On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 09:59:14 +0100, "David WE Roberts"
wrote:

Just read the BBC guide to growing pumpkins and they say to just keep a
couple per plant and grow them on until the outside is hard; pick before the
first frost.

Now this does sound very much like growing marrows.

However with marrows you can cut them young and eat the whole thing - just
like eating courgettes.

That's because that's what courgettes are. I remember the
ever-patriotic C.E.Lucas Phillips writing, in _The Small Garden_, you
can buy special seed for courgettes, but the ones from English marrows
"are tastier." For a few years I used Green Bush Improved for
courgettes.

So can you do the same with pumpkins or are they inedible until they are
fully grown and bright orange?

They're still inedible even then. You put them on the roof to dry out
a bit. And they're still inedible. Not to mention dashed dangerous, as
you have to get into them with an axe, which few people these days
know how to use. In Aus, they used to panic around trying to find ways
of forcing pumpkins down us: the most bearable was pumpkin scones,
with lots of butter. Butternut are good, but I'd never even heard of
those till about 1973.

--
Mike.