Pumpkin Growing

Hi,

I currently have a pumpkin plant with a couple of fruits on it. One of them is quite large and green. Firstly, when do these fruits start to turn orange?

Secondly, the large fruit has got a small (thumb nail width) gash in the skin which is not very deep, probably a few millimetres. I think this is from growing near some stones. Will this affect the fruit, ie will it rot or will the fruit repair itself in some way. It it is a problem is there any way to prevent further issues?

Thanks

 

These days there are pumpkins of all sorts of colours. Do you know what variety it is? When the skin starts losing it's 'glossyness' it's a sign that it's most probably ripening, but (if you're in the UK) there's not much time left for them to finish off - I'm thinking 2 weeks max.

Should it be one one of the pumpkin varities sold as a 'Halloween' or 'Jack O Lantern' Pumpkin (like the ones sold in the shops) these start off green and turn orange as they ripen. They have a sort of mottled or perhaps even 'mosaically' coloured would be a better description of the green colour to them. They should continue changing from green to orange even after picking.

Adding tomato feed (rather than high nitrogen feed) to their water should help ripen them.

The longer you can leave it on the plant, the more chance it'll heal - but there's not much of the growing season left. Damage after cutting invariably leads to rot. Some people paint minor damage with a fungicide, but I've never tried it - even scrapes taken out by toothy rabbits have healed if not too deep and left long enough.

 

Normally it is ripe when the skin is covered in a network of fine cracks. The 'scar' shouldn't do the pumpkin any harm, but keep an eye on it in storage.

Cheers, Tony.

 

Thanks for the replies. So far the two large fruits appear to be doing fine and are pretty big. However, there appears to be little colour change from the initial mottled green. I have cut the leaves back around the fruits to allow the sun to get at them. However, the end of the season is rapidly approaching. Is it best to pick them now and let them ripen in a conservatory or leave them on the plant still?

 

Leave them on the plant for as long as possible for the fruits/skins to ripen/harden whilst there's still healthy leaves on the plants. They will however continue to turn the proper orangey colour after picking. Leave a good length of stem on the pumpkin when you carefully cut it as I've seen too many people cut it too close to the pumpkin, and if the stem starts to rot the pumpkin is spoilt before Halloween.