Squash and pumpkin seeds are normally good at room temperature for about 10 years. We live in a hot climate and often refrain from running AC, for economic reasons. Yet I have germinated squash seeds as old as 15 years. At that point I see a notable drop in germination percentage. But those clearance sale pumpkin seeds are practically as good as what will cost a lot more, come next spring. As gardengal13 mentioned, if you store them in an airtight container in the freezer you can pass them on to your grandkids to grow! Here's a true story. In 1984 I was given a ripe squash by a customer at the store where I worked, It was really really good, so I saved seed, passing some on to a friend in Tulsa, OK. I grew it in 1985. In 1985 I named it Warsaw Buff Pie Pumpkin and hand pollinated for pure seed, passing on some seed to a friend of mine. I also started, probably in 1986, to distribute it through the Seed Savers Exchange. In 2004 I was going through some old correspondence and came across my Tulsa friend's address. I wrote him, asking if he still had tomato seed, of a variety I had shared with him. He responded that he did, and that he also believed he had seed of Warsaw Buff Pie Pumpkin in his deep freeze. He found it and sent me some. It was from his 1985 grow out. I planted this seed in 2006 and had nearly 100% germination! Now, growing on a Northern exposure, that might be a problem. Squash and pumpkins require a minimum of 6 hours direct sunlight. You might try checking on that before next spring. The days are shortening now. But you could get a good idea of whether or not you receive enough sunlight in that location. George Tahlequah, OK

Yellow leaves on pumpkins, as on virtually all other plants, are merely a sign of stress. As gardeners, it is our job to figure out what sort of stress is making the pumpkin leaves turn yellow. So, you know, when I see yellow leaves on pumpkin plants, the first question I ask myself is whether I see signs of any disease in addition to the yellow leaves. (Look at the leaf portion of the attached TAMU Cucurbit Problem Solver to see what various pumpkin diseases look like.) If I do see disease symptoms, I treat the plant for the disease, if there is a viable, organic treatment that will make a difference. If I don't see any signs of disease, I think about how dry or wet it has been and whether or not the plants might have gotten extremely dry or extremely wet. If plants get too dry, the leaves indeed can turn yellow. Usually if that is the only reason you're getting yellow leaves, you can increase the irrigation and remove the yellow leaves and you'll get tons of new green leaves. I only have had pumpkins get too wet in a couple of really wet years---2004 and 2007. Normally, they are such big, rampant, thirsty growers that their root systems suck up all the water they can get, but in a very, very, very wet spring, I've had them do poorly in slow-draining clay. I've never been one to fertilize the pumpkin plants once they are up and growing, but I say that with the following caveat: I work extremely hard on soil-building in fall and winter so that the pumpkins are growing in well-enriched soil that is high fertility and should be able to give the plants all the nutrients they need. My philosophy is to feed the soil and let the soil feed the plants, but it does take years to get your soil in that kind of fertile state if you start out with very poor soil, as I did. In our earlier years, I did have to fertilize the pumpkins regularly to keep them growing happily but now I don't as long as I plant them in areas that were given copious amounts of compost prior to planting. You have to be careful with the fertilizer and feed them something that doesn't have too much nitrogen, or you'll have big monster plants running all over the place and filling every inch of space you have but they won't be producing too many pumpkins because all their energy is going into leaf and vine production. Sometimes, too, I think we all tend to forget that with almost all plants, it is normal for the oldest leaves to reach the end of their normal life and to yellow and fall off the plant. So, if the yellowing leaves are the older leaves, that might be all you're seeing. Hazel, There can be a big problem if you lose too many leaves and pumpkins do set, so keep that in mind. What happens, then, is that as the pumpkins enlarge, there's not enough foliage to keep the sunshine from hitting the pumpkins directly and then they get sunscald (sun burn) and begin rotting. If I see that too many leaves are yellowing after pumpkins have formed, I'll give the plants a quick shot of a water-soluable fertilizer to push more leaf development and then I water them well to help those leaves grow. So, after you have tried to evaulate why the leaves are turning yellow, keep an eye on the pumpkins that do form. If you start getting little pumpkins, and you feel like there isn't enough foliage to keep the intense sunlight off of them, you always can feed the plants them to increase foliar growth. Sometimes when leaves near a pumpkin fruit die and there aren't any nearby loose vines I can rearrange to cover the pumpkin, I set a plastic lawn chair over it and let the chair shade it. Sometimes the solution that works isn't the first one that comes to mind. I've also used a patio table umbrella to shade a larger area that had several pumpkins that were in danger of sunburning, at least until the plant could make new foliage that would help shade the developing pumpkins. Like George said, often the first flowers don't form pumpkins, but the plants will keep flowering and will form pumpkins. Just wait patiently and it will happen. I've never yet had a nice, healthy (or even semi-healthy) pumpkin plant not produce pumpkins. If, by chance, you are in a part of Oklahoma that has had a lot of rain and a lot of cloudy days the last couple of months, that might be holding back your pumpkin plants a little. Unlike many of the plants we grow here, they tend to love the heat and sunlight and can be a little sluggish in rainy, cloudy periods. Or, if you keep getting both male and female flowers and no pumpkins, you may not have pollinators visiting your garden. If that is the issue, tell us, and we can link George's great thread that tells how to hand-pollinate squash. Larry, If they are otherwise healthy and disease-free, I don't worry too much about pale leaves because the plants produce well anyhow but in your case, since you've had so much rain, I think they might need some more nitrogen. At this point, it wouldn't hurt to try it. We rarely get too much moisture here, but when we do, I see yellowing like that sometimes. I feel like, as you improve your soil in that new area, your plants will do better. My Seminole pumpkin plants in the 2-year-old back garden in relatively unimproved soil are nowhere near as large, healthy or productive as the Seminole pumpkin plants in the front garden, whose soil has been improved every year since 1999. I hope to eventually get the back garden soil as healthy as the soil in the front garden, but until then, the pumpkin plants never will be as happy back there---especially in a drought year like this one. I really don't fight spider mites (as if I could). It seems like a battle you cannot win without heavy duty chemicals that I won't use. They're like grasshoppers here---so widespead in all the acreage around here that even if you can knock back their population a little, more come in every time the wind blows. I think the spider mite population peaked about two weeks ago and is dropping. They never really go away, but I think I'm seeing them spread more slowly now than they were earlier. Bon, I totally understand your frustration. It is so very hard to raise cucurbits organically here, particularly with all the pest and disease pressure combined with months of relentless heat and, often, drought. Some years I give up and let the squash bugs win. There's nothing wrong with that. When fighting them is more trouble than it is worth, just stop fighting them. However, do remember this---if you abandon living squash plants and let the squash bugs and borers reproduce freely in and on the plants, they are sowing the "seeds", so to speak, for next year's infestation. So, when you're done with the squash pest battle, yank out the plants and dispose of them so that they don't lay around and serve as a squash breeding ground from now until the first freeze. I either burn them or bag them up and put them in the trash. I don't compost plants infested with squash pests or diseases. I have thought long and hard about all the squash pests this year and for several years, and what I really would like to do would be to build a hoophouse, but using netting of some sort instead of plastic as the cover. I could grow squash inside of it, but without the hassle of lifting row covers to pollinate, and then replacing them, etc. Or, what if I made a new squash garden area and only planted squash there, and then sprayed those plants with a chemical pesticide? Would the world end? (sigh) I don't like using pesticides, but I am starting to wonder if that's the only way to be able to grow squash here without having to fight the squash pests tooth and nail. Dawn

