Here's another one on that same shaded hill... Its a bit bigger than the first one I posted, and quite a different shape. Probably a couple more week until its ready for picking.

The plants on the sunny hill are doing quite better, and even still producing actually. Here is one that pollinated about a week ago. Its on a vine runner that overflowed into the yard, so I have to try and protect it from the dog.

The foliage on my squash plants is starting to recede due to cooling night time temperatures. It's exciting, as I can spot the fruit, which has been hidden all this time. I planted Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin under our semi dwarf fruit trees, in the front yard, instead of in the regular garden. Well, I think production is slightly down, which isn't a problem, as "down" is still quite high. I love it! But my wife says "never again!" We haven't been able to cut the grass and the vines over grew and buried our grape arbor. Out of three hills, I'd guess we have over 200 lb of pumpkin. Here are a couple of pictures:

Here's a cluster of four, though, in the picture, I can only spot three.

Finally, I crawled under all the foliage, under the grape arbor, and caught this picture of two pumpkins which are hanging from the arbor. The largest is probably about 25 lb and is nearly mature. Notice they have no external/man made support. The plant holds them just fine.

For our hot and variable climate, laden with insect pests, this is the squash for me. Once it starts to sprawl there is no stopping it. Eating quality is also quite good. I'll include a link to a thread discussing more about it's qualities and origins.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: OTCP Thread/ Green Country Seed Savers forum

Nice pumpkins, George. Its amazing the vine can hold up that heavy a pumpkin. I notice some of your leaves look pretty tattered, many of mine do too, and I'm pretty sure its from all the cucumber beetles. I have a pretty bad infestation of them. Do you have those too?

Well, we have cucumber beetles. But I have only seen a few dozen this year. Squash bugs are a bigger problem. But with Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin, for some reason, when the plants get past about 1 1/2 months of age, the squash bugs seem to ignore them. No, the leaves are looking like that because nights are cooling down and the days are shortening. We've had some real heavy rains and wind too. It's hard to see in the pictures, but any part of the plants which receive any amount of daytime shade are starting to come down with powdery mildew. This is pretty normal for our area and this time of year. October 23 is probably our average first frost date.

George

Picked 3 more pumpkins the past few days. I think two of these have suffered from some sort of mosaic virus, because some of the vines has shown the spotty leaves, and the pumpkins have been spotty green ones. Here's a pic of my daughter with one of those.

This post was edited by ccabal on Tue, Oct 28, 14 at 21:31

Here are the two other ones. One of these is the normal deep orange, and the other one is another one of these spotted ones, it's also real small. These are from the vines that were mostly in the shade so they never got very big.

Your C. moschata 'Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkins' grew only 11 to 20 lbs. each in 2009, but a little larger now.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/okgard/msg0916275614741.html
Was only better weather the reason for the that, or did you breed with the largest ones over years and use the method of recurrent selection?

No, I think it's just that we had more moisture this year. Since 2009 I've grown Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin every year. At least a couple of times I've had up to 30 lb. They are just very variable.

George

I thank you so much.
We canôt buy Old Timey seed here in Europe, and I do not order from American seed companies for the next season.
But your pictures are so great...
Since I have grown dozens of C. moschata varieties, I would like to grow this best heirloom too.
Would you like to swap with my Potiron Galeux dôEysines or the Palav Kadoo or any other squash or pumpkin, you see here in my threads?

Ludwig

Ludwig, I am overwhelmed, trying to grow the varieties I now own. However, I do want you to have this seed. Do you have Paypal over there? I would be willing to send you seed for the cost of my postage and packing materials.

Drop me a private message via my profile. I'm sure we can work something out.

George

Got a very early freeze this past week here in the DFW Metroplex. Down to upper 20s... So I was forced to pick all our pumpkins this past monday.
We got some pretty nice ones. Here are the kids (they planted the seeds, so I call it "their" pumpkins.To their credit, the did help water and pick off a few bugs from the plants.)

Does anyone know if you can eat immature C. Maxima as summer squash. I have a small yellow pumpkin about softball sized that I am wondering if I should try eating. Its in the fridge currently.

Here's the biggest one. It sat on the vine for weeks with this coloring, so I guess that was as ripe as it was gonna get.

I consider this one the best specimen we got... Its pretty much the perfect Cinderella shape.
This one got a late start, but matured very quickly. Its the one I showed on one of my first posts on this thread, when it was small and yellow, next to the plastic fencing.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Blog

This post was edited by ccabal on Sat, Nov 15, 14 at 20:53

Yes, you can eat immature c. maxima. Just try it. In my book, I haven't tried another species, beside c. pepo, which tastes that great as summer squash. But they are edible and some people like them just fine.

George

Accordinng to my "Little House on the Prarie" Cookbook, you can also use immature pumpkins ( and other immature winter squashes) as "apples" in an apple pie. Peel and slice them just as you would apple slices.

Just use a little bit more apple pie spice and brown sugar than your recipe calls for. If the recipe calls for a cup of something, then I do a heaping cup. If it calls for a tablespoon, then I do a heaping tablespoon or, if it's lliquid, I let some spill over the sides of the measuring spoon into the mixing bowl. Don't be afraid to play with the measurements.

Immature raw pumpkins/squashes can also be peeled and fried up with onions/green peppers and garlic. Toss some hamburger or steak or pork chops into the pan, too, if you like.

You can also toss chunks of the raw, peeled pumpkin/squash into a pot of chicken soup or stew. (I do that even with fully ripe pumpkins/squashes).