Oh! That reminds me that I need to carve some names into the pumpkins that are growing now. I didn't do it at first not due to lack of remembering or equipment (I always carry a knife with me), but because I didn't want to risk not getting any pumpkins at all. I wanted at least one for each kid and one or two for cooking and I've got that, so now I can "experiment" with putting names on a few for the kids to enjoy.

(by the way, not that it's important or anything, but I'm a a "she")

Congrats on your pumpkins! I should go weigh mine... Okay, I'm back. They're about 5-6 pounds. Not nearly as nice as yours, but big enough for me.

I have no idea about the brown spots. I haven't had any on mine that I've noticed.

Gamebird - I think size might have to do with the genetic link of the seeds. I bought my seeds for my first crop last year at the box store. They were much more prolific but..... I had prolly 12 to 15 melons to work with for the whole growing season. DH bought some seeds at K&K around the corner for "huge pumpins" which I planted this spring and they have lived up to their name! Much larger than last years crop but not as much foliage. Looks like I'll have as many as last year too only much more meat! Think I'll save some seeds for next year!

Hope someone answers about these brown spots. I'm just concerned about nemitodes...or something worse. I'll be happy if it's just Mother Nature helping me get ahead on the baking process!

And knowing that you're a "she", women are almost always more descriptive! Short cuts it for us! LOL!

Paula

Not too late to try the carving! I'm going to get the kids out there this week as we still have 5 more in the small, green stage!

It certainly sounds like sunburn. I never heard of such a thing until coming to Oklahoma. But our watermelons will often do this unless I cover them with some old feed sacks. They're not really "baked," just burned.

George

I agree that it is sunburn, which in the plant world is given the fancy name of sunscald.

You can get sunscald on any 'fruit' that gets too much sunlight. I've seen sunscald on tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, melons of all kind although watermelon seems to resist it best, pumpkins, and young (but not old) gourds. I don't think I've ever seen sunscald on beans, peas, cucumbers or okra.

Often, when a fruit or veggie gets sunscald something has happened to its foliage and it suddenly is exposed to more sun than it has been receiving. That 'something' could be something as simple as the fruit outgrowing the foliage that had been shading it or the wind (or humans) moving the foliage around and exposing the fruit to the sun. Sunscald can happen because disease or hail or high wind defoliates the plant.

Right now I have sunscald on some sweet peppers because last week's wind storm (45 mph winds) broke off some branches which left previously shaded fruit exposed. I'm going to harvest them today and cut off the brown spots and use them before rot sets in. If you leave sunscalded fruit in the garden, eventually the burnt area will get rot in it.

As for carving the kids' names into the pumpkins, you do it while the pumpkins are young and small and green and you carve their name lightly into the green rind. It will scar over and that scar will enlarge as the pumpkin grows so that each kid has their name on a pumpkin. I don't think it will work if you do it after they've sized up, gotten large and and started to ripen. At that point, the pumpkins are so large and so close to being ripe that rot might set in if you carve the names into them now.

If sunscald is an ongoing problem and you can't rearrange the foliage to cover the fruit, you can shade them using cardboard, sheets, etc. I've sat white plastic lawn chairs over large pumpkins to shade them when they've starting getting to much sun exposure before. Of course, I had to explain to the neighbors why I had white lawn chairs placed randomly in the pumpkin patch!

Dawn

I'm thinking sunscald, too. I got it on my cabbages this year. It can happen, also, if you water during the heat of the day.

Gamebird, it certainly IS important that you're a she!

oh drats! Guess that means I need to clean and cook/freeze these before they rot? Dang it, I just got my kitchen counter back along with the top of the washer & dryer! Looks like I've got 2 that I'll have to do something with pretty soon. DH thought he was helping them to ripen evenly when he turned them....(now he confesses!)

Dawn, I had to laugh at the mental picture of my white chairs out in the garden! Our spot's between the house and the main road so I'm sure our neighbors would be wondering!

Paula,

Our spot is between the house and the main road too. My poor neighbors, bless their hearts, just don't even ask me questions any more. They just assume it is normal for me to randomly place odd objects all over the garden.

I had to laugh about your husband's confession. It even made my hubby, the non-gardener, laugh out loud. He, of course, has been well-trained to not touch anything in the garden without discussing it with me first. (I reciprocate by not moving anything in his part of the garage where he has tools and things in total disarray--except he always knows where his stuff is even though no one else can find a thing.)

At least the chairs were all white and they all matched. Now, if a late freeze is about to hit in the spring and I have dozens of tomato plants in the ground....that's when you'll see me out in the garden with a hodge-podge of 5-gallon buckets, kitty litter buckets, cardboard boxes, flower pots of all sizes, sheets, blankets, quilts, etc. I am sure on days like that, people probably drive by and just shake their heads.

Dawn

About DH turning the pumpkins to help them ripen evenly... A friend of ours has been telling me for the last three weeks that I need to turn my melons so they'll be symmetrical and ripen evenly. I turned a few of them and decided it was a bad idea because I was invariably twisting the stem a bit and I thought that couldn't be good. So I just left off and smiled and nodded when he tells me of the need to turn melons.

But is there any truth to it? My first melons have turned out nicely symmetrical all on their own. I have quite a few now coming on that aren't symmetrical, which I'd thought was likely due to lack of moisture rather than a need for rotation. I was just curious upon hearing that someone else was turning their melons.

I've never heard of turning melons. Sounds like your neighbor has too much time on his hands!

Game bird, I agree with George. I've never heard of it, and we lived fairly near a commercial truck gardener's acres of melons when I was a kid and they never turned their melons either.

I do think I know where that "superstition" might come from though. When melons suffer severe moisture stress, the melons themselves can become somewhat misshapen. And, the moisture stress can take many forms. It can occur merely because the melons are growing on heavy, unimproved clay soil that restricts the roots from growing as well as they need to and from absorbing as much water as they need to. (So, in clay soil your melons can have moisture stress even if the soil is moist.) It also can happen if people don't space their melons far enough apart and too many plants are competing for the same soil moisture.

So, I suspect people who noticed their melons were misshapen may have turned them, and then they either watered them or rain fell and the melons resumed normal growth and the 'turning' got the credit, when it really was the moisture.

I can't tell you exactly how low moisture has to go to give you misshapen melons, but I've only had it happen one year here....and that was in, I believe, 2003 when we had less than 19" of rain. It was only the larger melons that showed moisture stress problems by producing misshapen melons too. The smaller Black Tail Mountain and Sugar Baby ones were fine, though smaller than usual.

Dawn