Patch Prep in Patch #1 is Done

Scrambled over the last couple of days to get the fall patch prep done.  After a descent stretch of warm weather I got the greenhouse up, but didn't have time to work the soil.   Weather is going to start turning tomorrow and I needed to get the soil worked and more importantly get the cover crop in.

To get the cover crop seed going I used a trick that I've used for years.  Winter rye can germinate in almost any temps above freezing, albeit slowly.   Temps will be hovering around freezing the rest of this week, so I put the rye seed in a bucket of sand 24 hours before planting, added warm water and some humic acid and then put the bucket in a warm place.  I then sowed the seed today.  I learned from experience that you don't want to go more than 24 hours because those seeds germinate quickly and you can end up with clumps of sand bound together with roots.

This fall I'm putting in about 50% more compost then I did last year.  I'd like to get my organic matter higher.  I feel like my soil loses moisture and nutrients too quickly and the organic matter will help with both.   Along with the compost I added soil sulfur to help drop the pH, humic acid to help make the nutrients in the soil more available and nitrogen tohelp break down the organic matter in the compost over the winter.

A few things I noticed when working the soil.  A descent amount of worms.  Exactly years ago there were zero, so the soil food web has been building nicely in the soil.  Also the tilth and looseness of the soil has improved.  Two years ago it was rock hard and now it is looking more like nice garden soil.

The greenhouse soil will get worked over the next couple of weeks.  No mud or snow worries in the greenhouse and it will stay much warmer in there all winter long.  If you have any experience with cover crops in greenhouses over winter please share any advice you have.  Not sure how to water it and keeping it under control where it doesn't grow too much over the winter.

Heating Cables for The Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday I nearly killed myself off doing the final preparations in the pumpkin patches.   It took 7 hours to get everything done.  If I had taken 1 hour to take a math class or asked my 10 year old son to do some basic calculations (the kid is a math wiz) I could have probably cut that time in half.  lol

The weather yesterday had been the best it has been all year.  I noticed the forecast was for rain/snow from Sunday to Friday so I knew I wouldn't be able to get everything done in the patch before May 1st (my target date to get the plants in the soil) later in the week, so I had to get everything done yesterday. 

First order of business was to put in the soil heating cables.  Everyone I've ever known to have used soil heating cables told me the same thing.  The plants that had them were always bigger than the plants that did not. Because my nighttime summer temperatures are going to be pretty cool at night, I thought the soil heating cables would be a great idea to help the plants overcome their environment.  These cables have a thermostat and will warm the soil to about 75 degrees.

My cables are 48 feet long and the packaging says they cover 12 square feet.   So I of course dug out a 12x12 foot area about 5-8 inches deep.  Now simple math would tell you that 12x12 is 144 square feet, not 12 square feet, so I pretty much overdid it on the digging (and it was a lot of work).  The good news is that the soil is loose deep in a nice, big area now.

soil heating cables

After digging the area out I decided to amend the soil with a little nitrogen, alfalfa, kelp, humic acid and sulfur and tilled that into the soil.   My tiller goes 8 inches deep so this loosened up the soil an additional 8 inches.  I then put down the heating cables and filled in the hole.

After doing that I tilled the patch again (previously I did it quickly, so I wanted to hit some areas again that the winter rye didn't get fully tilled in) and then I put down some new rye grass seed in all parts of the patch, except for a 10x10 area were I'll be planting the plants.  The grass seed will be tilled in June and will help keep the soil from getting compacted, suppress weeds, help get the myco going in the soil and add organic matter to the soil.

After that I raked the rye seed into the soil and then watered the entire patch.   I'm putting clear plastic over the planting areas today to help warm the soil and keep it dry from the rain that will be falling this next week.   You don't want to put your plants into wet, cold soil and that clear plastic can help warm it up 5-10 degrees.   When I finish the hoop houses I'll put them over the planting area this week as well.

After that I started the whole process on patch 1.  This time, being wiser, I dug the area 4x4. Just as it was getting dark I had everything completed.

I'm happy now, for the most part, with where things are at with the patch.  Soil tilth in patch 2 is great right now.   Patch 1 is coming along, but there are a few compacted areas that I still need to get loosened up.  The soil is in good shape in the planting area however, so when I till in the rye grass in June, I'll work those hard spots out and we should be in good shape.

Amending the Pumpkin Patch

Using the soil test report that I got a couple of weeks ago I amended and tilled my soil.   Getting the soil balanced with all of the nutrients the plant will need is very important.  The most important things you do in your pumpkin patch to grow a giant are done before you even put your plant in the ground.   If the soil has poor tilth, compacted or missing nutrients then there is little to no chance of getting a pumpkin over 1,000 lbs at the end of the season.

