My friends, Suzanne and Tom grew Ox and Robin's Musquee de Provence last summer, and just cooked it up a couple days ago. You don't think about eating pumpkins in February, but this variety will last into May. "Your pumpkin is filling up my entire oven," Tom told me on the phone. They roasted it before pureeing it into a soup.

Pumpkins will do best in soil that has been enriched with a little compost (about 1 inch of compost mixed in to soil. We grow them in "hills:" about a foot high and a foot wide, spacing 4-6 seeds around the top of the hill, and thinning to the best 3-4 plants. Keep them watered (but not water-logged) as the young plants start to emerge. They will grow long (12-20') vines. You can expect pumpkins that weigh in anywhere from 15 to a whopping 40 pounds.

Musquee de Provence has a wonderful rich orange flesh that is delicious roasted and in soups. As the fruit ripens, the color of the rind develops more golden and orange tones. It will continue to ripen in storage, but is extremely slow to spoil. I've eaten Musquee de Provence pumkins in early May that I've grown the year before. Try some this year if you have a little room in your gardent for its rambling vines to roam about.