Saturday, April 30, 2022

Pumpkin Plant Sunbathing to Harden them Off.

I try to get my pumpkin plants out from under the lights and in the sun as often as I can before I get them into the ground.  Often if the plants don't get use to the bright sun, heat and wind, they get pretty moody when they get planted.  The leaves will fold like closed umbrellas and to a new grower it looks like they are going to die.  As long as you protect them, they typically snap out of it after a little while as the root system grows out into the soil.  Giving them a little extra water and misting them during hot days also helps.

Usually the first time I put my plants under the sun they begin to look a little droopy after an hour or two.  Today I had the plants out in the sun for the first time for about 4 1/2 hours and they were still doing good.  I had to taken them in because the wind was starting to kick up a little.  I would have liked to get the plants under the sun earlier, but snow, wind and cold temps haven't allowed that until today.

Color for all four plants looks good and growth has been good.  I've been pretty much keeping with the put the pedal to the floor theory and giving the plants just a little fertilizer with each watering.  Can't see I've seen anything negative with that so far.

I hope to get the plants into the ground on Monday.

Watermelon seeds germinated but then I lost both of them in the pots.  Probably didn't keep the soil moist enough.  So I've started two 341 Vial seeds on May 28th.   Both seeds were from the 2nd biggest watermelon ever grown in the world.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Look forward to the next update