do pumpkins keep growing after they have started to turn orange.
Is it early for them to start to turn orange?
thanks,
Sarah.
They will be yellow, orange, or greenish, whatever variety they are. I think the colour develops as they grow? They should keep growing until they have formed a hard skin, which will be some time yet ...
At what stage should the pumpkins be now,
Mine are about 6" high and flowering.
Is there anything I can use to boost them as they are not for eating
Aiden
If they're only small, don't despair. My West Indian pumpkins are massive, my Northern Bush are mini because I forgot they were there and didn't water them. They've still got time.
Quote from: green sleeves on July 30, 2006, 01:04:28
At what stage should the pumpkins be now,
Mine are about 6" high and flowering.
Is there anything I can use to boost them as they are not for eating
Aiden
If you want to try and grow one big pumpkin you can just leave one fruit on the plant and remove the others.You can prune the vine 10 to 12 feet beyond your chosen fruit. Cut all side shoots back to eight feet long and bury the ends of cut vines to reduce water loss.Also placing the fruit on a brick or two or a tile will help prevent it rotting.You need to keep it well watered and well fed.Im sure ive read that you can use fleece to drape over the fruit to help try and prevent the skin from ripening.Goodluck!!!
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on July 30, 2006, 09:22:50
My West Indian pumpkins are massive,
What do you do with your West Indians once you've harvested them. Do they keep? How do you cook them?
I haven't grown them before, but I imagine they're the same as any other pumpkins. The problem I've had in the past is that because of the rats, I've had to bring them home unripe, and in the hot atmosphere they sometimes rot. I've now thought of a cunning scheme to get round this. If I have a good crop, that'll be far more than we can eat. So I'll use them to decorate the church for Harvest Festival, and once they're ripe, we can share them out. Kept cool, I see no reason why they shouldn't store for months; our problem is lack of storage space.
Once the flesh is nice and solid, we use them in what might loosely be called stews, either African dishes or my curries.
Thanks again, I've only ever tried roasting squashes, and never grown pumpkins before, so I like the idea of adding them to stews for a change. I'll have to make a lot of stew to use up the one I have growing! Now all I have to do is hope that the rat keeps away.
To give you some idea of quantities sweet-pea, I grew 'hundredweight' last year, and produced six gallons of curry sauce off one pumpkin ... the only other ingredients were onions and spices.
;DI'm sure that required a lot of Imodium, my best advise is keep tje toilet roll in the fridge :D
Don't seem to be doing too well with the single finger spelling technology