Cinderella Pumpkins + Enchanting Heirloom Pumpkin Varieties ~Family Food Garden

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When most people think about Cinderella a pumpkin carriage comes to mind.

Cinderella pumpkins are fun to grow, not to mention beautiful

Cinderella pumpkins are the ‘Rouge Vif D’etamps’ french heirloom pumpkins. This pumpkin was prized in the 1800’s for a great soup stock.

I’ll review Cinderella pumpkins and show you great heirloom pumpkins that offer the same enchantment

Rouge Vif D’etampes (Cinderella Pumpkin)

(C. maxima)

Seed source: West Coast Seeds

It was love at first sight.

Seriously. Gorgeous.

Cinderella pumpkins will be the first to colour in your pumpkin patch as they start off yellow rather then the traditional green of most pumpkins.

They can also be eaten at the yellow stage like a summer squash! This is an added bonus if you end up with some pumpkins that aren’t ripe before the first fall frost.

The transition from yellow, to orange, to a deep red is stunning and beautiful to witness throughout the summer.

Some of these pumpkins get very large. We made the mistake of lifting it by the handle (don’t!). This will reduce the shelf life of your pumpkins if you plant on curing and storing your pumpkins for the winter months.

The larger ones also have very deep ridges, which I think is one reasons why they’re often called Cinderella pumpkins.

Cinderella pumpkin uses

These pumpkins make beautiful market, porch or indoor displays. There seems to be a large variance in size too, from small 15 lbs ones to large 45lbs ones. They’re good for cooking but I found them to be better suited to stews & soups rather than baking pumpkin pies. When we baked ours there was a high water content. We didn’t carve them for halloween, they were almost too beautiful to waste for non-food purposes, but if we had enough I would definitely carve them for a very cool looking jack o lantern.

Other great heirloom pumpkins with Cinderella charm

There are some other heirloom pumpkins that offer those deep ridges and offer great fall displays.

Musquée de Provence

This deeply ridged pumpkin is gorgeous and is not a C. Maxima variety like the Rouge Vif D’etamps, they are actually a C. Moschata, the same kind as butternut squash. This pumpkin starts out as a dark forest green then cures into a gorgeous brown.