Dills Atlantic Giant Pumpkins Part 3

Came here from http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1009518/

1081 Leonzi

S-S: 77
F-B: 74
C: 120
OTT: 271
Total est weight = 405.6 Lbs ----- WOOHOO
Weight gain = 21.3 lbs
Target Weight: 700 Lbs
Weight to go: 294.4 Lbs

1112 Holland

S-S: 57
F-B: 55
C: 84
OTT: 196
Total est weight = 161.3 Lbs
Weight gain = 4.5
Target Weight: 700 Lbs
Weight to go: 538.7 Lbs


I forgot to add a picture for the topic.

This message was edited Jul 11, 2009 4:55 PM

1081 Leonzi

S-S: 78
F-B: 75
C: 121
OTT: 274
Total est weight = 418.8 Lbs
Weight gain = 13.1 lbs
Target Weight: 700 Lbs
Weight to go: 281.2 Lbs

1112 Holland

S-S: 58
F-B: 55
C: 84
OTT: 197
Total est weight = 163.6 Lbs
Weight gain = 2.3
Target Weight: 700 Lbs
Weight to go: 536.4 Lbs

that Leonzi is scooten.


took some pic of the plants. I need a pumpkin. (just a few more days)

898

stump end view----board leading to stump to check for any damages or problems with stump on 898 holland. Secondaries are longer on the North side of the plant. Growers normally grow their plants running North --South. But since my patch was narrow East-West, I had to grow it east west. The Flag pattern may have been a better choice of patterns in this case.

Male Blossom
on the 898 holland

pretty-big

The 275 main vine has reached the 4ft mark this evening and only 26 days from the sow date. 3wks 5 days. Someone told me that was Crazy. I don't know what to say. Its a scooten. Hope a pumpkin does too. A few leaves on the 275 have fallen over to the ground. Maybe they were growing too fast and got top heavy before the stems could support them????????????? the plant actually looks the same as it did a few days ago, just longer.

no pics of the 820* today. Maybe tomorrow after I bury the vines.
It is my problem child. It is a scraggly plant. It had small skinny leaves when lovelace grew it too. I am not happy with the whole plant since the dog chopped its head off. The first female blossom on the 1st primary is at 9 ft right now---and wont be ready to pollinate til late this week--------weekend maybe. The first female on the 2nd primary vine is at only 6 feet and that is not a good location. I do not think the plant is ready to grow squash yet but will pollinate every female on the two primaries until much later and have not decided yet if I will grow 2 fruits or 1 fruit on the plant.
To Be or Not to Be.
A man named John Castellucci grew 4 primary vines on one plant in 1997. He grew a pumpkin on each primary vine. Each primary vine had its own secondary vines to feed each pumpkin. He had "close" to 2800 pounds of pumpkin on that one plant. 3 of them were estimated over 600 pounds, and 1 was weighed in at 733 pounds.
To Be or Not to Be

Had a bad storm during the night. It wrecked the 820 plant. That poor plant has been through Heck.
The females on the 820 are slow to reach pollination maturity and I dought the first ones make it. They are the same size as my last pic of them.
I cannot bury vines on the 820* yet. The soil is too wet. I may try this evening.
Since the plant is growing differently than I originally planned due to the main breakage, I have to reroute the barrier fence and pull up some corn stalks and let the vines take over in that area.

I might be in trouble with the 898 Female. It will be ready to pollinate tomorrow and the males don't look ready. Maybe by this evening they will look better. Worried.
If I don't have any males, I may pout. The female looks so good. Even has a long stem and I was thrilled about that.

I will be up before the chickens in the morning with my handy dandy flash light. The temps outside will spike tomorrow---of all days------then lower a little for the next few days. I will take pics of how I will be cooling the female for pollination.
I have not buried vines on the 898 either in a few days and they have been growing fast.
898 female and vines that need to be buried.

this is a Vine Split on a secondary vine of the 275 main vine.
Normally they heal over and do just fine. It has to stay dry and airy. Sometimes they may get an infection------and infection will rot the stump since it is so close to the stump. Worried.
I do have some Captan ( powder fungicide). It needs to dry out from the rain, then I will sprinkle some captan on the split. I will cut away some leaves to allow air flow and sunlight.



This message was edited Jul 14, 2009 7:50 AM

Maybe it won't open for another day.

Last night I went out and tied 3 male blossom closed and tied the female closed.
Pollinated at 6:35 am. Temps outside at the time were 69 degrees.
Female had 4 segments. Was not a perfect segment set. 11ft out.

