Better Weather, Cover Crops & I'll Starting to Get that Pumpkin Growing Itch

Here in Midway, UT we've had a fairly tough winter.  I'm told by the "old-timers" that this is the most snow we've seen in the last 10 years.  Seems like it just kept coming.   I've seen the soil twice in the pumpkin patch twice this year and most of the time it has been under more than a foot of snow and at one time almost 3 feet.   Snowpack in the Wasatch range is at about 160% right now.

The snow finally melted out of the patch today and from a distance I could see something that kind of surprised me. About 3 weeks before the ground froze I put in a cover crop in patch #1 and it got nicely established, but patch #2 didn't get a cover crop until about 5 days before it froze.   Today I noticed this nice green grass popping up all over the patch.   Germination rate looks to be adequate enough to cover the patch nicely by the time I till the soil in April.  I would of thought that since that seed had been buried under snow for the last three months it wouldn't had started to grow until we got at least a week of consistently warm weather, but this winter rye doesn't seem to care much about temperatures and snow.

I really like winter rye for this reason.  It is super hardy and it is easy to incorporate.  You can pull it out by your hand if you wanted to so it is easy to control.  It doesn't have the bio mass of some cover crops, but it works very nicely when you can't get a cover crop in early in the fall or when you want to get a cover crop going in the spring. Also a good way to get the myco going in the soil early in the season.

Winter Rye Cover Crop for the Pumpkin Patch

Friday of last week, I put down winter rye seed for a cover crop.  Look how well it is doing already.  Warmer than average temperatures hasn't hurt, but good management practices is the key.  Night time lows have been between 31-38 degrees for the last week, but winter rye doesn't mind that much.  It is pretty hardy, so as long as you can keep it wet and you don't have a hard freeze, it will germinate.  A trick that Joe Scherber taught me is putting clear plastic over the planting area to get it to warm up a little more.  It also helps keep the moisture in, which makes a big difference.  Pre-germinating indoors in a bucket of sand with a little kelp and humic acid also helps ensure a higher germination rate.  These grass blades are already about 2 inches high, which is pretty amazing a week after sowing the seed.

In the spring, that grass will take off when it gets warm and grow like crazy.  I'll till it into the soil as a green manure to increase the organic matter in the soil and then I'll plant another cover crop of winter rye in the patch, except for the planting areas, at that time to help suppress weeds, keep the soil from getting compacted, help get the biology going in the soil and add additional organic matter.  When the pumpkin starts to vine out, I'll till in that 2nd cover crop well in advance so that it will be broke down in the soil by the time the roots and vines get out that far.

I really like winter rye because it establishes well in the fall and it is easy to get rid off when it is time to till it in.  You can fairly easily just pull it out of the soil in your hand, which is great, because you don't want to have to fight it off like a weed after establishing it.

We Have a Pumpkin Patch in Utah!

It has been over a year since I could say I had a pumpkin patch.  With the move, I didn't grow last season and it was a little sad to see my neighbor cover the old patch with piles of dirt.   Yesterday evening I tilled about 3 yards of compost into the new patch along with some nitrogen, sulfur, humic acid, peat moss, manganese and iron.  Last night I also took a bucket full of sand and put in a little humic acid and liquid seaweed with some winter rye grass seed and wetted it to help pre-germinate the seed.  I then put that seed down at lunch today when things warmed up and racked it into the soil and then gave it a good watering.  I'll then cover the patch with plastic to help warm it up and which will increase the germination rate.

Weather here in Utah lately has been relatively warm.  Early mornings lately have hovered right around 32 degrees, but day time temperatures are forecast in the 60s and low 70s for the next week, which will be ideal for getting that cover crop going before the first hard freeze.  That winter rye cover crop will be tilled into the soil in the spring which will add organic matter and nutrients that will be available to the pumpkin patch next year.

