The skin of this squash should get hard, so that one cannot dent it with the fingernail. (Try this test on a ripe squash in the supermarket.) Once it's this hard you can pick the squash. However, I suspect that the quality of the flesh will improve if you don't eat it for yet another month.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Thanks! I'll try to hold off. Unfortunately the vine seems to be very unhappy about something right now - I think maybe the incredible amount of rain we had last week may have been more than it could handle. It was thriving up until then but on Saturday all the leaves were drooping pathetically. Can't have been too little water, the soil had been soaking all week - we had that awful storm that stopped the NYC subway system dead with 3 inches of rain in an hour plus a tornado on Tuesday, and then it poured all day on Friday - most of the garden came through OK but the kabocha looks miserable.

btw if anyone's interested in seeing a gardener's view of that storm, there's a guy that has a nice blog about gardening in Brooklyn - unlike me, he actually knows what he's doing! :D

Here is a link that might be useful: Flatbush Gardener