Storebought pumpkin seeds on the left. Much larger, richer, home-grown pepitas on the right.
What Are Pepitas? How Are They Different from Pumpkin Seeds?
If you’ve ever carved a Jack O’Lantern, or grown your own eating pumpkins, you’ll know that pumpkin seeds have a thick, white hull. The entire seed can be consumed, hull and all (an excellent source of fiber), and in the US at Halloween, whole pumpkin seeds are often served as a snack when tossed in butter or olive oil, salt, and spices and roasted.
Roasted pumpkin seeds in their hulls. Recipe here.
Inside the tough hull is a green, oil-rich seed. Pumpkin seed oil, pressed from these seeds, is rich in Omega-3 and -6 fatty acids, and vitamin A. It has long been prized as a highly-nutritious and flavorful oil enjoyed in a variety of culinary preparations from cakes to salad dressing.
The nut meat itself – called a pepita – is delicious raw or roasted, and stores well. Because hull-ing the pepitas is fiddly, hull-less varieties were developed so we can enjoy these nutty, delicious seeds without the time-consuming work of removing the hull.
Pepitas are a prized calorie crop, rich in healthy fats (16 g/serving), protein (10 g), and an excellent source of Iron, Potassium, Magnesium, Copper and Phosphorus.
The author harvesting pepitas from her garden. Note: The seeds are hullness straight out of the fruit.
Why It’s Worth Growing Your Own Pepitas
Organic pepitas are a delicious, nutritious addition to our family’s diet. They can command a high price in the grocery store, but are easy to grow, and harvest in our garden. They’re also a really rewarding crop to be able to source locally right out the back door.
If you look back at the first photo in this post, you can see storebought pepitas versus our homegrown seeds. The homegrown are much larger, nuttier in flavor, and richer in those healthy oils than the storebrands, and come with a much smaller carbon footprint.
I’m a big fan of an F1 Hybrid variety called Naked Bear, which produces a moderately-sized bright yellow pumpkin packed full of seeds. It is hardy and yields heavy crops (4-5 plants produces our family’s yearly supply of pepitas). The leftover pumpkin flesh isn’t so great for human consumption, but can be steamed and fed to the chickens and ducks, who will eat it all (raw pumpkin isn’t particularly palatable to poultry, but they love it cooked).
We mostly enjoy pepitas either in pesto, or granola (you can find a VERY old recipe from my very old and rather embarrasing blog here. The recipe is the one I still use today, but instead of 1 1/2 cups walnuts, I use a mix of walnuts sourced from my dad’s trees, and pepitas and hazelnuts from our own garden.)
A Naked Bear pepita pumpkin growing in the author’s garden, 2022
If you’d like to learn more about growing and harvesting pepitas in the home garden, check out my video below:
I hope you’ll consider growing pepitas in your own garden. They’re a really easy, and fulfilling crop – great for kids and adults to try, and absolutely delicious.
Seaberries growing in the author’s permaculture garden, Portland, OR, USA
Sea Buckthorn, A Useful Permaculture Shrub + High-Value Crop
Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a nitrogen fixing, thorny deciduous shrub that tolerates extremely harsh conditions where other plants may struggle. It is native to Russia and China, naturally occuring at elevations above 4,000 feet, but also grows readily at lower elevations, including the seaside. It is not a true buckthorn (Rhamnus spp), and also goes by the names sandthorn and sallowthorn. (If you haven’t guessed from the common names, the thorns are no joke, some growing as long as my index finger.)
The fruit of the sea buckthorn – called the “seaberry” – has been prized for generations as a high-value crop, rich in oils and vitamins. In recent decades, the oily fruit has increased in commercial value due to its use in cosmetics, hair oil, and moisturizers. Farms focusing on seaberry cultivation now range from Canada to Russia to Germany and across temperate parts of Asia.
In my own garden, the sea buckthorn has been a useful hedgerow plant within the food forest design. The leaves are edible for poultry, and can be dried and crushed into their feed. The shrubs themselves fix nitrogen, and their thorny branches provide shelter from songbirds from the endless pressure of urban outdoor cats.
Late in the summer (and into autumn), the shrub produces large quantities of nutritious berries. These berries freeze well, and while they’re too sour to eat straight off the bush, the juice is incredibly good in a range of culinary uses (more on that below).
Sea buckthorn in the wild, where it suckers and forms hedges. Photo courtesy the Creative Commons.
How to Grow – and When Not To
Sea buckthorn is not right for every garden. I’ll be the first to say, do due diligence before adding plants to your garden or permaculture system. But for those systems where it is well-suited, sea buckthorn is a tremendously beneficial plant. I have zero regrets about adding it here at Parkrose Permaculture.
