BTW, I wouldn't worry about pollination with the first set of flowers. It's entirely normal for their to be a mismatch between male/female flowers early on. It resolves itself in almost all cases over time. It's one of those things that causes a lot of concern for awhile, but then it just works out.

Glenda, I don't think moderate light hurts. I think direct sunlight on the pumpkins would be the problem, but not indirect light. It does sound like your cellar might be too damp for pumpkins. Bring them in before temperatures dip below 50 degrees for best quality, and definitely before freezing temperatures arrive. Exposure to freezing temperatures causes fresh pumpkins to break down more quickly after they're picked and put into long-term storage. In fact, all exposure to temperatures below 50 degrees causes cumulative damage...so the more exposure in terms of number of hours the more damage. If you want to do something "different", I have 2 recipes for pumpkin pickles, but haven't made them myself so can't vouch for their flavor. Don't forget you can make pumpkin butter and other yummy goodies and freeze them....if freezer space becomes available. I consulted my "Putting Food By" book by Janet Greene, et al, and it says this about 'root cellaring' pumpkins: Harvest before frost, leaving several inches of stem. Condition at 80 degrees for a couple of weeks to harden the rind and heal surface injuries. Then store them in fairly dry air around 55 degrees. Watch the temperatures very carefully. If pumpkins in storage get much above 55 degrees, the flesh turns stringy. If exposed to temperatures much below 50 degrees, they suffer cold injuries. Place in rows on shelves (sometimes I put them on top of boards or cardboard or layers of newspaper on the floor) and not in a pile. Glenda, I usually wipe off my pumpkins before I put them into long-term storage with a soapy water solution which is about 10% bleach. This can kill any mold or fungal spores on the surface of the pumpkins and help retard spoilage in storage. Some people also coat the entire pumpkin rind in oil by rubbing vegetable oil all over it with a paper towel. This too is said to retard spoilage, but I've never tried it. HOW TO FREEZE PUMPKIN: I know your three freezers are full, but here's how to freeze it, should space become available. Cook the pumpkin to soften it. You can steam it, bake it, microwave it, cook it in a pressure cooker or boil it. Then, scrape the pumpkin meat from the rind and press it through a sieve. Pack into freezer boxes or zip-lock bags and leave 1/2" of headspace. Freeze. You can dehydrate them too, but I don't know if you have a dehydrator, so I won't describe the process. If you do have a dehydrator and want to know how to dry the pumpkins, let me know and I'll add it in another post. Hope this helps. Dawn

My package came today and I was so excited. Many of those were on my wish list to order from Baker Creek next spring. Squash is my favorite vegetable besides tomatoes. Thank you so much Wendy for all the work put into the swap and for everyone who sent in seeds because that is what makes the wonderful selections. Ellie

Hazel, I grow as much of our food as I can, and that means spending tons of time preserving the harvest (via canning, dehydrating, blanching/freezing and root cellar type storage) so we'll have home-grown produce year-round. I buy a mixture of organic/non-organic food from the grocery store. I'd love to buy only organic food but we have a budget to live within and it does not allow for only organic food. I do not know if non-organic foods are less healthy and will leave that debate to the food scientists. What I do know is that I'd rather eat food that was grown in the most natural way possible. For me, eating as much naturally-grown food as possible is a personal choice. I am a 16-year cancer survivor and as soon as I was diagnosed with cancer, I began eating only an organic vegan diet. The vegan part was really hard for me because I grew up in Texas and love meat, especially beef. My family wasn't crazy about a vegan diet, but put up with it (at least when they ate at home) for me. After about 6 months, I began adding meat and dairy back to our diet. We still eat healthier that we used to but not as healthy as we did during those six months. When the National Organic Standards Board was developing the standards to be used by certified organic growers, there was much debate and compromise. Some organic food advocates felt the standards were watered down and weren't completely happy with the standards as written and implemented. Some organic advocates were disappointed and felt the organic standards were too lax and were quite vocal about that. I watched the debate with interest. For me, though, I'd rather eat organically-grown food even if the standards under which it is grown are somewhat less than perfect. One reason I grow as much of our produce as I can is because that is the only way I know exactly what was or wasn't sprayed on it. If the choice is between a strawberry grown in our garden with no chemicals sprayed on it versus a conventionally-raised strawberry that may have been sprayed with various synthetic products from 1 to 3 times a week, guess which one I'd rather be eating? Just because a pesticide, herbicide or fungicide is organic in origin does not necessarily mean it is safer than a pesticide, herbicide or fungicide that is synthetic in origin. There are some organic products I've never used and never will use. I'm planting my 18th spring garden right now (my first was planted a year before we broke ground for the house), and I have used a synthetic pesticide once (last year, to save the garden from huge hordes of grasshoppers) and it almost killed me. I won't say I'll never use a synthetic pesticide again but I hope it will be another 18 years before I feel like that is the only option left to save my garden. I even use organic pesticides sparingly and, in fact, most years I don't use them at all. I use them very selectively and only for the worst of pests. Sometimes I'll spray neem oil, for example, on one specific plant that has a pest issue but won't spray the whole garden or even that whole row. I'd rather hand-pick and use other methods to remove the pests. I never spray Spinosad because it is a broad-spectrum pesticide that can harm some beneficial insects, but I'll use it in a granular product (Slug-Go Plus) that I sprinkle on the ground to kill pill bugs and sow bugs. I also use a granular organic fire any product that contains Spinosad. Other than neem and Spinosad, I sometimes use a product containing Bt 'kurstaki' on brassicas and that's about it. I mostly rely on our population of beneficial insects to help keep the pest levels low, and on hand-picking bugs or using floating row covers to exclude them from crops. I think that produce grown in the most natural way possible tastes better, and we all know that produce fresh from the garden is the best-tasting, healthiest food around. I like being able to harvest in the morning and then use some or all of that harvest in the meals we eat that day. And, on the list of what really matters, the use of synthetic pesticides bothers me the most. I have less of an issue with synthetic fungicides or fertilizers. I think every gardener has the right to grow their plants, whether ornamental or edible, in whatever manner they choose. I just choose to grow mine as naturally as I can. When I first transitioned from conventional gardening to organic gardening in the 1990s, I essentially kept gardening exactly as I always had with the only change being that I was substituting products that were organic in origin for those that were synthetic in origin. After moving here, I began to take steps to go beyond that and that was the beginning of my progression to go sort of beyond merely growing organicallyand focus more on gardening in the most natural and sustainable way. Whether you will be pleased with the winter squash/pumpkins you chose as fall decorations depends on whether you think all autumn pumpkin displays must include big orange pumpkins. I love all the C. moschatas for fall decorations because I like their various shades from buff-colored Seminole to the almost brownish-buff color of Musquee de Provence. For 7 or 8 years before the squash vine borers found us here, I always grew huge numbers of winter squash and pumpkins in all colors---including orange, yellow, white, buff, green and some that were speckled, splotched, striped or warted. It was fun while it lasted and they made great autumn displays, but the SVBs have made it impossible for me to have that wide variety of colors now, so I am content with the colors of the C. moschata group, which mostly are in a range of buff-colored shades. Having become used to what I have now in terms of sizes and colors, I am content with pumpkins that aren't traditional jack-o-lantern types. And, sometimes I want a big orange pumpkin in the fall and plop it down in the middle of the display with my home-grown ones. Dawn