Wednesday, July 21, 2010

It's A Long Season and Getting Longer

I checked the stumps today on both pumpkin plants and found a problem with the 1161 plant. There was the very beginnings of some rot around the base of the stump. I cleaned up the area, pulled a touch of dirty from around the stump, cleared out some leaves in the area of the stump so it could get more sun and put on a 30% dilution of bleach to kill whatever is eating at it and then patted it dry. This year has sure been a battle. My first season was nearly trouble free except for some minor hail damage. If I can have a pumpkin to take to the scale at the end of the season it will be called a success.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

My grande hasn't grown in a few days and it's starting to soften up. It is done and over? Should I cull it and concentrate on another pumpkin that's on the same plant? Tks

Anonymous said...

Help a local out! I just popped my pumpkins belly button off (blossomed end) and she started weeping! I dried the area and applied some captans, will she survive ! Help I'm stressing out,!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

It will survive for a while then you will find that it is leaking air to the inside. Had one last year just like it.

Anonymous said...

How can I get a est. weight of my pumpkin by measuring it? Tks!

Anonymous said...

I did the same thing that you did last year. I kept putting a fungicide on it. A crack formed there, it grew to better than 700 lbs before going down. There was very few seed (10)that developed. It was black on the inside. Good luck. I later wished that I had followed my instincts and culled it right away.

Anonymous said...

I did the same thing that you did last year. I kept putting a fungicide on it. A crack formed there, it grew to better than 700 lbs before going down. There was very few seed (10)that developed. It was black on the inside. Good luck. I later wished that I had followed my instincts and culled it right away.

Jamie said...

To answer the first question all Grande's are soft. (Lol - don't mean to make fun at the situation. More of a poke at the Wiz and Biz).

Sorry to say the pumpkin has aborted. It happens and with some of the high heat we have had it happens a lot.

To answer the 2nd question, cleaning it, drying it off, putting a 20% solution of bleach on it and captan is a good idea. After that you will just have to wait and see if it survives. There is a good chance it could survive. Just depends on how deep the wound is and if you can kill the bacteria eating at it.

Third question. To get the estimation charts for pumpkin weight go to www.gvgo.ca/articles/ and click the 2008 Stellflug 91-450" OTT Chart link. Then read this article on how to do the measurements: http://www.bigpumpkins.com/viewarticle.asp?id=37&gid=4