Curing Pumpkins/Winter Squash:

I have picked 5 pumpkins:
  1 Casperita
  4 Blaze
  

I have a few more pumpkins growing in the garden, but I'm not sure what they are yet until they are closer to maturity.  I have a few Be-Littles that I can identify.     

Once I cut the pumpkins from the vine, I leave them in the sun to cure so that they won't rot in storage. Curing them helps them to develop a tough skin that is essential if you are storing them for later use.  This takes 2-4 weeks of sun bathing.  After the curing time, I'll store them in the basement.  



I had two Naples Long growing but one aborted.  So now I have just one, but it is HUGE.  I may have more.  This variety, and some others, have infiltrated the raspberry bushes and there could be some hidden in there.  This big one though, will be a fun one to weigh.

Over the weekend, I picked 10 Garden Salsa peppers and 10 Jalapenos.  After I diced them, I had 3/4 of a cup of the Garden Salsa peppers and 1 cup of of the jalapenos.  Even though the Garden Salsa peppers are longer than the Jalapenos, the Jalapenos have a much thicker wall, so they take up more storage space.


Here are two pictures of my ornamental peppers.  One is a "before" when the peppers were just starting to grow and one is an "after" showing the striking colors combinations.

"before"

"after"