Should my pumpkins be dying off already?

[Peggy Sue]

I'm growing 'New England Pie' variety. Last year I gre Hundredweight but I don't remember the foliage being dead in August.

The pumkins in this variety seem to grow green and are just turning orangy now slowly, just wondering if there is a problem whether I should harvest the squash and leave them in a sunny patch in the garden (ha ha it's raining outside) or greenhouse to ripen? Or are they OK where they are?

[prison break fan]

I noticed yesterday that the leaves on all my pumpkins - several varieties -are all dying off. I am hoping this means the sun will get to the fruits and ripen them off! pbf.

[Millymollymandy]

Do they look sick? There are loads of diseases which hit the curcurbit family and one of mine (the one in the flower bed) died so the tiny little fruit is on my living room windowsill in the sun. One of the biggest problems (I find) is downy mildew (I think it's that one!!!) which hits cucumbers etc too. The pumpkin seemed to have browning crispy leaves at the same time. Any damp weather seems to affect a lot of veggie plants yet if it is too dry you have to spend all your time watering and get scabby spuds - you just can't win.

[Peggy Sue]

Yes MMM the leaves went yellow then crispy brown, it seemsed to spread across the patch but I guess the pumpkins should be big enough to survive as they are partly ripe now.

I was always under the impression the squash family don't get many diseases, obviously I was told wrong! Could I ahve caused this by planting them too close together? (Which I can't seem to help doing- just squeeze a few more plants in...)

[Millymollymandy]

I spent some time googling what might be wrong with my melons and there's a number of diseases that hit that family - normally my cucs only fruit for a few weeks before sucumbing to one or the other of them but this year I bought a disease resistant variety and it's just incredible how they are doing.... anyway squash, melons and cucs all seem to get the same sort of things wrong with them. I don't know whether planting them too closely together would be a problem because even planting them far apart they will just grow to fill the available space - think it's mostly related to weather and rain/humidity etc, the usual!

I'd leave the fruit on for a little bit longer unless the plants look really past it in which case remove them and put them in the greenhouse to ripen in a nice light sunny place.

Edited to say that I've just been googling again and it IS possible to have both downy mildew and powdery mildew at the same time, cos what I get most often doesn't seem to resemble the google image pictures but looks like both of them together! Oh and throw in a bit of anthracnose as well!

[Peggy Sue]

Well a few plants are completely dead and shrivelled brown crispy bits so I've removed those pumpkins-which as it happens are almost ripe by the look of them.

The rest are still on for the time being while there is an once of green left in the plants.

[Odsox]

How about this for mollycoddling ?
I picked my potimarrons yesterday and they are now reclining on the sofa in the conservatory

potimarrons.jpg (92.46 KiB) Viewed 4340 times

[Millymollymandy]

Love it! They do look good! I've got one really good size one from the plants in the field behind my compost bins, it's propped up on an upturned plant pot with straw on the top as it was hanging. Then I found another one behind a solid plastic compost bin and the fence wire - will have to pick that one soon as it doesn't really have much room to expand and anyway it needs some sun on it. I think it's quite funny this NOT growing pumpkins lark!

[Peggy Sue]

All this love and care for pumpkins and I can't kill my marrow fro trying- I just can't eat any more marrow and one day they are undersized courgettes and the next.... well yesterday my OH found one that had almost pushed the fence over about 2' long, last week I discovered three growing on top of eachother like some balancing act.

I guess marrows are rif raf and pumpkins are artistocracy... with potimarrons clearly being royality with their own conservatory

[Millymollymandy]

I have found a new use for my round courgettes (blink and they've turned into mini footballs!). My husband has bought an air rifle to despatch sick chooks and half dead poisoned rats and I've given him the courgettes to use for target practice.

[Peggy Sue]

I have found a new use for my round courgettes (blink and they've turned into mini footballs!). My husband has bought an air rifle to despatch sick chooks and half dead poisoned rats and I've given him the courgettes to use for target practice.

ooo that marrow taking up half my fridge would make an excellent exploding target

[Millymollymandy]

But that, like a watemelon, are for 44 Magnums (not the ice cream , you know, the Dirty Harry type gun). I don't think a little pellet would have quite the same sort of spectacular effect.

[Millymollymandy]

Photos of my self seeded potimarrons on this thread here:

http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... 87#p165887

[tiggy]

A thing that looks like Odsox pottywatsits grew on what I expected to be a Big Max pumpkin from a lidl packet of seeds.How am I supposed to cook and eat these things.The pumpkins are just for Halloween but I expect to eat the flesh somehow.They are one of my experiments in the never grown it before category,actually so is most veg.Im new to food growing,only 2nd year.

[Peggy Sue]

I love pumpkin roasted, its a bit like sweet potato, or you can mash it. Some people make pumpkin pie and I hear some use it to extend marmalade recipes.
It makes good soup too.