One thing you don't want to do is over do it for the amendments.  You have to consider all sources when amending.  For example, maple leaves can have a lot of calcium in them.   If you till in a bunch of leaves in the fall, but your soil already had adequate calcium, you could end up with too much calcium in the soil.   Calcium can be antagonistic to the uptake of potassium and typically there is a lot of potassium in a pumpkin so the end result is a smaller pumpkin.  Know what is in everything you amend with and you should be in good shape.

The following are what I amended my soil with yesterday.  For some amendments, I put down about 70% of what the soil needs, because things like nitrogen can leach out of the soil over time, so I'll add the last 30% in smaller divided doses starting in two months or so.  Other amendments like manganese and phosphorous aren't mobile in the soil, so I needed them fully added now, because if you put them on the top of the soil they won't move down through the soil to get to the roots very well.

The following is the full list of what I amended my soil with:

compost (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, organic matter)

mono ammonium phosphate (nitrogen / phosphorous)

alfalfa (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, organic matter)

ammonium sulfate (nitrogen)

elemental sulfur (to lower pH of soil)

zinc

copper

manganese

boron

magnesium

expanded shale

humid acid

peat moss

kelp meal (potassium and growth hormones)

When I tilled in the soil it also tilled in the cover crop of winter rye that I had planted in the fall.  That will help add organic matter to the soil (a green manure).

 

What is the Perfect Soil for Giant Pumkins?

The short answer is a balanced soil that has all of the nutrients in the soil that the pumpkin plant would need throughout the season.  The reality is that it is much more complicated than that.   I got my soil test results back.  Since this is a new patch and the soil is a bit different than what I had at the old home, I have more work cut out for me.   The soil here isn't bad.  It just needs to be properly built up and balanced.

I did a conversation with the head scientist who is a soil genius.  I've talked with him more than once over the years and with as much as I know, I don't know a thimble compared to what he knows.   Good soil is all about chemistry and soil chemistry is pretty much like a jigsaw puzzle where some of the pieces don't always fit well.

For example, my soil naturally has too much calcium in it.  At 5,600 feet in altitude you would be surprised to learn that there are sea shells in my yard.  The soil is an old ocean bed and the limestone has lots of calcium.   Too much calcium puts the soil out of balance and as a result it can cause problems with other nutrients.  The only good way to make the soil "perfect" so all of the pieces fit together would be to replace the majority of the soil. To some degree, over time, that is what I'll do, but no plans to haul soil Ohio to do a quick fix.

Some growers think that if a soil isn't "perfect" you can't grow a big pumpkin.  I can show you soil reports from growers who have grown world records that don't have balanced soils and did very well.   I believe the key is to not be too out of balance and make sure you do the right things (i.e. foliar feeding) to adjust appropriately.

One interesting conversation I had with the soil scientist was in regards to the rhizosphere around the roots.  The roots can get to nutrients about 1/4 inch from them, so although your soil may have a lot of nutrients in it, you can have the plant "bonk" because it can only access so much so it gets depleted.

I asked about feeding during the season and also about nutrients being locked up and he suggested an additional test to include on the soil.  This test (75S) would show what is soluble and available to the plants which is a better indication of what a plant can use from the soil.  I'm going to have another conversation with him after that test is done and I'll let you know what I learn here in the blog.

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.

Compost for the New Pumpkin Patch, Dump Trailers & A Big Thanks

Today I got about 20 yards of compost for the pumpkin patch and new yard.  This house is a brand new build, so I tilled the entire front yard to get the soil loosened up because it was very compacted from all of the heavy machinery.  My new 8hp Troy-Bilt tiller worked great.  The compacted soil was hard to work, but after few passed it started to dig deep.  It will work very nicely in the patch.  Not as powerful as the Barreto tillers I've been using, but in loose soil it will till the patch faster.

A big thanks to everyone at Power Equipment Rentals in Heber City, Utah.  They hooked me up with a dump trailer, truck to haul the dump trailer and a front loader to load up the compost.   They also gave me some very nice finished compost that looked to be 2-3 years old.  My soil at the new place is relatively nutrient rich, so this fully finished compost will be a very nice amendment to the pumpkin patch to get the organic matter increased in my sandy loam soil.

Don't Plant Your Pumpkin Plants in Cold Soil

If you haven't already, put your hoop house over the area that you will be planting your pumpkin plants or put down some clear plastic on the soil to help heat it up.  You don't want to take your plants from the pots in put them in a cold soil.  Cold soil has less biological activity making it harder for the plants to get at nutrients.  This will sometimes stunt the growth of the pumpkin plant and possibly put it into shock.  Warm soil, a little B-vitamins and a touch of kelp will help the plant transition to the soil faster, making for better growth.

