TheWaterbug wrote:I have decent fruit set throughout the patch, but they're really small, and I have only 5 weeks left until the party (probably 10/26). I may have another pumpkin party with mostly green fruit, like I did my first year.
So after 4 years it'll look like I've learned nothing!!
Lesson for myself--planting X days later than last year doesn't necessarily mean fruit X days later.
Just to follow up on this, a bunch of the fruit ended up rotting on the vine before maturity, so it was almost a complete crop failure. I had perhaps 15 harvestable fruit (instead of the 100 I had last year) of which 10 were the Jarrahdales that are less popular amongst the kids. I had only 2 really good-looking JOLs and a few Luminas.
So I ended up going to Smart & Final and _buying_ 50 pumpkins for $3 apiece. Thank goodness for Smart & Final, as everyone else was charging $7/each or more. I scattered the pumpkins around the patch, under leaves, etc., and most of the kids couldn't tell the difference.
A few of the parents asked if I grew them all, and I said "I grew some and supplemented." Another parent marveled at how clean all the pumpkins were.
So all in all the crop was a miserable failure but the party was a success!