Pumpkin mildew

Hello! I'm new to this site - I posted my first question last week and had so many great responses I'm back again!

I run a school gardening project. I took it on having had very little experience of growing fruit and veg (but lots with growing ornamental plants) and the and I children have been learning together. It has been great and the garden looked pretty good, but some things are coming to an end now (not the courgettes, though - we've had enough to feed an army and the plant is still going strong!).

We have 2 pumpkin plants which have gone bonkers. They've taken over the whole vegetable plot and so far have produced 6 enormous pumpkins which look almost ready to harvest but there are a few new, smaller ones still growing. However, the leaves of the plants are all yellow and mildewy. Should I worry about this or is this usual for the time of year? As the school's been shut over the holiday, I've been going in 2 or 3 times a week to water the garden but I'm wondering if I should have done it more (the vegetable plot is a shallow raised bed).

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Hadron

 

Perhaps slightly early in the season for mildew, but it does happen on curcubits at the end of the season.
You could try spraying with diluted milk, some thing I picked up from someone on the forum a few years ago.
Failing that a systemic fungicide, but be careful a pick one which is OK to use on pumpkinns.