Thank you all for the suggestions. Grainlady, you're a great resource for this kind of thing, but he's a fussy eater with certain things- textures mostly...he doesn't like pumpkin pie filling so I think the pudding would be out. I get lots of veggies into him when I have him, but breakfast is the tough one. He will eat seaweed chips, so he gets one dried veggie snack, but I'm trying to limit the snack type foods in favor of fresh fruit and veggies. His parents fill him up on salty carbs, crackers, pirate's booty, veggie sticks (potato is the main ingredient, I think) grain bars, etc. I'm trying to prevent him from rejecting fresh in favor of processed, or salted stuff. So far he'll eat just about anything that isn't all mixed together. But no tomatoes, or tomato or veggie juice. I drink low sodium veggie juice and have tried to get him to have a sip, but no go. No red sauce on pasta either. I do get him to eat black bean chili, but started it when he was very young. Wish I'd have known to start other things earlier, too. He especially loves steamed romanesco cauliflower; it's a hit at school when I pack it in his lunch because I've told him it's broccoli from outer space. The other kids love that.

I do not like to automatically blame teens for things like this, but the girls may be your culprits since they were in the area and may have seen the pumpkin patch. But, without proof, you can't accuse them. If you see them again, you might mention that a pumpkin was stolen from your patch and ask if they saw anyone hanging out in the area. Might make them realize what they did was wrong - if it was them. One of my neighbors looked out her window one day to see a man and his young son cutting branches off of her fir trees. She went outside and asked them what they were doing. "cutting branches for a wreath" they said. She replied that the area was clearly mark no trespassing, that the trees were on private property and that they did not have permission to cut branches off of her trees. "We're not hurting anything, you have lots of trees" the man replied. When she further objected, he started swearing at her and calling her a b*tch. At that point, she ordered him off of her property and threatened to call law enforcement. The thing is, if he had been nice and polite about it and asked for permission first, she would have let him have all the branches he wanted. Honestly, the entitlement of some people - it boggles the mind.