That's perfectly normal nothing is wrong at all. Your pumpkins won't be able to support a growing pumpkin until they are 10-12 feet long. Then you will start have female blossoms open up about every 3 or 4 days until one is pollinated. Powdery mildew isn't affecting anything at this point. Nothing you have mentioned sounds problematic. Older leaves typically do yellow and die. However, older leaves dying can also be a sign of under watering. If you ever find your plants wilted and the ground is bone dry you should try to keep the soil more evenly moist. Mulch of some sort (I would use something soft like dried grass clippings or straw) about 6 inches from the base of the plant will help.

Check out your female flowers very carefully. Mine were doing the same thing and acting in the same fashion as you have talk about. My problem was vine bore worms. I have been treating them with BT for three days now and I am about to inject the vines with Bt this weekend. I took a ditigal picher of my female flower and the muck in side were really EGGS! Look for little green worns everywhere. Pinch your vines between your fingers and if they are soft you have a problem. I have been dealing with this issue for a months now and I hope that I have it undercontol this week. Check this out http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=23375&p=1 I am new to pumpkin myself but a Powdery mildew my be from the way you are watering. Drip or sprinkler. If you sprinkle you should only do it in daylight hour. the plants need to be dry before night fall. It called leaf mold. It not a good thing, it could effect your whole garden. Your plants need to be about 2 months old to support a pumpkin. How old r yours? I am new to this also but if it not effecting you secondary vine my quess will be vine bore worm. Check out everything. Do you have other Pumpkins, Squash & Gourds?

joannh,

That is absolutely not a squash vine borer. And those eggs, while disgusting, are absolutely not SVB eggs. SVB eggs are laid singly not in clutches like that. And the eggs are brown not whitish. Unfortunately I can't tell you what it is other than it is a grub of some sort. But I can promise you that is not a SVB. The advice that Bt will kill them is accurate though.

I'm afraid I may not have much of anything to call a garden anymore, despite my best efforts it appears that squash bugs are helping themselves beyond my control. I kno for sure it's SBs in my cukes, I've seen and caught a few on my pumpkins... I've applied Sevin, but I can't seem to find the eggs anywhere and they're having a field day out there.
My plants are about 3 months old, the female flowers are still dying... there's nothing noticable inside, just rotten. the vines are firm, some are light yellow, some stripped dark green, it seems the older leaves are yellowing and falling over faster than the new growth can come in. I only have one plant that has a noticeable secondary vine, something happened to the main vine and it looks cut off... otherwise my plants have one long vine each, all looking half dead. One plant has even gotten so bad that there are only 4 of the newest leaves still on it. Most of my plants seem stunted, perhaps the whole lot was doomed from the seed packet. Out of 20 plants, after 3 months... I should definately have more then 9 long vines. I've changed my watering to twice a day, first in the morning just as the sun starts coming over the trees to dry off the leaves (8am). Then again about 7-8 hours later when the heat is really blazing, I turn my hose nozzle down to just over a trickle and leave it leaking into my moats until it's wet the ground all the way around the hill. I fertilize every Friday, I put about a half gallon of that water into each hill. Between my cukes and my pumpkins I'm feeling pretty hopeless right now, my watermelons seem to be the only ones helping me fight. They've gotten minimal damage, I think I can only say one entire leaf has died. There are others injured, but only 1 dead. It's funny too, they're right in the middle... between the cukes and pumpkins. I appreciate the advice.

Thanks for the valuable information -
a quick follow up question - Every year I have the same problem. My Atlantic Giant pumpkins get about the size of a tennis ball, then rot away. What am I doing wrong?
Do yo have any idea where should I start and what should I do?
Thank you so much!
Ran

can you please make a comment on the benefits and problems of pumpkin