Heirloom Pumpkins

This cheese pumpkin — so named because it looks like a wheel of cheese — hails from France and was introduced  to American gardeners in 1899 by Vaughan's Seed Store in Chicago. It features a deep orange flesh and is great for cooking.

If you look hard enough, seminole pumpkins can be found growing wild in remote parts of the Everglades. Belonging to the same family as a winter crookneck squash, it has sweet, dry flesh that can be fried, boiled or baked. The vines are resistant to pests and disease.

Originating from an Amish gardener, this squash produces very large fruit: up to 80 pounds each. As its name suggests, it's great for baking pies and also freezes well. "One would be enough to feed a whole Amish community," says Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange, who makes her yearly Thanksgiving pies from this pumpkin variety.

This oblong, 3-lb squash was grown by the Omaha Indians in the early 1900s. They make cute jack-o-lanterns and its sweet flesh is great in pies.