When To Harvest Pumpkin And How To Store

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Questions often arise: "When to collect pumpkins?" and "What needs to be done to keep the fruits well?" Read on for details on accelerating ripening and picking on time. About how to properly cut the stalk and what to do to keep the harvest until spring

Novice gardeners often make mistakes in picking dates. It is known that unripe fruits are scarce in useful properties and cannot be stored. There are also rules to follow after cutting. They will help harden the skin and increase the keeping quality.

How to know if a pumpkin is ripe

An external examination helps to determine the readiness of your beauty. Ripe pumpkin has a rich, uniform color, the skin becomes dense and firm. If you draw a dash with your fingernail, then juice will appear in the unripe specimen in a scratch. On many large-fruited varieties, a crusty, patterned surface is formed. The signs of a ripe pumpkin are defined in different ways.

1. Peel should be firm and will not dent when pressed. A ripe vegetable acquires a juicy color. In most varieties, it is light brown, orange-beige, deep orange or yellow.

2. Peduncle the mature pumpkin is tough. When ripe, it becomes lighter and “stiffened”. A high-quality ripe fruit has a tail so hard that it can only be dealt with with a pruner.

3. Drawing in ripe pumpkin it is pronounced. The exception is green-fruited varieties, such as Augustine. In some species, a white coating appears (Benincasa).

4. Sound. When tapping, you should hear a distinct ringing sound, like a watermelon. Deaf - the vegetable is not ripe.

Experienced gardeners are not in a hurry with the collection, they leave the fruits for ripening on the whip. Cutting for storage is done only before freezing and adhere to a certain technique.

Pumpkin harvest time

Hard species are collected first. In the Moscow region and the middle lane, this is the last week of August and the beginning of September. Large-fruited in mid-September. Muscat varieties mature longer, and the harvest takes place in the last days of September and lasts until frost. In warm climates, pick one month earlier.

Varietal features of pumpkin ripening

• Nutmeg Vitamin Gourd becomes brown when mature. Rounded light spots are visible against this background.

• Shrub Gold is colored with bright orange. Light yellow stripes appear on the skin.

• Therapeutic Large-fruited - has a clear ribbing. The surface is dark green with light gray speckled stripes.

The collection period can be calculated in another way. Each variety has a different growing season. The bags always indicate the number of days from germination to harvest. Based on this, it is important to consider the weather. If the summer is cold, then the period will increase by 1-3 weeks.

Rules for collecting pumpkins for long-term storage

When starting to cut, you need to be careful in your actions. Try not to damage the rind. It is she who will protect the fruit from rotting. Bacteria can easily get into any cut, which will quickly destroy the vegetable.

You need to make a cut with a sharp knife, then the plane will be smooth and dry faster. Leave the tail as long as possible, as this part is the most vulnerable to the "entrance" of putrefactive microorganisms. It is desirable that the length of the left stalk is more than 10 cm.

If you have grown a lot of pumpkins, you need to sort them by size and quality. For storage, leave only well-ripened with a dense shell. Choose large ones without damage or dents.

How to speed up the ripening of pumpkin

Three weeks before the expected frost, pinch the shoots, remove the peduncles and ovaries. The forces of the plant should be directed towards the ripening of large fruits. To do this, without regret, you should remove all small pumpkins.

In temperate climates, pumpkins ripen faster on compost heaps. It is also recommended to sow seeds for seedlings in April.

How to store pumpkin

After harvesting, the fruits should be kept for 10 days in a comfortable environment. It is desirable that they are thoroughly dried in the sun or in a warm room (+ 27 … + 29). This technique will make the skin harder, dry the tail and small scratches. Deep "wounds" must be lubricated with potassium permanganate.

Pumpkin keeps cool well. Does not like the neighborhood of plums, apples, pears, tomatoes. Better to stack the fruits on racks made of boards covered with straw. The following varieties are perfectly stored: Mozoleevskaya-49, Premiera, Zimnyaya Gribovskaya, Almond-35. Storing a large crop involves checking the condition of the fruit frequently for rot.