Congrats on beating the Big C. I too am a cancer survivor, but mine was one that is rarely ever completely gone, so I just stubbornly stay one jump ahead of the obits by planning new notions for my GH. If I'm planning on someting new, I HAVE to be alive to pull it off. LOL! Okay: Height. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Z-7, wouldn't summer heat be more an issue than winter cold? If so, the the higher the roof, the easier it will be to keep your GH cool in summer. If you get your side purlins up to at least 8 ft., you could stretch a piece of plastic across the entire interior of your GH in winter, to create an insulating air pocket between it and the roof, and concurrently, prevent a lot of of the warm air from rising above that "dropped ceiling." Just a thought, but when building your own from scratch, you can add a lot the GH mfg. never seem to think about.

Thanks for the suggestion Corrie. I have actually looked at that product at the store before. It might be a good idea to use it on my roses as well... thrip problems. My only fear is that it will kill the honey bees, though I can't recall ever seeing any on my roses.

Ok, let's try this again. Below is a picture of a vine. As far as noticing anything unusual before the pumpkins do this, there are only two things that I can think of that stand out to me. First, I did notice that the leaves up at the start of the vine, in other words, the first couple of leaves that sprouted from the ground started to brown, withered and died away. But it was just those first few leaves. The rest of the leaves look lush and green with no signs of any type of problems. Besides, I always thought as the vine grows longer, those first few leaves eventually start to brown away anyways, so I didn't think it was anything unusual. But maybe it was? The other thing that I noticed was just as the pumpkin was starting to slightly start to turn color, there was one spot that wasn't turning color, but instead was just a ghost white color. I knew that was a bad sign. When I first noticed that this certain spot was not turning color, I pressed on it slightly just to see if it was soft in any way. It had just a slight give to it, whereas the rest of the pumpkin was hard as a rock. It's like this certain spot didn't fully develop or something, unlike the rest of the pumpkin. It didn't develop that hardness to it. Those are the only 2 things I can think of that may have signaled trouble. And by the way, Trev, you are correct, that blackness was just a secondary thing. That wasn't originally there. The only thing there was the white spot. And when that white spot first developed, that spot was like indented. In other words, think of somebody peeling away the skin of an onion. If you just skin the peel away in one certain spot, eventually that spot won't be even with the rest of the onion. If you ran your hand over that onion, once your hand hit that spot where you peeled away the skin, it would be slightly indented. This is how the pumpkin was.

rosiequilts, I lost 50 pounds last year by calorie counting, which is just another way of saying "eating-loads-of-fruits-&-veggies-so-you-can-eat-the-most-food-with-the-fewest-calories". I learned to love vegetables! A pile of eggplant, onions, mushrooms & peppers with a little spaghetti sauce on just 2 oz. of pasta & 1/4 cup grated mozzarella is delicious & filling. Spaghetti squash can be substituted for the pasta (just put the spaghetti squash whole in a crock pot & it's done in 4-6 hours). For salads, I love to mix spinach, lettuce, diced raw green beans, carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes and use 1/3 cup dried cranberries for dressing, or sometimes green olives and a little of the olive juice in the jar. If fresh produce isn't on hand, then combining frozen veggies & cooking in the microwave is tasty: kale, lima beans & cauliflower, for example. Veggies in combination taste much better than just plain. In winter I enjoy turnip greens & squashes. Cabbage is a versatile veggie, good for filler in soups & stews, sauteed, microwaved, or sliced for low-fat cole slaw made with Splenda. For munchies, I love to microwave a tub of Brussels sprouts or cauliflower & keep it in the fridge for mindless snacking (you know, when you get those urges to eat but you're not really hungry). A little butter or oil won't hurt you and, in fact, makes the vegetables more nutritious. Your body absorbs the nutrients better when a little fat is present with the veggies. Sometimes I like to make a green sauce of chopped fresh spinach & French parsley in a little cream & parmesan cheese, heated in a sauce pot. I serve this over a big plate of broccoli & cauliflower, and it's delicious. There are so few calories in the veggies that you can afford to indulge in the cream sauce. But then, that's dinner -- no bread, no side dishes, no heavy meats. Anyway, didn't mean to hijack this thread. Just wanted to pass on some good veggie food ideas. When you walk through the cookie/cracker aisle with indifference, but your mouth starts watering when you get to the produce section, you know you've made a good change!