When Virginia farmer Charles Martin first got into the pumpkin game a decade ago, he started small, with a half-acre plot of traditional round, orange jack-o-lanterns. Today he grows 55 varieties of gourds, squash and pumpkins, and he's always looking for something new.

As he walks through his half-harvested patch, Martin points out an orange pumpkin covered in green bumps — the Warty Goblin. A few feet away there's a white-and-red-striped pumpkin called One Too Many. "It's supposed to resemble a bloodshot eye," Martin says, laughing. Then he spots a striped gray squash. It's a new variety a seed company is toying with, and it doesn't have a name yet — it's Experimental 133.

These colorful gourds aren't just a hobby for Martin: They're big business. In the last 30 years the amount of American farmland devoted to pumpkins has tripled, and most of those big fruits aren't filling pies. As the weather turns, the Pinterest-loving sorts among us increasingly look for odd, eye-catching pumpkins, gourds and squash to decorate homes and offices.

"Everyone wants to have the new, really cool gourd that everyone wants to buy, that Martha Stewart posts on her blog," says Adam Pyle, a horticulturalist at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. "You have a huge demand for squash and gourds that are aesthetically interesting and different from each other. That's been popular for a while, and it's been really trendy the last few years."

Charles Martin and his wife, Rosa, stand amidst some of their favorite gourds and squash from this year's harvest.

Charles Martin and his wife, Rosa, stand amidst some of their favorite gourds and squash from this year's harvest.

Vanessa Rancaño/NPR

These interesting new gourds, they don't just exist — people make them. And there's nothing new about that: We've been manipulating squash and gourds to suit our various needs for around 8,000 years, when Pyle says people first started breeding them. They're among the earliest plants that humans domesticated. For millennia farmers created new varieties that tasted better, or had tougher skins that enabled them to last through the winter, or resisted disease. And now we're making them as pretty — or ugly — as possible, depending on whom you ask.

"That's the goal: to get something stranger and stranger, because that's what people want," says Bill Holdsworth, a breeder for the major seed company Rupp Seeds. That's what sells. "If they see something they've never seen before, they're more likely to buy it."

There's a reason these plants have so much decorative potential: They're super diverse genetically, and particularly ostentatious in displaying those differences, Pyle says. And that's something we don't see very often in our fruits and vegetables. We want consistency when it comes to food, but because we choose to decorate with squash and gourds, we let them show us everything they've got.

Larry Eckler, a decorative gourd breeder in Niles, Mich., has been doing this for 40 years. When he first started, he says, his gourds were pretty plain, just like everyone else's. But he's had to keep pace with demand. "You've got to move on to better and brighter and unique things," Eckler says. "That's what the consumer looks for, because they like to really decorate." His most popular variety, the trademarked Daisy gourd, is a colorful, flower-shaped little thing that took him close to 30 years to perfect. Now he has a giant version in the works.

(These words, by the way — pumpkin, squash, gourd — Pyle says they don't actually mean anything, botanically speaking. Colloquially, gourd usually refers to inedible varieties, squash to edible ones, and pumpkin is just what we've decided to call some rounded squash.)

At a produce auction near Martin's farm, truck after truck is loaded with colorful pumpkins and gourds for sale. The auction floor is crowded with competition. Buyers have come from as far as North Carolina and Pennsylvania; There are restaurant owners here, grocers and farmers market vendors, all looking for something to give their customers the look of the season.

Gourds, squash and pumpkins galore are for sale at the Shenandoah Valley Auction in rural Virginia.

Gourds, squash and pumpkins galore are for sale at the Shenandoah Valley Auction in rural Virginia.

Vanessa Rancaño/NPR

Virginia Davis is here to stock her roadside produce stand in Stuarts Draft, Va. She sells 85 different kinds of squash and gourds, and today she spends $1,800 to help her maintain that variety. She'll sell them at a 25 percent markup.

They'll end up in homes like Karen Alston's in Washington, D.C. She's a marketing executive who entertains at home a lot, and she recently paid a decorator to festoon her house with pumpkins and flowers. She says a colorful display like this is a conversation starter. "When you think of fall, you think of pumpkin, gourds and all these beautiful colors. I think it adds to the beauty of the season," Alston says. "People will be talking about this."

And farmers, like Charles Martin in Virginia, are happy to keep the variety coming. He says they give him a rare opportunity. "If you're gathering tomatoes, you want them all uniform," he says. But with these, "You want each item to have its own character. As a farmer, it's glorious fun."

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Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Put down that spiced pumpkin latte you're sipping and douse that pumpkin-scented candle you might be burning. Pumpkins are so passe. Gourds are the newest designer accessory. We asked NPR's Vanessa Rancano to dig into the world of ornamental gourds.

VANESSA RANCANO, BYLINE: With stripes and curves and warts and all, gourds are big, even the small ones.

ADAM PYLE: We have a huge demand for squash and gourds that are aesthetically interesting and different from each other. That's been popular for a while, and it's been really trendy the last few years.

RANCANO: That's Adam Pyle, a horticulturalist at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. And though the interest in them may be new, the plants aren't. They're ancient. Pyle says there's evidence people have been breeding them for almost 8,000 years. There are hundreds of varieties. We tend to call the edible one, squash, the inedible, gourds. And pumpkins, they're just a kind of squash.

At a produce auction in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, buyers come from as far as a hundred miles away for the selection of colorful pumpkins and gourds. Virginia Davis is looking to stock her roadside produce stand. She eyes the one she wants.

VIRGINIA DAVIS: People around here call it a Fairytale pumpkin 'cause it kind of looks like a Cinderella carriage pumpkin.

RANCANO: Davis spends $1,800 at the auction. She sells 85 different kinds of pumpkins and gourds at her stand. Her customers demand variety. They aren't alone. The amount of American farmland devoted to pumpkins is three times what it was 30 years ago. And most of them aren't filling pies but cornucopias.

Karen Alston has a sleek, modern home in Washington, D.C. She's enlisted event planner Sugar Taylor to craft an edgy fall centerpiece for a big dinner party. Taylor is filling a hollowed-out white pumpkin with hot pink flowers and greenery and spray painting a couple of the little gourds gold.

SUGAR TAYLOR: Hey, like it?

RANCANO: Alston loves the arrangement.

KAREN ALSTON: It's absolutely beautiful. It's stunning. When you think of fall, you think of pumpkin and gourds and all these beautiful colors. And I just think it adds to the beauty of the season. And this is just going to be such a beautiful centerpiece on this table.

RANCANO: As the days narrow and the world turns gray and white, those piles of gourds offer a visual feast. Vanessa Rancano, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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