Tilled the Cover Crop Today in the Pumpkin Patch

The cover crop of winter rye that I planted in early spring was tilled into the ground this evening.  With it I tilled in about 2 pounds of blood meal.  The advantage of a cover crop is it helps keep the soil from getting compacted, it build up the biology in the soil, it loosen up the soil, it helps with soil mineralization and it adds lots of good organic matter to the soil.  A great tip for new growers is to get a cover crop in the ground as soon as you can and then till it into the ground a couple of weeks ahead of the vines.

This is the best cover crop I've ever had.  All of the warm weather in April and then a ton of rain in May really helped it grow.   Now that it is tilled into the soil it will break down quickly.  With warm temperatures, it will mostly be gone in two weeks, just in time for the vines growing all over the place.

Hot in Denver today.  I think it hit around 93 degrees today.  Went from what felt like winter two weeks ago to summer in almost no time at all.  Too warm for plants in hoop houses, but they seemed to do pretty well in spite of the heat.

Time to Till the Patch Again

My cover crop has been growing like crazy the last few weeks.  I don't think it has ever been taller at this point in the season.  Lots of rain in Denver the last few weeks has helped it develop quickly.  This Saturday the plan is to till the cover crop under.  That way, in two weeks, when the pumpkin vines start growing into the areas where the cover crop was located it will be mostly broken down and will be ready to feed the plants a few weeks after that.

My 1791 plant is about at the same length or maybe a touch ahead of the 1421 plant from last year.  My 335 plant is about the same length as the 1775 at this point in the season.

EcoScraps, BioChar & Final Pumpkin Patch Prep

At a weigh-off this fall I met a very nice gentleman by the name of Scott that works for a company by the name of EcoScraps.  I had actually heard of EcoScraps previously because it was started by a couple of guys from my alma mater and they have received a lot of press.  There compost is different than most because it is mostly vegetable and fruit based.  What they are doing is getting left over product from grocery stores and the like and then composting it.  The final product makes a very nice, dark compost that that isn't animal derived.  When they get the waste product they actually will blend the different fruits and vegetables together so that they can get a more balanced nutrient profile in the compost.  You'll notice that there is much less in the way of wood chips in the compost than what even the "premium" compost blends have that you get at the garden centers.  That is a good thing.  Those wood chips will rob your soil of nitrogen and most bagged compost products have way to much wood in them.  This stuff actually looks like the compost that you make in your own pile.

Today I tilled the pumpkin patch in preparation for winter.  I tilled in 4 lbs kelp, 20 lbs gypsum, 4 lbs Yum Yum mix, 10 lbs humic acid, 4lbs elemental sulfur, 100 lbs alfalfa, 2 bags of leaves, 2 yards compost, 10 lbs biochar and 1,200lbs of Stanley.  You hate see a great pumpkin end it like this, but hopefully it will produce something even better next year.  After tilling everything in to the soil I then planted a cover crop in the area where the stumps will be next year.

This is the first year I've tried biochar so I used a fairly small amount.  Biochar is an emerging area of agricultural study and there is some descent research done with it but it isn't extensive.  The idea is that the biochar (very similar to but not the same as charcoal) has the ability to hold a lot of nutrients and share those nutrients with the plant.  So it isn't a fertilizer but a way to help keep the fertilizer from leaching out of the ground.  Microorganisms also like the biochar because it is very porous and so it is a great way to build biology in the patch.  I know of one grower that used it last year and he had a very nice pumpkin.

Before

After

Cover Crop is Coming in Nicely

About 1 1/2 weeks ago I seeded a new cover crop into the patch.  The cover crop will help suppress weeds, help keep the soil from becoming compacted, build the biology in the soil, pull nutrients from the soil and make them more readily available to the pumpkin plant and will make a nice green manure (organic matter) when I till it back in 3-4 weeks from now.  I seed everywhere in the patch except 4 feet from the hoop houses.  I'm using a winter rye grass for the cover crop.  It grows like a weed and is very hardy and fairly easy to get started.  When I put it down I also put down some myco so hopefully it will help get it started.