White with fright! The albino pumpkins that look like they’ve seen a ghost
IT’S a night for shocks and thrills, but this year Halloween revellers should look out for something truly spooky – giant white ‘ghost’ pumpkins.
Also known as albino or snowball pumpkins, the polar bear variety has been fashionable for many years in the US, where they are popular as table decorations.
Barely known in this country, they are now set to be sold for £3 each at Morrisons, the first time a British supermarket has made them widely available. The white pumpkins are being grown at a Cambridgeshire farm, where this year’s crops are double their usual size. Steve Whitworth, who has been growing the variety for ten years, said the novelty pumpkins were usually just 7in to 10in in diameter, but this year they measured 20in.
He said: ‘They’re like big white shiny beach balls. They are unusually large and they are going to be ideal for carving Halloween lanterns.’ He added: ‘I have no idea what’s been going on. It could be the soil or the weather, I really don’t know, but it’s odd and I am very pleased. They’re magnificent when they’re carved. The pumpkins are spooky white but the flesh is orange and when you put a candle inside, it gives a good glow.’
Mr Whitworth, who runs the 1,500-acre Oakley Farms at Wisbech, is busy harvesting the pumpkins this weekend.
A Morrisons spokesman said: ‘Kids are going to love them. The size is unexplained. It’s spooky.’