To pick or not to pick !

[Travman]

I'm can not decide if should pick my pumpkins or leave them longer. ???

My Atlantic's have  seen better days with powdery mildew taking over the leaves
but the longer i can leave them the bigger/heavier they will become.

The weather is now damp virtually all night with temps going down to around 4'c some nights so its a fine line what to do .

Some are ripe others could do with a bit longer, If i do pick now should I keep them inside the greenhouse/warm ,Coldframe/cold or shed dark

I want them to last to Halloween .

So come on give my your thoughts ,theory's and strategy's

[Travman]

[Diana]

Tough call I know, but if they've mildew, chances are they'll not get any bigger + you rish=k losing them through frost (if temp is down to 4 at night that's a real threat) and / or slug/mouse/rabbit damage.

I've collected all of mine in except the butternuts that only set fruit at the beginning of sept and look in good health still.

Put them on a (or several) sunny windowsill until they're ripe (lost all signs of green if they are the kind that turn yellow/orange etc).

After that, keep them indoors (cool spare bedroom maybe? Warmer than in shed. but not too hot) and they should keep (depending on variety) until well after Christmas let alone halloween!

Hope that helps

D

[Travman]

Well going to pick them all this weekend.
Unsure where to put them all, but will worry about that later ;D

[supersprout]

lol travman, when we got them home there was only the landing



and the stairs



at last, an advantage to living on the top floor ;D

[MrsKP]

is there one on EVERY step all the way down ?

:D

[supersprout]

lol that's the challenge for *next year* kaypee - there are 39 steps down to the front door, I counted every one of them 8)

[Travman]

Well i picked them all today.
see the other pumpkin threads for details.
Thanks .

[Heldi]

Hee hee SS your pictures make me laugh!  All those pumpkins! Brilliant,love it!  ;D

[spacehopper]

Fabulous staircase SS. Squashes should keep you going for a while. :-)

[grawrc]

What do you do with them all SS? I'm sure you will have a bunch of excellent recipes!

[supersprout]

Thank you for kind comments - very boring really ::)
a) Baked
b) Soup
c) Roast
:-[ ;)

although financial adviser, landlord, chums, neighbours, district nurse and son's B&B provider@uni have all been sweetened with a squash now 8)