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Pumpkins - ingredients, cultivation and medical use
contents
- Pumpkins - The most important facts
- ingredients
- application
- Pumpkin supports the prostate
- carotenoids
- Meat and kernels
- Food or ornamental squash
- Once Upon a Time in America
- Giant growth and musk fragrance
- Thick berries
- pumpkin plants
- Grow pumpkins yourself
- Sowing and planting
- Pre-culture in the house
- Planting outdoors
- Camp and summer squashes
Pumpkins - The most important facts
- Except for the gourds, all pumpkins come from America.
- They are among the oldest cultivated food plants.
- Pumpkins are full of minerals and vitamins.
- Pumpkins are easy to grow by yourself, but need plenty of water and heat.
- Pumpkin seeds help against urinary complaints and prostate problems.
Pumpkins are among the earliest cultivated plants (Image: womue / fotolia.com) ingredients
Pumpkins contain oil, as well as linoleic acid, protein, magnesium, potassium, calcium, selenium and zinc, vitamin A, various B vitamins, plus vitamins C and E as well as beta-carotene. In addition, there are fiber, silicic acid and plant sterols.
application
Pumpkins help against diseases of the urinary tract, the kidneys and the bladder - in addition to complaints of the prostate. They contain a lot of potassium and little sodium and therefore drive the urine.
The phytosterols are contained in the nuclei. They counteract inflammation of the prostate and are a remedy for benign swelling of this gland. But they also work against bladder problems, especially against the so-called irritable bladder. To effectively treat bladder and prostate complaints with pumpkin seeds, they can resort to pumpkin seed extracts. Dried pumpkin seeds do it too.
Pumpkin supports the prostate
The prostate (prostate gland) is a male gland that lies under the bladder and is only the size of a chestnut. Sooner or later almost every man will experience a benign enlargement of this organ. This can lead to problems with urination, to urination and pain in the abdomen.
Pumpkin helps with first and second stage prostate adenomas. The phytosterols reduce the swelling and relieve the pain as well as the other needs for urination (residual urine, speed when emptying the bladder, nocturnal urinary pressure). Prostate enlargement itself does not relieve the sterols. Pumpkin seeds may slow down the course of the disease.
carotenoids
The giant berries are full of carotenoids. With 100 grams of pumpkin meat you cover your daily needs. These substances protect the cells, prevent cancer and heart disease.
Meat and kernels
The pulp is also ideal for a diet, because pumpkin consists of 90 percent water and therefore has low calories. The fiber also help digestion. From a medical point of view, however, the main force is in the nuclei. The fats contained in it consist almost half of unsaturated fatty acids.
Minerals, trace elements and vitamins contain the cores in rough amounts. There are also secondary plant substances. These are substances that compensate for high levels of cholesterol. Finally, pumpkin seeds (eaten whole) are also an effective home remedy for some worm infections.
Food or ornamental squash
A warning: The healing effect refers exclusively to gourds like the Hokkaido variety. Ornamental gourds do not heal - on the contrary. They contain the poison cucurbitacin: If you eat ornamental gourds, stomach cramps, nausea, and vomiting are likely to follow.
Once Upon a Time in America
Almost all of today's pumpkins come from wild species in Latin America - with the exception of African gourds. After the conquest of America by the Europeans pumpkins then spread all over the world. For example, the popular Hokkaido pumpkin comes from the eponymous island of Japan.
Presumably, the indigenous peoples of Peru cultivated pumpkins 12,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago, pumpkin in Central and South America was already widespread. In 2000 BC (AD), the indigenous people of today's Kampsville, Illinois, grew crops, and legacy of the Woodland culture in Pennylvania was found to contain pumpkin seed. In 1492, Columbus' crew brought the garden squash from Cuba to Europe.
Pumpkins are undemanding and grow quickly to considerable size. (Image: VRD / fotolia.com) The American Natives developed sophisticated methods to irrigate their fields in the desert regions of the Southwestern United States. Their descendants, the Pueblos, Hopi and Zuni used these techniques as well as the Navajos. The Hohokam built gigantic irrigation systems, which stretched over many square kilometers and cultivated pumpkins next to corn, beans and cotton.
The basket weavers around 100 v.u.Z built stock for them. The culture of the hill-growers on the Mississippi built next to corn and beans also on the healthy fruit. The Gallina people in New Mexico even bred 1200 n.u.Z a special strain. The Anasazi in the Tyuoni Pueblo also planted them in the valley of the Rio de los Frijoles - the indigenous people of later New England cultivated them as well as corn, thereby ensuring that the early European settlers did not starve to death.
