Topic: Pumpkin worries

[trojanrabbit]

Hi all,

I've never grown pumpkins before, but they seem to have done reasonably even having been planted out very late :-[. So I have 4 decent sized pumpkins on the vine at the moment ;D, but they are still only dark green and just starting to speckle with yellow. I'm now worried as to whether they are going to ripen fully before the weather properly turns and kills off the plants - especially as air tends to chill on the northwest facing side of the valley at night and roll down onto these plots :-\.

What should I do?
Do I put fleece over the fruits to help them ripen, or over the whole plants, or just not worry and when the plants keel over in the cold cut off the fruit and bring in?

cheers
Pete

[wellingtons]

Well I read somewhere here or on another allotment site that pumpkins ripen off the vine.

So I harvested the two that were fully orange and looking great and the two that were more green than orange. And put the greener ones in an unheated greenhouse and they are now beautifully orange, just in time!

[teresa]

I brought mine home a few weeks ago ( before the light finger gang got them) so have them in the greenhouse they will ripen off the vine like tomatoes do.

[Mrs Ava]

Bring them in - they will turn very quickly once in the warm.