Beautiful!! Really nicely grown.

Mine aren't nearly as nice. I had one whopper size but bugs ate a hole in the bottom so it rotted. The vine pooped out long ago. Mine are the Cinderella style.

Thank you!

Socks, those are really pretty. Half of my first planting didn't sprout--they were all one variety (Big Max), which must not have been stored properly. I had to buy more seed and replant. They are just starting to develop, so I don't know if they will make it before frost. They have very tender skin, and the bugs, which are out in force, are ravaging them.

I have a few Jarrahdales coming on, and some that are pear-shaped, which I have never grown before. The little orange ones are Baby Pams.

I save cardboard boxes and slide under the pumpkins, to try to thwart the bugs and prevent rot.

Your pumpkin patch is very beautiful! I mean that because I'm in the suburbs, and open spaces aren't seen except in parks and schools, so your property looks lovely to me. Pumpkins certainly do take up space don't they? My patch is about the size of a parking space, so I train vines around a hedge, up onto the driveway, down an alley, chopping off anything uncooperative. So I actually only got 5 pumpkins. Not sure why they have so much green on them. It's surprising how many start and then drop off. I wonder if that happens to you. Yes, I've put Styrofoam meat trays under the pumpkins before but got lazy this year. The big one, which I couldn't even lift, is nearly completely decomposed now. Sitting in the "parking space," those seeds will sprout next year by the hundreds.

We don't have to worry about frost here in So. CA. If we get any, it's a couple nights in January.

What fun you've had with them this year, and the carved decorations are charming. If frost is coming and you pick early, would they continue to get color?

If they are mature but not yet orange they will eventually turn color--at least the jack-o-lantern varieties that I've grown do. The rind has to be at a certain hardness, and then I put them out in the sun to harden off. The ones in the pics are sitting on a picnic table in the backyard. I've had pumpkins in the house that didn't become mushy until the following Easter, and some small white varieties will dry like gourds. The Big Max replants that are just starting probably won't make it unless I cover them.

I do have some that rot and drop off--I think they aren't very successfully pollinated, although we have a lot of small bumblebees that seem to be constantly in the flowers. If I'm out early I'll hand pollinate the female flowers, and I always have to shake the bees out of both. This time of year when the vines are drying up, the small starts seem to fall off more often--maybe because the vines are stressed. And the squash vine borers take their toll.

You should try the small white one pumpkins--they would easily be trained on a hedge or over other supports. I grow enough decorative pumpkins for my extended family, and scratch the grandkid's and neighbor's grandkid's names on some of them. To get a good outline, the designs have be drawn when the pumpkins are young, with tender skin. Wait too late (like the cat, above), and the scratches dry up, but don't scar over.