Saturday, June 19, 2010

Pollination, Compost Tea & Sprinkler Heads

This morning I pollinated on the main a pumpkin at about 9 feet (pictured right) on the 1236 Harp. Probably won't be my keeper. I've got a female at 11' coming on the main that will be ready for pollination in the next week. The 1161 has a female at 13' as well so I may have my two possible keepers coming on. Timing is just about right too as I anticipate pollinating them on around the 23rd to 27th which is just about the perfect time.

Last night I did some foliar compost tea with fish, seaweed and a touch of blood meal. Figure I would try to give a little push to the plants before the next pollinations take place to try to get as much vine as possible before pollinations. About 14 days after pollination the vines slow down a lot in growth.

Finally finished the patch setup for this season (the wife is very happy). Put in two additional sprinkler heads today to give better water coverage. I was finding in the past that the leaves were blocking the water so that there were big dry spots under the canopy. Now I'm hitting the leaves from three of more directions. Wish I had a dan micro setup but this will do for now.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a beginner, and I was wondering what kind of punpkin would be good for me to start on? I have a realy good place for it... but don't know how to start from there. Will you help me??

Jamie said...

What kind of pumpkin you should grow would depend on what you want to do with your pumpkin. My two favorites are Atlantic Giants and Prizewinners. Atlantic Giants are the only thing to grow if you want to grow a really big pumpkin. If you want to grow big great jack-o-lantern then Prizewinner would be the way to go.

Anonymous said...

What is the advantage of having your pumpkin 12-15ft out? I ask because my patch has limited space on my property but extends out to my open space. I've ammended the soil out there as well but want my Pumpkin on my property. What do I lose by setting a pumpkin 9 ft out?

Jamie said...

Right now my vines are growing about a foot a day. About two weeks after pollination the main vine will slow down to around 3 inches a day. If you haven't grown enough plant before setting the pumpkin then you may not have enough leaves to power the growth of that pumpkin.

Having said that the world record 1,725 pound pumpkin was grown 9 feet out. Who knows if it would have been bigger if it was 14 feet out. The numbers how however that the biggest pumpkins are set between 12-14 feet. If space is a limitation then 9 feet should be just fine.