Pumpkins

[Peggy Sue]

I think my first one is ready- it's also twice the size of my head and so I plant to pick it this weekend and do a roast with roast pumpkin, boil the bones for stock and make pumpkin soup, saving just enough for a pumpkin cheesecake recipe I found.

If I ahven't turned orange by the next weekend I'll pick teh second and have a go at pumpkin pie and curried pumpkin.

How will I keep up with eating all teh beans now?!

[Millymollymandy]

But will it be ripe enough Peggy Sue? I have harvested all my potimarrons because the plant had just about died and gone mouldy but won't be cutting into any of them until they have sat on a sunny windowsill for a couple more months yet, despite the fact they have been fully grown and going an amazing dark orange colour the last 2 months.

I've grown some pumpkins that looked wonderfully red and had that hollow sound when you rap them but they were pale fleshed and tasteless and could have done with several more months ripening!

[Peggy Sue]

Well the plant is dead now so I assumed it was harvest it or lose it? Should I leave it there or ripen it indoors?

[Millymollymandy]

Bring it indoors into the dry and warm and put it on a sunny windowsill. It will ripen eventually - well OK I can't guarantee it , but I've ripened butternuts that were only tiny and green to dark lovely butter colour and orange fleshed just on a sunny windowsill through the winter!

[Peggy Sue]

So how do I know it's ready?

[Millymollymandy]

Good question! I always hope and pray when I cut into a pumpkin...... When the skin has gone that golden buttery colour that butternuts go then I would assume it was ready to eat.

[Peggy Sue]

Well it's the colour of a butternut now- not really red like some pumpkins but I guess that might be variety? It sounds hollow when I tap it and the seed packet said harvest Aug-Oct....it would be a terrible waste of a huge veg if it was unripe though

[Millymollymandy]

I would still wait a few months if I was you, especially if it is the only one that you have! I have cut into fiery red halloween type pumpkins only to find cream coloured flesh inside, because I assumed they were ripe straight off the plant.

[Peggy Sue]

but Soooo hard to wait

[Millymollymandy]

I have just seen your signature so why don't you follow your advice and just do it! I'm only saying what I would do from my experience but yours might be ripe enough now, and on reading back I think I got the impression it was a butternut but it is a pumpkin isn't it?

[Millymollymandy]

Did you try it?

I've just cut into the pumpkinny thing that my neighbour gave me about 3 weeks ago - I assumed it was a summer squash (whatever that is exactly) because she was advising eating it now - it was green with a hint of orange and now it is completely orange skinned........ but it was that horrible unripe creamy yellow flesh inside - we roasted it anyway but NOTHING! Tasteless, unripe horrible pumpkin which will have to go into the compost bin! I'm so mad!

So this is why I leave my pumpkins to ripen for months before I eat them - but not knowing the variety of hers I assumed it was a summer one and would be ripe now.

[Peggy Sue]

It is such a large beast to waste so I've decided to give it a week or two in my mini greenhouse as a sort of compromise.

I do have some butternuts on the go too, but they are tiny and I don't hold out much hope for them!

[Peggy Sue]

OK I did it, had roast pumpkin and it was lovely! No idea if it was truely ripe, I can't remember ever buying a pumpkin but it tasted like butternut so I can't be far out!
The flesh and skin were also butternut coloured so not sure if thats the variety (Hundredweight) or because it was underripe- I see smaller ones in bright orange which are a different variety. Got to say they were easier than the butternuts- which are numnerous but tiny!

[Chocobed]

I have grown pumpkins and other squash for a while and I have found that Hundredweight, like a lot of competition varieties isn't the best choice for flavour.
Butternut remian stripey until they ripen, something you can do indoors on a sunny windowsill if the weather is against you.
Squash can be trained up supports but you may need to use something sturdy like an existing pergola and even then, tie the stems of the fruit in to the support to help take the weight.
There are a lot of japanese varieties as well as original italians (Scicilian Snake is, as the name suggests, long and curvy) so try them all. Turks Turban looks like a pyschedelic bun loaf with multicoloured stripes and one smaller growth on top of the larger lower one. Green prince has grey skin and a nice orange flesh and roasts perfectly.
I restrict my fruits to just three, then as the two largest take shape, I remove the smallest for the pot.