Solar Powered Pumpkins

Around weigh-off time last year I thought a lot about how to deal with the cool Colorado nights which seem to slow down our pumpkin growth a lot. The best practical (i.e. not a ton of money) method I came up with was reflective tarps so the plants would warm up faster in the morning. The theory is if the air can be warmed up a little faster in the cool of morning by reflecting the suns rays until 10:00am we might gain 15 minutes more growth each day. That may not seem like much, but over 90 days that can add up to nearly 1 more growing day over the course of a season which should mean more pounds on the scale. It might be crazy but I thought I would give it a try.

I've got the mister sprinklers going these days on the timer. Every hour from 11:00 to 4:00 the sprinklers run for one minute which is just enough to cool the leaves off in the heat of the summer days and keeps leaf burn down a lot.