drainage. Fifteen to 20 inches of rain from June to September would be ideal.

The best pumpkin planting time, according to Texas agriculture experts, is from June to early July. Depending on the variety, they may ripen from 85 to 120 days. Too warm of a temperature and windy conditions affect fruit setting. Pumpkins need a lot of space. They also have disease and insect issues.

If you’re up for an experiment, a tip from our ancestors may be useful: Pumpkins (along with other forms of squash) were a historically important food staple among Native Americans. They would grow squash along riverbanks next to maize (corn) and beans, a planting technique that was called the Three Sisters, a farming method which allows the three crops to sustain each other. Corn provides a trellis for climbing beans, beans add nitrogen to the soil, and squash spreads wide leaves to retain moisture and suppress weeds.

This symbiotic system maximizes land use, promotes biodiversity, and creates a self-sustaining ecosystem without needing chemical fertilizers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library.

While local big box stores display large bins full of pumpkins for sale, for a fun excursion, Google, pumpkin; you might find your way to a close-by pumpkin patch and possibly a corn maze. Corn, maize, also is native to the Americas, apparently domesticated around 9,000 years ago, from the wild grass, teosinte, in the Balsas River valley of southern Mexico.

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