there are SO MANY pumpkins/squash/gourds that go by the 'seminole pumpkin' name. i honestly doubt if anyone knows what the 'real' one looks like--you hear legends of them growing wild in the corners of the everglades (right...)... the current botanical thought is that they are of s. american (peru?) origin, which replaces the old assumption that like most c. moschata, they come from asia... i'm sure that in five years, someone will claim that they came from asia again. i've grown ones that produce fruit that looks just like calabazas-softball size. my local organic grower grows ones that look like sylvias. in any case, i think it's safe to say that seminole pumpkins are c. moschata with small, irregular fruit, orange flesh, abundant seeds, good fungal resistance and they keep forever... oh, and they're one of those plants that, once you have them, you'll ALWAYS have them. mine likes to spring up from buried roots, though 'they say' that the plant's annual...

Hi There! I live in Apopka and this is my first time growing Seminole pumpkins and I have no idea how to tell when they are ready to harvest. Although the vines have taken over my yard, initially very few pumpkins were surviving. They would rot and drop off at the size of a ping pong ball. Now more seem to be getting past that stage and growing. I already did pick two because I thought they seemed like they were big enough (around the size of a cantaloupe or honey dew melon). Now reading these forums, I'm thinking I picked them too soon because they were still green. the flesh on one was orange and the other was more yellow. I roasted them both and used the flesh to bake some bread. It was tasty. I though seminole pumpkins could be anything from green to orange. Mine look like this now. (Ok I can't figure out how to insert a picture) The largest are again at the size of a honeydew melon - but still green. Should I wait until they start to turn color before harvesting? Thanks for your help - Mimi

I didn't know that about the radishes but I have lots of volunteer podding radishes out in the garden beds that I have not pulled out. Squash bugs killed my early summer plants, in desperation I scattered Seven powder on the squash plants, nothing else seemed to work, and they didn't move to my cukes, haven't seen any since. So on Sunny's advice I've started more of the ones that mature in 60 days. We shouldn't get first frost till mid-October at the earliest so maybe it'll work out. I have pink banana squash planted and I really wanted to see them grow and mature, never grew them before. We'll see how it goes.

Carol, Are the vines still intact enough that you can yank them down and pull them down from the tree? That's how I get mine harvested once they're up in the trees. If not, a ladder and a good pruning pole can come in handy. Hazel, I like the Dixondale onion fertilizer a lot and don't believe anything in it would adversely affect the Seminoles. Were y'all really dry? If so, they might have needed more water. As for the squash bugs and squash vine borers, the squash bugs will get on the plants, but I scout religiously twice daily for squash bugs so usually find and remove them before they can spread diseases to the plants. My favorite method involveds removing them with a lint roller or a portable vacuum cleaner. Seminole pumpkins, like all C. moschatas, are tolerant of damage from squash vine borers but not 100% resistant to it. For legal reasons, the word tolerant most often is used officially instead of resistant as there is very little in the plant world that is 100% resistant to anything, but either way, the SVBs normally don't bother the vines because all C. moschatas have solid vines, making it hard for the SVB grubs to tunnel through them. I'm not saying it won't happen. It can happen. It just isn't common. If the SVBs were tunneling directly into the fruit, I could understand that as there is nothing about the fruit (particularly before the rind matures and hardens) that would repel them. That's why when you have C. pepo, C. maxima and C. moschata all growing side-by-side, the SVBs will hit the C. pepo and C. maxima plants first since it is easy to tunnel through their hollow vines. George, Some years are just like that. I had some trouble with Seminole one year. I planted it late, then rain didn't fall, then squash bugs hit it and it didn't do much of anything until autumn and then it finally produced, though it didn't produce heavily like it normally does. It was in the back garden near the fenceline and it also may have had some bermuda grass infiltration. I think it was a year with a lot of summer/autumn fires so I wasn't around much to worry about it. Maybe it was 2012. I know it wasn't 2011 because my Seminole plants hung on and survived the drought and produced very heavily very late in the fall. I also remember that the following year I stubbornly put Seminoles in the same exact spot (to prove to myself that it wasn't the fault of the soil) and they grew fine and produced heavily. I believe I planted them earlier than I had the year before and I did a better job of watering them because we were in our third year of drought by then and I knew I couldn't just sit around waiting for rain because it clearly wasn't going to to fall. I irrigated early and often to get them off to a good start. I'd glad y'all have been enjoying the Seminoles that Carol and Al brought you. It just wouldn't seem like fall and winter without some winter squash. Amy, I feel like I am running behind in the garden 99% of the time. Maybe I feel ahead on the very first day of the new year that I plant anything, but after that, I am forever running late and feeling like I'll never catch up and be on-time. I partly blame it on the weather. Either we stay warm and I start thinking that had I know winter or early spring would stay so warm, I would have planted 2 or 3 weeks earlier, or the cold delays planting and then I feel totally behind for sure. I try not to worry about it. If Tim ever comes home from work during planting season and doesn't have to listen to me complain about how far behind I am, he'll think he came home to the wrong house or something. I feel sorry for my winter squash plants every year. Despite my intentions to save a great planting space for them, I fail. I fill their saved space with other stuff and then they get squeezed into whatever open space I could find. It is their fault, not mine. They're the persnickety plants that cannot tolerate cold weather or cold soil and they should know that while we're waiting for it to get warm enough for them, I'm losing my mind and planting tomatoes or peppers or beans in "their" reserved space. Some of the best squash plants I've ever had did come up right in the compost pile. Dawn