Sea buckthorn is a pioneer species. This means it is hardy, resilient, and can handle a range of difficult conditions that other plants cannot. While that resilience means it can be aggressive in certain conditions, but also means it thrives in sandy soil, clay soil, areas of high wind, salt, and low soil fertility. And not only does it thrive in harsh conditions that are not suitable for cultivating other crops, it produces large yields of fruit while doing so – and fixes nitrogen while doing so!
Questions to ask before planting sea buckthorn in your garden: 1. Do I like eating the berries? Find someone who grows seaberries and try them before planting (you can also order juice and other seaberry foods online). I tried some at the One Green World fall fruit tasting years and years ago, before deciding to buy. 2. Am I okay with a thorny, 15 ft tall set of shrubs in my garden? How will those shrubs shade/interact with other plants in my system? 3. Do I have a full-sun location for at least two shrubs? Am I aware that even shade from the uppermost branches can cause lower-branch die-back, and that shade is the kiss of death for this plant? 4. Am I okay dealing with suckers (or do I have room to let the shrub sucker naturally)? Will I be okay removing suckers a few times a year for as long as I grow these plants? 5. Does my site need erosion-control, nitrogen fixation, or songbird habitat that could be provided by this plant? 6. How would this shrub benefit my permaculture system and my diet? Do the challenges it may pose outweigh the benefits? Is it right for my garden?
Check out the author’s new video on her seaberry plants.
Growing Sea Buckthorn
Size at Maturity : varies widely depending on conditions and variety: 4-20 feet tall, 3-10 feet wide Fruit Production: Dioecious. One male can pollinate up to 6 females. Berries are produced along the inner stems, and can be challenging to harvest. Zones: 3a-9a Temps: -45F – 100F Soil Conditions: prefers sandy, poor-quality soils, but can tolerate a wide range including straight-clay Tolerance: tolerant to wind, salt, poor fertility Sun/Shade: Needs full sun. Significant branch die-back occurs in shade. Will not fruit without full sun. Benefits: Nitrogen fixer, edible nutritious berries, medicinal leaves that can be used as livestock feed, stabilizes erosion-prone soils Challenges: Suckers, sometimes prolifically (especially males) and can form large hedges. Large thorns. Fruit tends to burst when picking by hand. Need a male and female to get fruit. Fruit is too sour to consume fresh.
Seaberries with cherry tomatoes for scale (from the author’s garden). Note the oily sheen on the berries, which are rich in omega fatty acids.
Nutritional Benefits
The leaves of the sea buckthorn can be used as a medicinal tea. As always, consult your healthcare provider and understand fully any medicinal teas you are consuming and how they may interact with pharmeceuticals you are taking. While I’m not going to make medical claims about their use, I have enjoyed the tea myself. The leaves can be enjoyed fresh or dry easily and mixed with other garden herbs for a caffeine-free tea with a bright flavor. I prefer it with honey and milk.
The berries themselves are very, very sour, with a tinge of bitterness from the skin. I liken it to eating the skin of the sourest citrus you can find. As you might imagine, this means they are incredibly high in vitamin C. In fact, one serving has 6-10x the US RDA of vit C. The fruits also contain calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, and vitamins B1, B2, B6, and E.
Seaberries are so highly prized because they are also one of the oiliest temperate fruits you can grow. When harvesting the berries, you can see the oil as it’s deposited on your hands and in the bowl. The berries are incredibly rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids such as omega-3, 6, 7, and 9. The berries themselves are rich in oil that gives a buttery quality to the juice, but the seeds can also be pressed to yield an additional harvest of unsaturated oils useful for human consumption and as a skin/hair conditioner.
How to Enjoy Seaberries
Juice. The whole reason I started growing seaberries is because I wanted a temperate-climate alternative to orange juice (we drink a lot of orange juice, and obviously, that increases our carbon footprint). I like to cut the juice with water (about 50/50), and add in honey until I get the sweetness I want.
Any recipe that calls for cranberries, currants, or sour citrus (like calamondin, yuzu, lemon): think curd, jam, cheesecake, and even mixers for whiskey sour.
Seaberries Are A Part of Sustainable, Local, Seasonal Eating
For me, seasonal, local, sustainable food production is a huge part of why I have a permaculture garden. I want to reduce my impact on the planet in any small ways I am able. That includes trying to grow as much of my own fruit as possible, and reducing the amount of imported fruit I need to buy for my family.
My adventure in growing sea buckthorn began as a search for a local, sustainable alternative to orange juice. I have since learned that this nitrogen-fixing shrub is a huge asset to my permaculture garden, as well as to my diet. It is not without maintenance that I keep 3 of these suckering plants happily fitting into my 1/4 acre design – and also not without the occaisional poke from the long thorns. But the sucker-removal is worth it for me as I continue to reap harvests of nutritious fruits, create wildlife habitat, and gain free nitrogen fixation in my garden.
Very large seaberries in the author’s garden. 2022.
