More on pumpkins...

I had a comment from Wayne on my Pumpkin Pickin' Paradise post and I thought it would be easier to answer it here than in the comments section.

"Hello Robyn - Great article and pics. Very helpful. My "unplanned" vine started in a worm tower in December. Now, end of April, it has pumpkins of various sizes and still getting flowers and young fruit. Have not harvested any yet. How long should the vine keep producing pumpkins before it dies off? Regards Wayne"

As Wayne is a no reply blogger and I don't know his location I can only say that what happens here is that some pumpkins will be on the vine until the first frost, about May/June, when the vine dies off naturally. Some say it is best to leave them on the vine until then but we can have rodent problems so I prefer to harvest mine when I can. Also the hard skin pumpkins like Queensland Blue or Jarrahdale are better left until the vine dies down, so I've heard (keeping qualities/flavour apparently), but the soft skin varieties like JAP/Kent it doesn't seem to matter.

Wayne, experiment with yours - harvest one that has a dried pinched stem, put it in a dry semi sunny spot and watch for the stem rosette to wither and flatten, about 4 weeks or so, then cut it. As you cut it there should be a crisp cracking noise which also indicates that it's ripe. Some people tap the pumpkin on the bottom, like you do fresh cooked bread, to see if it's "done" before cutting, but I'm not good at predicting ripeness like this. Another way to check ripeness is to scratch a tiny spot of skin off the pumpkin and see it it "bleeds"or "oozes" and/or if it smells "green". If it does it's not ripe. If it just looks a bit wet in the scratched spot but doesn't ooze or if it stays dry it's ok to use. Document the results for future reference. Take photos if it helps.  Remember I'm only referring to JAP/Kent pumpkins and I'm not sure if this method works with other varieties of pumpkins.

A ripe JAP/Kent will keep for about 3 months in cool conditions then they begin to decompose inside. Not the type of pumpkin soup you want! Hard skin pumpkins left to dry on the vine will keep for 8-12 months without any effects so it's always good to be sure of which type you've unwittingly been gifted with by Mother Nature.

I neglected to put my pumpkin soup recipe on the recipes page when I made it, so that's done now, and I've just discovered I don't have any photos of my pumpkin soup. As you know I can't see the point of blogging if there's no pics to look at so I found a relevant photo in my photofile of a potholder I made for a swap a few years ago. I'm sure there's some of this fabric left too so there could be another potholder or so on the list.

Cheers,

Robyn xo