as you can see, it has become a dark green color (check this post for a lighter colored pumpkin). i don't think it has become bigger in the past few days, either. but then, it has been raining hard since monday night. also, the bottom is yellow. i looked at it monday morning and i don't remember it being so yellow. you can seen the puddle of water it was in.
i'm going to harvest it this evening anyway (making tonjiru and i think pumpkin will be a nice addition!) but i thought i'd just pop this question out there for all my gardening friends....
EDIT: so, i went ahead and cut it off the vine. the vine seems to be dying (too much rain??), there are a lot of pumpkin vines in the garden and well, slugs seemed to be interested in the stem. so, cut it off and am going to try this:
(from wikipedia)
When kabocha is just harvested, it is still growing. So, unlike other vegetables and fruits, freshness isn't as important. It should be fully matured first, in order to become flavorful. First, kabocha is ripened in a warm place (77°F) for 13 days, during which some of the starch converts to carbohydrate content. Then it's transferred to a cool place (50°F) and stored for about a month in order to increase its carbohydrate content. In this way the just-harvested, dry, bland-tasting kabocha is transformed into smooth, sweet kabocha. Fully ripened, succulent kabocha will have reddish-yellow flesh and a hard skin with a dry, corky stem. It is heavier than it looks. It reaches the peak of ripeness about 1.5~3 months after it's harvested.
so, i will keep it in the kitchen for two weeks, then try putting it in the yuka-shita for a few weeks. phew! lots of work for something that supposedly easy to grow....
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6 comments:
I wonder about this, too. Especially with my new (to me) Cinderella pumpkins. How can you tell? I think I read something about not leaving a mark when you scratch it with a fingernail. Dh says that kabocha taste best when "aged" for a few months. But this is supposed to occur in a dark, cool, low humidity place, and we can only do one out of three in the summer.
Then there are my evergreen tomatoes...I squeeze them daily, which means they are going to be totally bruised by the time they are ready to pick!
I hope someone has a good answer for you on this one!
huh. wikipedia says the same (about aging the kabocha). i know we ate some practically right after we picked it last year and it didn't seem bland or anything. hm. maybe if i pick it today i'll try to mature it. hope the space under the kitchen qualifies for cool, dark and dry.... LOL
no kabocha for the tonjiru then.
I wish we had one of those spaces under the kitchen floor. I mean, there is a space under the kitchen floor, I am sure, because that's where all the ants, cockroaches, and snakes come from, but not the right kind of space!
This is our first year raising kabocha. Previously we always bought from farmer's market, and the ones that have a really orange, almost red, spot on the outside are the aged ones, and they were the yummiest. Just like I am trying to teach my two year old, patience patience, when I am the one who needs a bit more!
I think you're probably right. We measure it 35-40 days from flowering (my neighbours right it on the stem of the flower), or when the stalk between pumpkin and plant turns yellow and dries up.
We age the green pumpkins and eat the white skinned pumpkins straight away.
I've been reading up on how to tell when to harvest orange "halloween" pumpkins, but I would imagine it is similar. They say you should fingernail test, if you can't puncture the skin with a fingernail it's ripe. Also the stem turning hard or woody. And if it sounds hollow when you knock or thump it with your hand.
I didn't know kabocha had to mature like that. That's good to know.: )
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