Pumpkin Harvest!? Help!!!

[Baby Chick]

So this is kinda a funny story. Ever since my parents gave me a little garden about 4 years ago I have tried growing pumpkins. Every year! But they never grew. So now, about 3 feet away from my garden (which I did not plant anything in this year) is a pumpkin plant. I found it in July & there are now 5 happy, healthy pumpkins growing! But now that its getting later in the Season I realized I have no clue when is the right time to harvest them? How do I do it? If I let them grow longer will they die on the vine? Please help! I haven't got a clue as of what to do!?

 

[Bunnylady]

We've only grown pumpkins a couple of times, both (like you) by accident. Pumpkins are one of those things that you want fully mature when you harvest, not at some immature stage (like cucumbers). You want the shell (skin) dry and hard, not soft. Often, you can let the pumpkin set on the vine until the vine dries out and dies - one of the memories of my childhood is walking through a field of ready-to-pick pumpkins, and seeing the shriveled vines lying on the ground between them.

 

[Baby Chick]

Ok sounds good! But what if there's a frost before the vine dies?

 

[Mattemma]

I have a pumpkin in my lawn.I always wait till the plant dies.Funny,the pumpkins I plant never grow well.

 

[Baby Chick]

Same here!

 

[DianaMallory]

Last year was a good season for pumpkins in Ohio! I drive by this pumpkin patch a lot and they had pumpkins growing through their fence. They picked and picked but they had so many pumpkins they never picked them all they stayed there until they tilled them into the ground this spring. Granted most of them were rotten and flat by spring. But you can leave them out until it deep freezes in your area.

 

[Luckyduck2]

Try piercing the skin of one of the pumpkins with your fingernail, if you can't make a dent in the skin of the pumpkin, then it should be ready.