Larry,

I almost never have pumpkins or winter squash split---only in the very wettest part of the very wettest years....like in 2007 or 2004. When it happens, it likely is because of excess rainfall, but we've had plenty of times when a particularly heavy rainfall in the midst of an otherwise dry year did not result in any cracking.

On the rare occasions when I've had pumpkins or winter squash crack, it hasn't happened with Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin, Long Island Cheese, Sugar Pie or Seminole. It has happened with green-striped cushaw or with some of the orange pumpkins that are grown as ornamental types for autumn decorations. I think that it is possible that the really hard shell on the C. moschata types may help prevent them from cracking.

George grows a lot more Old Timey Cornfield pumpkins than I do (though I do have one OTCP plant in the cornfield this year) and he grows them in an area that generally gets more rain than my part of the state, so he likely can tell you more about whether they crack in eastern OK. They don't in my part of southern OK, but then we rarely get big rainfall here during pumpkin growing season.

I generally don't harvest winter squash/pumpkins until they are fully ripe,unless I am harvesting the last ones from the plant on the day before a hard freeze is expected to occur overnight. I am not sure what quality the flesh would be if you harvest them early. I usually wait until the pumpkin rind is very hard (so hard you cannot make a dent in it by pressing hard with your fingernail) before harvesting, or another sign they are ready is that the stem is very hard, dry and starting to crack.

Have you had a huge amount of rainfall all of a sudden?

Dawn

Thanks Dawn, that was what I was thinking. I have babied these things hoping to get a good harvest, so far so good, but because of it being the first time for me to grow something like this I was a little unsure.

Larry

I totally agree with Dawn. By the way Larry, that's a GREAT looking harvest!

George