When shall I pick my pumpkins?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

The plant its still healthy and growing. Pumpkins are ripening nicely. Bit of a frost last night and I've no idea when to pick them.

[Takver]

Right now if you're likely to get any more frost - they get spoiled by anything more than the tiniest touch

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Thanks Takver - I will pick them today. Some of the leaves do actually look frost hit now.

Can they stay outside or in the garage for a couple of weeks? - two of them are pretty enormous. (was very fun going into garden centre this afternoon and scoffing at tall the 'giant' pumpkins.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

How do you curtail the growth of the plants? Ours made 17m long in the end almost the entire length of garden. All that and we only got 3 pumpkins.

[FrayedKnot]

I picked mine about 3 weeks ago - they were huge, very orange and looked like they were done. They are happily residing in my shed and one has had an outing to school and back.

I can't bear the thought of carving them

We got 2 decent sized ones from two plants - in the end I cut off most of the vines except the ones that had these pumpkins on.