Pumpkin Pickin

[johnk]

Here are a few pics of my Grandson and Grandaughter on their first pumpkin patch outing.... What more can I say????? Pics are worth a million words....

[Thomas]

Morning John.
Those are some mightly fine looking pumpkins...should be most interesting when your grandson helps cleaning out and craving the pumpkin also. ...those pics will be cherish even more so when years come!!

[MossRoad]

You could put them in those pumkins! Cute children.

[Cottonhawk]

Your grandchildren are beautiful kids. They sure are having fun with the pumpkins. Do you spoil them like we spoil our grand kids?

[johnk]

I like to spoil them as long as I can pull them away from my wife !

[KubotaSteve]

I couldn't take my 3 year old boy to a place like that or else I'd be broke.
Quick story on pumpkins. Last year my son and and daughter did pumpkin painting at the church (lot less messy than actual carving). Well you can only keep the pumpkins for so long, so when they started getting soft, I took them back to a pit I dug at the back of the property and smashed then down in the hole (of course the boy had to help). Now keep in mind that there is no top soil in this pit but just clay. I also discard grass clippings, and other stuff that will rot up good. Anyway I'm taking the boy a ride on the tractor and as we go by the pit, he asks when we are going to get the pumpkins. I told him that we smashed those and they rotted up, when he insisted about stopping and getting the pumpkins because he saw them. We stopped and went down there and sure enough I got a pumpkin patch in my pit. I told him they weren't quite ready. How do you know when a pumpkin is ready for picking? If I would have tried to grow them, they wouldn't have did anything but I throw them in clay and they grow. Go Figure.

[johnk]

Every time I tried to grow anything it was all gone as it got ripe. I had a 2 acre garden with pumpkins, beans and sweet corn and all the animals got to it before me. Maybe that little pit is a blessing in disguise...

[dubba]

How do you know when a pumpkin is ready for picking?

In my limited experience, pumpkins are ripe when they are orange They also need approx 10 days to "harden up" (stored out of direct sun). In the "hardening up" period they will turn darker (maybe deeper is a better word). If your pumpkin is still greenish orange, but needs to be picked because the critters have found the patch, then it will need approx 2 weeks to turn orange. If the critters are leaving the patch alone, then leave the pumpkins on until needed or first frost is coming. BOL