The Natives in North America used every component of the fruit: they ate meat like seeds and made bowls, masks and rattles from the bowls. They tied the growing giant berries into shapes to later produce the corresponding objects.
Giant growth and musk fragrance
Today there are hundreds of gourds. These include spaghetti, musk, butternut and nutmeg gourds, as well as the bishop's cap, the turkish turban and the mini-pattison. Almost all today's squash comes from only three wild species: giant squash (Cucurbita maxima), musk squash (Cucurbita moschata) and garden squash (Cucurbita pepo). Musky pumpkins are highly aromatic varieties such as "Butternut" and "Muscade de Provence". The garden squash is both the wild form of ornamental pumpkins and the oil pumpkins and zucchini, which is biologically as a separate subspecies.
Thick berries
Pumpkins are the colossi among the berries. In contrast to blueberries or raspberries, they are tank berries, as the outer skin of the fruits is lignified. Only in forms such as the Hokaido pumpkin, the shell can be eaten cooked. For giant pumpkins, it is not suitable for consumption.
pumpkin plants
We know pumpkins in the most colorful colors and in grotesque forms. But all the pumpkins are annuals, form tendrils with large leaves and the female and male genitalia in different flowers.
Caution: Pumpkins come from only three species. If you use pumpkins yourself, the varieties can cross each other. You get problems when you pull ornamental squash and gourds side by side: If the flowers of ornamental squash pollinate the squashes, the fruits intended for eating become inedible because of the bitter and toxins. This does not threaten to underestimate health risks.
Grow pumpkins yourself
Pumpkins are fairly undemanding, but need heat and plenty of water. The best is a sheltered, sunny location, as full sun dries out the soil, which the plants can not tolerate.
Whether the soil is acid or calcareous, loamy or änandig the plants, however, does not care at all. A thick layer of humus stores the water evenly and supplies the pumpkins with liquid even when it is not raining. So treat your giant baby to a sunny spot at the bottom of the compost heap. Here nutrient-rich water seeps directly into the plant roots.
Pumpkins are low in calories and full of nutrients. (Cyrena111 / fotolia.com) Sowing and planting
Pumpkin seeds can be sowed outdoors from the end of April. To do so, first remove the wild herbs growing there, loosen the soil to a depth of approx. 10 cm and enrich it with four liters of compost per square meter. The bombastic berries need space: expect bushy pumpkins with a square meter, for strongly climbing plants with three square meters of bed.
Press troughs into the ground, where you put two seeds each three centimeters deep into the ground. If the plants germinate, pluck out the weaker of the two. Sprouts cover fleece at night with temperatures below 5 degrees. The pumpkins do not die off otherwise, but are slowed down in their development.
Pre-culture in the house
A preculture is not mandatory for pumpkins, but recommended, because the plants grow better and safer. They put a seed into a small flower pot with garden soil and sand or compost. At room temperature of 20 degrees plus, evenly moist soil and a sunny window seat seeds germinate after a week.
It should not be too cold germinating in the apartment, as the seeds quickly catch molds. The higher the temperatures, the better the plants grow. Then reduce the heat to a little below 20 degrees. The heat in the house should limit you a bit, so that the pumpkins do not grow too fast. After the icy saints at the end of May, the plants are released into the open and should have formed no more than three leaves.
Planting outdoors
The pots with the plants bring you into the bed at the end of May. Make sure you do not damage your roots while popping them - they are very sensitive. So do not pluck the roots out of the potting soil, but plant the whole bale in the bed. Pour the pumpkins outdoors in the open and protect the young plants with a plastic brim from snails, otherwise it may be over after just one night.
Have you properly mixed compost in the soil? Then you only have to add a little nettle slurry to the irrigation water every now and then. Occasionally sprinkle some grass clippings around the roots as the plants draw nutrients.
For longer heat periods without rain: Water well in time and better than too little, but only until the fruits have grown to their full size.
Camp and summer squashes
Summer squash can only be stored in the fridge for a short time. We harvest them young, because then they have the full taste. Gourds, on the other hand, can be kept for months. The camp squash includes most giant pumpkins. We let them mature and harvest them fully ripe. The full maturity notice that the stems are hard, the outer skin then forms a kind of mesh. Gourds sound hollow when ripe.
Cut the pumpkin with several centimeters of stalks and free it with a brush and water from adhering soil. Then turn it with the stem down and let it dry. Now store it best on a wooden shelf at 12 to 17 degrees and about 70% humidity. Ideal is a cellar. Every fruit should have air from all sides so as not to mold. You can store the pumpkins for two to seven months. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)