Calling all pumpkin growers

[ChrisGreaves]

I am not going to live long enough to understand life; a weird philosophical point if you stop to think about it!

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Front patch. I have lifted four pumpkins on to an old rack to liberate them from insects. I note that some undersides (look at the monster at the left) appear to have oranged in contact with the soil. I thought that they needed direct sunlight to turn orange. I do NOT believe the myth that they turn orange because the sodium street light shines on them all night.

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Same pumpkin patch (second driveway) and two more pumpkins exhibit oraneging. The one on the left has speckled patches of pale yellow (circled)

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Mystery to be explained: The growing season is at an end, and the shriveled pumpkin leaves and vines demonstrate this. Why then do the plants insist on producing new blossoms? That seems like a waste of pumpkin nutrient resources.

Answers to any or all of these questions would be appreciated.

As noted a week ago, I am heading for some sort of cookalogical disaster this year.
My personal crop of pumpkins is more than enough to satisfy my cravings for the next twelve months.
The nice ladies on my street will probably hand me another sixteen un-carved pumpkins on November first.
I am still working my way through the quart jars I bottled a year ago from the sixteen donated pumpkins of 2021.
It is probably too late to erect more compost bins this year.
What to do?

Thanks, Chris

[HansV]

Carve your own pumpkins for Halloween, then eat the ones you receive on November 1.

[stuck]

...Mystery to be explained:[/b] The growing season is at an end, and the shriveled pumpkin leaves and vines demonstrate this. Why then do the plants insist on producing new blossoms? That seems like a waste of pumpkin nutrient resources...

Is it not that the plant is just trying to produce as many seeds, to ensure the next generation of plants, as it can before it dies? So it is worth the resources.

Ken

[ChrisGreaves]

Is it not that the plant is just trying to produce as many seeds, to ensure the next generation of plants, as it can before it dies? So it is worth the resources.

Hi Ken, I am with you on the thought of trying to produce as many seeds. It seems odd to me that a variety of pumpkin has survived that pumps resources into flowers long past the time that they can be pollinated and produce fruit.

The idea of economic resources in evolution seems spot-on to me; that successful plants survive generations, and unsuccessful plants do not, and that economic success is important. Spending economic resources in production of flowers would contradict this.
Unless, of course, the economic cost of producing flowers was so small that it had little overall effect on survival.
(later)
I have just explored my garden; some of the Jerusalem Artichokes have fresh blossoms when most of them has closed their seed heads, and JAs reproduce best through their tubers. The tomato plants that were but seeds in a tomato on July 1st have made some rather nice green tomatoes, but are still producing fresh blossoms.
Perhaps there is a strategy whereby late-bloomers can capitalize on exceptional autumns that revert to summer-weather right through to November. Freak weather, but nonetheless a gamble that can be calculated.

(signed) "I need to go back to university" of Bonavista.

[stuck]

..It seems odd to me that a variety of pumpkin has survived that pumps resources into flowers long past the time that they can be pollinated and produce fruit...

Except the plant doesn't know when the pollinators are no longer around, their growth will depend on temperature and the number of daylight hours. Even this late in the season, they might just get lucky.

Ken

[ChrisGreaves]

Except the plant doesn't know when the pollinators are no longer around, their growth will depend on temperature and the number of daylight hours. Even this late in the season, they might just get lucky.

Ken, you know how much I hate to argue but ...

I believe that plant seeds know about temperature (when is a good time to hatch) and that plants sense day length and temperature (when to drop leaves). I believe that when the day light hours reduce, the temperature drops, and leaves die, there is a sense (but not of course a consciousness) that "it is over".

That said, I don't deny that fresh male flowers on the last day of September might get lucky with female flowers, bees etc.

I just can't see that being good economy of resources in an evolutionary sense.
But what do I really know, right? Those IBM guys didn't spend a lot of time teaching plant genetics and evolution back in the programmer-in-training class in Wollongong when I was younger1

Cheers, Chris