quick garden question - pumpkins

[Kali]

I had some pumpkins come up where I left our Halloween pumpkin to rot. There are two nice pumpkins that have already turned orange! Are they ripe? I guess they aren't going to keep until this halloween? What do I do with them? How long can they stay on the vine like that?

[HopeHoops]

1. They'll probably be okay as long as the vine is green and has leaves.

You'll want to put some dry straw under them so they don't rot and watch for squash bugs, too. Once the leaves drop and the vine goes dry, you'll have to pick them or they will definitely rot. If you keep them cool, they'll keep for a while, but probably not until October. Most Halloween varieties aren't really eating pumpkins, so I would say go ahead and paint them or something now just for fun.

[Kali]

3. thanks

I see I replied to myself instead of you - see below:crazy:

[Kali]

2. straw - good idea

I was thinking of putting them on boards or something
yeah I knew they probably weren't going to be good for much, but they got ripe so fast! Or at least orange.

Had squash bugs bad two years ago, didn't even try anything last year, and was only going to try a couple lemon cukes in hanging planters on the porch where I could keep an eye on them, well the one "started" plant I bought was actually a yellow crookneck squash, there were these pumpkins form halloween and I am pretty sure another variety from spilled parrot food all coming up. I also tried lemon cuke seeds and had given up when three FINALLY sprouted after almost two months! So far no squash bugs.

[HopeHoops]

4. It is best to get the eggs.

If you haven't hunted them before, they are yellow to copper in color and are in clusters on the underside of the leaves. They like to begin depositing them in the joint of the leaf veins, so there is always one in the joint that is hard to scrape out. Snap a popsicle stick in half length-wise to make a point or use a bamboo skewer. Both work well at fishing out the eggs from the crook. All you have to do is brush them off to the ground. They can't survive if they can't eat immediately after hatching.