I Title the Picture 'The Lonelest thing in Pumpkin Growing'

Lots of unfullilled potential in this picture.  Pulled the 282 Scherber plant today and seeded the area with Soghurum Sudan grass seed.  It makes a nice cover crop, helps build myco in the soil and can help suppress bad nemotodes in the soil.  When tilled in as a green manure it will also add a lot organic mater to the soil along with the peat moss that I put down with the seed.  The second picture is the picture of the stump.  Not a bad size for mid-August.

How to use EC Testing of Soil for Proper Fertilizing

The year I'm trying something different in the pumpkin patch.  After a conversation with Don Barron last season it drove home what I have heard other growers say and something I've known for years but wasn't sure what to do about.  In the Spring and Fall typically I'll do a soil test so I know what I need to amend the soil with, but during the season I've been clueless as to what is going on in the soil.  The last couple of years I've done a tissue test which helps some, but they are expensive and one test doesn't necessarily tell you what the plant needs to grow a bigger pumpkin.

When I heard about what world record grower holder Beni Meir was doing with EC testing was it perked up my ears.  Basically Beni used an EC testing device that tests the salts in his soil to figure out when to fertilize.  Basically nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium are salts and the electrical conductivity tester gives a reading of how much salts are in a solution.  An EC tester won't tell you what nutrient a plant needs or what nutrient is deficient, but when testing during the season you can see the EC numbers drop as the season goes on and when the numbers go down you can then hit the soil with some fertilizer to get the numbers back to optimum levels.

During the season I'll give some updates on this and what I find.  I did an interesting test today where I tested the soil inside of both hoop houses and outside of both hoop houses and it was clear that with all of the rain we've had there has been some leaching.

Today I gave both plants some compost tea with cane molasses and RAW Omina (learn more).   The cane molasses is a food source for soil microbes so it helps promote microbial activity.  When I first learned of Omina I was super excited.  My soil is too high with potassium.  Potassium, in large quantities, can be antagonistic in the uptake of calcium.  Omina can make nutrients in the soil more available and you can increase calcium ion uptake by 1000% because of some of the aminos that are in Omina.  Omina is 14-0-0 so the nitrogen in it will help support the current vine growth.  My vines are growing 6-8 inches a day right now.  That should put me close to a June 24th pollination with a little luck.

Urban Farm Co. in Boulder / Denver

Let me give a shout out to the Urban Farm Co based in Boulder and covering all of metro Denver.  If you want a great garden but don't have a lot of time, these are the guys to call.

My wife was asked to do an article for them and unbenounced to me had arranged for them to setup a planter box and soil for the garden.  I'll have to admit and it may be a surprise, I don't spend a lot of time in the garden.  Would rather spend it in the pumpkin patch.  When Amber told me what was going on, I felt my toes were being stepped on more than a little bit however.  I wasn't going to have some no nothing guy with a few bags of worthless "garden soil" with chunks of wood in it set up my garden!

To my surprise, my experience with Bryant was exactly the opposite of what I expected.  He was my equal and very knowledgeable.  He pretty much setup the garden exactly the way I would have done it.  I think we talked soils and soil testing for over an hour, bouncing ideas off of each other.  The special blend of soil he put into my garden looks to be close to ideal and he spent the time showing my wife and kids just what to do.

If you need a garden setup or consulting on how to improve your existing garden, visit them at urbanfarmcolorado.com and tell them The Pumpkin Man sent you.

Tilled the Patch and Nailed It

Today I tilled in some algalfa, humic acid, kelp meal, 4lbs of myco and peat moss into the pumpkin patch.  After tilling the patch I put down some winter rye that I pre-germinated in a bucket of lava sand with some Azos.  This evening a little rain fell which should help get that winter rye going.  In early June, I'll till in that cover crop of winter rye.  It will help suppress the weeds, ad organic matter and help add nutrients to the soil that will be readily available to the pumpkin plants.

I expanded the patch some.  The new area's soil is going to need some work, but the amendments I added to the soil are a good start.

Time to Get Back into the Pumpkin Patch

This week I plan on tilling the pumpkin patch.  On Thursday there is supposed to be storm, so I'm going to till on Wednesday.  I'll be tilling in some peat, alfalfa, humic acid, silica and expanded shale into the patch.  The expanded shale is something new that I'm trying this year.  From what I've read, it should be good for our Colorado clay soils.  I'll also be putting down about 4lbs of myco into the patch as well.  After the storm, I'll be seeding the patch with a cover crop of winter rye in all but the planting areas.  That cover crop I'll till into the ground when the plants vines start running.

