Pumpkins??

[aimeebee]

We've never grown pumpkins before and I guess we planted them a little early. I had to start harvesting them in August and early September. I have pulled the last of what I can from the garden and put them on my front porch on the first day of fall. Sadly, a few of them wasted away in the garden. I have about a dozen that look really good in all shapes and sizes. About how long will these last before they start to rot? I want to roast some seeds and hopefully make some pumpkin bread or muffins, too. But, my main reason for planting them was for October decorations and I'm not sure if they will make it that long.

[pedspeech]

I have no idea about cooking them or roasting the seeds- never tried. (Although, as far as bread and stuff you could make it and store in the freezer if you wanted it for holiday stuff.) As far as decorations, though, I think you will be fine. My daddy grew some last year and gave the boys a couple for Halloween. I disposed of the one we cut, but they drew on one with markers. They played with it until we moved in November, when I just moved it with us because they didn't want to throw it away yet. I moved it around in the garage (big sucker, really in my way) until I forgot about it sometime after Christmas. It looked fine the last time I rolled it over to the corner. I remembered it when it got so hot in my garage that it rotted, so I guess around April-May?

(Just from personal experience, I would not recommend keeping it in your garage until next summer.)

[cody82414]

Our pumpkins turned way early as well. I think due to the unseasonably cool summer we had.

From my experience, they have to be be picked BEFORE the first frost.
Otherwise they can stay on the vine - as long as you don't have a bug/beetle problem.
If you have a basement or cellar, that is the best place to keep them once they are harvested.

HTH!!

[aimeebee]

I think it was bugs (or maybe even small animals?) that made them start rotting on the vine. A neighbor had said that we could leave them on the vine and they would keep growing. But the vines started dying and a few of the pumpkins were getting soft or getting small holes in them. Pumpkins are out in grocery stores and WM now. I figure mine were probably not picked too much earlier than those and will probably be okay for the season. At least I hope so. I have been collecting links about roasting the seeds and making breads, pies, etc. since this is the first time we have done pumpkins. FWIW, the pumpkins we got were well worth the 20 cents I spent on the seeds, so we're happy with what we got. Thanks for your responses and advice.