Lynn McGinnis

In the United States, pumpkins go hand in hand with the fall holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Harvested in October, this nutritious and versatile orange fruit features flowers, seeds and flesh that are edible and rich in vitamins. Pumpkin is used to make soups, desserts and breads, and many Americans include pumpkin pie in their Thanksgiving meals.

Pumpkins with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of the Halloween season. Carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns is a popular Halloween tradition that originated hundreds of years ago in Ireland.

Back then, however, jack-o’-lanterns were made out of turnips or potatoes; it wasn’t until Irish immigrants arrived in America and discovered the pumpkin that a new Halloween ritual was born.

Now pumpkins are commonly placed on stoops in the falls months and get carved ahead of Halloween night.

Here are a few things you may not know about them:

Pumpkins are a member of the gourd family, which includes cucumbers, honeydew melons, cantaloupe, watermelons and zucchini. These plants are native to Central America and Mexico, but now grow on six continents — all but Antarctica.

Indigenous North Americans have grown pumpkins for thousands of years — even before the cultivation of beans and corn.

In 1584, after French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence region of North America, he reported finding “gros melons.” The name was translated into English as “pompions,” which has since evolved into the modern “pumpkin.”

Pumpkin seeds should be planted between the last week of May and the middle of June. They take between 90 and 120 days to grow and are picked in October when they are bright orange in color. Their seeds can be saved to grow new pumpkins the next year.