Today I started working on two new hoop houses (kind of like a small green house) for the plants.  These hoop houses are about 2 feet longer and 2 feet wider than my current hoop houses.  I need hoop houses for my kids' plants, do I thought it was time for an upgrade.  These new hoop houses are designed just like my old ones, but with the increased size I"ll be able to keep the plants in the hoop house for another 3-7 days.

I'll be starting my pumpkin plants on April 15th, indoors under grow lights.

Finally Got a Chance to Till the Soil

I tilled into the pumpkin patch 1 1/2 yards of compost, 6 bails of sphagnum peat moss, 100 pounds of alfalfa pellets, 30 pounds of gypsum and 20 pounds of granular humic acid.  I then racked in a cover crop of winter rye that I will let grow all winter and then will till into the ground in the spring.  In the spring I'll send in a soil sample and probably add another yard or so of compost along with what other items I need to make sure everything is adjust properly.

I'm guessing next season will be first season in this patch that I'll finally have my potassium and potash low enough that things will be balanced.  That is if I don't screw it up again.

Patch Preping for 2015 Early

I'm already patch prepping for next year and getting a jump on the competition.  At least that is what the loser says that had to pull his plants early.  Lol

Finally got some time to pull the 1791 plant.  I cut open the pumpkin and was a little disappointed with the thickness.  I grew this seed hoping it would produce a heavy pumpkin but the walls of the pumpkin were regular thickness.  I'm guessing the pumpkin would have gone to the chart or maybe slightly light.

I don't remember ever having this many weeds in the patch.   Rain and cooler weather has sprouted a lot of weeds.  I'm going to be putting in some sorghum sudan grass as a cover crop but I'm going to have to till the soil first to get all of the grass and weeds out of the way.  In about 40 days I'll till in the sudan grass and and put in a winter rye cover crop for the winter.

Some More Probiotics for the Pumpkin Patch

This evening I sprayed the entire patch with 1 Biotamax tablet, 1/4 cup of Azos and about a half a cup of liquid seaweed.  After spraying everything I then watered the pumpkin patch to help get it soaked in.  The beneficial bacteria and fungi in what was sprayed should help build a healthy soil food web that will help feed the pumpkin plant as the vines grow out.

Looks like I'm going to have to take the hoop houses off of both plants tomorrow.  They are busting at the seams now.

Soil Test is Back, Time for Final Prep

Sometime in the next three weeks I'll be putting in my final amendments and tilling the soil.  I got my soil test back and things are looking better.  Four years ago my soil was pretty jacked up and out of balance.  Each year that has improved but I still have a little ways to go.  My potassium has been very high for quite some time.  Potassium when to high can make it difficult for the plant to absorb calcium and other nutrients so I've been very careful to keep to a limit the amount of potassium that I add to the soil.  My potassium is still high but almost half of what it was 3 years ago.  That should make a bit of a difference.

Atlantic Giant pumpkin plants are very adaptive to soil types.  They seem to have the ability to get at the nutrients they need so if your soil is like mine and not in perfect balance don't sweat it too much.

I've sent off some questions to the soil testing lab but it looks like my final amendments to the soil will be 7 lbs Azomite, 40 lbs gypsum, 10lbs humic acid and 4 lbs evaporated cane sugar.

The following is a link to a simple but excellent website that lists the NPK for most of the most commonly used amendments:
http://www.lundproduce.com/N-P-K-Value-of-Everything.html

A Little Secret About Myco and Pumpkin Growing

I think most growers wouldn't know this, but the myco that we put into our pumpkin patch takes months to mature to a state that it is providing full benefits to the pumpkin plant.  There are three stages in mycorrhizal growth to maturity:  spore germination, hyphal growth, host recognition and appressorium formation.  There are studies that show that it can take 6 weeks to 2 months for myco to mature enough that the benefits of infection can be measurable on a plant. 

Neil Anderson, President of RTI, stated this fact at the Niagara growers convention some years ago and he suggested that starting your myco in a pot weeks prior to starting your pumpkin seeds could prove beneficial.  If you start a pot with a pumpkin seed in it a month before you start your seeds you want to grow and then break up the seed starting mixture and roots from that pot you can capture the mature myco in that pot.  You then just mix the pots seed starting medium with the seed starting mixture that you want to grow you actual plants in.   The myco in that pot can survive for up to two weeks without being attached to roots and will actually "call" to the roots of your plant.  You can then get inoculations to form with the roots of your plants much earlier and start getting benefits much faster using this technique.

