Pumpkin problems

Something has been eating our pumpkins! We had a prize specimen of which we were very proud. It was getting fatter by the day and turning a fabulous golden orange. But one day it had some teeth marks in it and the next day there were more. From the size of the teeth marks and from reading some gardening forums on line, it could well be squirrels, eager to get at the seeds inside. Contributors had various solutions, from spraying the pumpkins with anti-squirrel spray to greasing them up with Vaseline. We decided to wait and see, and when another pumpkin started to look promising we quickly lopped it off and brought it inside as soon as we thought it had reached a good size. It’s still a pale creamy colour but is happily resting on a tea towel on a windowsill, gradually ripening.