Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Monday is P-day

Probably on Monday I will be going down to one plant in each hoop house. That is always a sad thing because you always hate to see a good plant go down. If anyone is interested in a 1528 Starr or 1316 Harp pumpkin plant please let me know. Without question my two best plants are the 1161 Rodonis and 1236 Harp right now.

The plan is to put up the posts for the hail netting this Saturday and after I know the poles haven't fallen on any of the plants then I will probably dig up the plants that didn't make the cut and go with the finalists.

This evening I put a product called CO2 (nanoized calcium) on my kids pumpkin plant. Tomorrow I'll put some on my plants. Some giant pumpkins were grown last year using CO2 and although I'm not 100% sure it has a big impact on pumpkin size I thought I would give it a try.

I also gave all of the pumpkin plants a healthy amount of compost tea today. I believe this is the third time I have watered the plants with compost tea. Until the plants get too large I will water the plants with compost tea every other watering. Compost tea is an excellent way to build soil biology with healthy bacteria and fungus.

The 1161 Rodonis is about three inches from having the main vine line down on the ground. So far it is looking to be a very nice plant. The 1236 is still mostly pointing right up in the air. The kids plant is needing a little help from daddy because the main was planted pointing the wrong way because daddy planted it the wrong direction so we are slowing moving the main over the top using bamboo sticks to get it pointed the right way.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jamie, I would love to have one of your plants. I am a bit late getting into this game, we just moved into our house in Feb. We finally have room for a garden and somehow I decided to try and grow big pumpkins. I am in Aurora. Email at eholck@comcast.net. Thanks, Erik

Stan said...

pardon my ignorence, but what is compost tea?

Jamie said...

Areated compost tea is simply taking a mesh bag bull of compost and putting it in a bucket of water that has air bubbles going through it. After 24-48 hours the water becomes full of beneficial bacteria and fungus. More information is available at:

http://denverpumpkins.com/2009/06/pumpkins-love-compost-tea.html

Anonymous said...

Jamie, I would love to give your sacrificed plant a new home. Jim in Henderson. jim.thoms@hilton.com

Thanks

Jamie said...

Hey Jim - I have someone coming over for one of the plants probably on Monday. If you want the other plant it is yours.