In the pumpkin patch I'll be using just one variety of myco, but in this pot I'm using eleven endo varieties of myco.  Make sure you use endomycorrhizal for pumpkins, grasses and vegetables because the ecto variety will not work on anything but trees and bushes.   

If you are not familiar with mycorrhize fungi there are some very extensive studies the have found the following benefits from using myco:

• Increases nitrogen, water and phosphorus uptake
• Increases crop yields
• Protects plant roots from pathogens
• Improves plant resistance to a wide array of soil toxicities
• Salt tolerance

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

Giant Pumpkin Growing Tips & Secrets

I got a great email from a new giant pumpkin grower that I thought I would share with everyone because this grower was asking the right questions in order to grow a big pumpkin.  The pumpkin growing tips that were asked kind of get at the heart of what it takes to grow a giant.  They are:

1. When do I send a fall soil test?

2. Does foliar application have to be under the canopy or is it sprayed on top?

3. What is the best organic fertilizer? Do I broadcast on the ground our apply as a drench?

The following is my reply to her questions:

"Thanks for your questions.  At this point of the season you can get a soil test at any time.  The sooner you can start prepping for next season the better.  I know of two growers that have actually pulled their plants with pumpkin still growing because the pumpkins were small for them and they wanted to start getting ready for next year. 

 Most of what will determine how big a pumpkin grows is going to be determined by work done on the soil in the fall and early spring.  Foliar applications can be on top of the leaf or the underside of the leaf.  The underside of the leaf is better because the cuticles are larger on the bottom side of the pumpkin leaf so they have a better capacity to take in nutrients.  However, it isn't always easy to get to those undersides, especially when the plant gets large.

The "best" organic fertilizer is relative to what your plant needs.  One of the hardest thing to learn as a grower is figuring that balance out.  There a lot of growers to help you with that.  Basically with a good soil test you will be able to find out what is in that soil.  Once you know what a pumpkin plant needs then you can start choosing what to feed a pumpkin plant to get the greatest gains.  Almost everything I give my plants is organic.  I use Fish & Seaweed (Neptune's brand) a lot as a foliar application.  My soil is pretty rich with nutrients.  In some cases I have too much of certain types of nutrients.  For example potassium is very high in my soil.  The roots can only attach to so many nutrients at a time (cations) and potassium attaches easily.  Because of that other nutrients have a hard time getting absorbed even though they may be in abundance in the soil.  So, for example, my spring soil test said that I was high in sulfur.  However I did a leaf tissue test in June and it showed my plants were a little low in sulfur.  Why?  Because potassium was blocking the absorption of the sulfur as well as a few other nutrients. 

One of things I've been zeroing in more on the last couple of years is how to do foliar applications of certain nutrients that my plants need that the plant  may not be getting from the roots.  If you read my pumpkin blog at www.denverpumpkins.com you'll see me mention foliar applications of different things 5-6 times a week.  That is very small quantities of those nutrients to get the plant exactly what it needs.

I hope I haven't made this sound overly complicated.  In some ways it is and in some ways it is not.  If your goal is to grow a 600+ pound pumpkin next year than doing soil prep now, getting 400+ square feet of soil balanced, getting some quality Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds from a competitive grower, reading up on how to grow giant pumpkins, burying the vines as they grow so that they can root then giving the plant some granular fertilizer and some foliar applications during the season and you should easily do just that. 

If your goal is to grow a 1,000+ pound pumpkin then it takes a good seed to do that sometimes.  Every seed in a pumpkin has different genetics.  My plants this year is a good example of how genetics determines growth.  Both of my plants are about the same size at about 500 sq feet each.  I try hard to make sure that the entire growing area (all 500 square feet) is great soil and evenly built up.  This year I got a little too much nitrogen on the 1775 plant side and that cost me but otherwise everything is exactly the same for both plants.  However, my 1421 pumpkin is going to end up around 1,400+ pounds and the other pumpkin is going to end up around 700+ pounds.  The difference: genetics!  Some plants just want to grow pumpkins and some plants do not.

The other piece of growing a 1,000+ pound pumpkin is hard work in the patch before and during the season, good weather and experience.  With experience you can recognize problems before they happen and know what to do for them when they do happen.  A lot of giant pumpkin growing is mitigating risk and that only comes with time and advice from other growers so continue to ask lots of good questions.

I'll let you know what you have to do to grow a 1,500+ pound pumpkin when I get there.  I'm hoping my big pumpkin will get there this year.  There really aren't any secrets to growing a giant but there are about 700 different things you need to learn to do well to get there along with a little luck."

This evening I gave both pumpkin plants some foliar fish & seaweed along with a fairly heavy dose of 0-1-1 and a little multimineral.