pumpkins

We start preparing for halloween pumpkins in febuary here on the farm, when we place our seed order.  In May, we let the pigsin the pumpkin field to work up the ground for us, then in early June Aba went out and did a pass with the rototiller just before we started planting the seeds.   AThis year becuase of all the rain we had to weed the field ( something one normally doesn’t due in a pumpkin field) and weed it several times.  In september is when we start checking them, and once the pumpkins reach 50% orange they are picked.  Why do we pick them half green?  it is a game of chance farming up in here in Central New york.  There is always a chance you could get a late spring frost that kills your crops, or a hailstorm.  A chance the cumuber beetles will eat all the plants.  A chance that too much rain will come and the pumpkins will get water logged and rot.   And then a chance of an early frost, that while it won’t destroy the pumpkins, it will cut their shelf life in half.  So after taking all  those chances we ere on the side of caution and pick them to store safly in the barn where they will continue to orange up.  And  picking pumpkins for halloween in September around here is very, very common.  We are still picking them out of the field today though, since the heavy killing frosts have held off this year, and more continue to grow.   We have picked over 200 pumpkins so far this year.

~ by Robin on October 10, 2009.