After the female was pollinated, I tied it shut again. The high temps for today will be around 91*F. Should be no higher than 90 so it wont be bad.
The next female is at the 14ft mark. Should be ready to pollinate by this weekend hopefully. The weekend high temps will be around 85* thanks to the northern cool front coming through. Thats abnormal for this time of the year.

They're scooten.

Several of my regular-sized pumpkins did in fact pollinate, so I'm pretty happy about that. But then I saw a squash vine borer flying around, and I'm worried for the pumpkins, zucchini, yellow squash - even the melons and cukes, some say, are susceptible. I'm going up there at lunch to look for eggs.

Cricket.. Ya poor thing. After all ya goign through I sure hope ya get yoru pumpkins. Have ya decided yet is it to be or not to be. LOL

On the "to be or not to be" : I will grow squash where ever i can get one to pollinate for a while then decide later after they grow a couple weeks.

Squash Vine Borers: I know it may sound extreme, but you can build a wood frame cage lined with screen for the regular squash plants. As for the long vines, all you can do is bury the vines.(except the trunk/stump)
Me and some other pumpkin growers were flirting with the idea of building a screened in patch. Mine is pretty much half way screened in with the shade clothes.
So far I have 3 jack-0-latern pumpkin plants. They are young. I will transplant them to the patch this evening. I cannot wait for homemade pumpkin pie. I have the stuff to make pumpkin pie now-------from a can. It's good year around.

The thermo outside says its a lot hotter than what the weather channel says it will be.
Thermo says it is 93 out there. With the ice and fan at wee pumpkin, the thermo says it is 81. Set out 4 bottles of ice. 2 in front of fan blowing on female, 2 directly behind female. Using a chair to shade the female.
Have to change out the ice bottles every 2 hours and thats not often enough. This is the first day that the 898 had a few droopy leaves (flaggin) But the leaves flaggin are the leaves that grew during our cloudy rain spell we had the past couple of days. The sun is harsh on them. I been misting.

This is my other Tshirt and coffee mug print.
Vines really do grow out of control. Year before last, I had some vines that grew up a t-post 4ft high. Had females at the top. I cut them off-----should've let them keep growing.

820* plant, took the fence down, pulled up the corn. Now I have to pull grass and till the soil so the vines can wander further out.

yesterdays pic.

You can do that cause you hand-pollinate, don't need bees.

My season may be over, for the last 2 days I have had no measurable growth in the patch. Both the 1081 and the 1112 haven't grown much, (1/2 inch maybe) but it's been 100* for 4 days and we have another one coming.

I am watering for 4 hours a day now just trying to get enough water to keep the soil damp.

The screen may be good but SVB's will live in the soil all winter, I wuld use GrubX to kill those this fall.

Noooo. That is sudden. Surely Not. I'm in shock. Hoping they pick up pace for you. Jim B had a few to slow down on him once, a few days later they picked up pace again. Hang in there. Crossing fingers for ya.

I did not know that SVB lived in the soil..... I wont forget that info.

898 1st female , 1 DAP (day after pollination)

275 main vine is 6ft 4 inches long this morning. Has two females showing at end of vine.

275 VanHook females. First one looks oblong. John Van Hook says his 275 pumpkin looks like a yellow watermelon. Not what I would want a pumpkin to look like---will be interesting to see how this turns out.

She looks very Dr. Seussish, with her flower pinned up like that.

*fingers crossed for amiga's pumpkins*

amiga.. can ya do mor eice and fans at all to try and help cool the vine. Hope it just a temp thing too liek maybe it grew so fast that now it takign a breather before starting back up again.

The ground here is very dry, no rain last month and 100* temps for a week.

I have the timers reset for more water, I just hope it starts back up again.

I have maybe a small amont of growth today, rain is in the forecast.

OK and TX are sooo hot lately. I don't know how yall can breath. Got any sink drains you can run out there? I saw on weather channel how they expect that heat to push further west and you should get some lower temps.

We got a nice rain this morning. Of course it broke a few more leaves on the 820 and some on the 275. But the 275 had leaves that were right at 2 1/2 feet tall. Much taller than a 5 gallon bucket. They fell.
Leaves on 898 are just fine.
So is the wee one.

898 #1 female, 2 DAP, nearly the size of tennis ball.

I put the tennis ball behind the female to see how much ball i could see.
ball was almost touching the female----so its pretty much accurate.

898 #2 female will be ready to pollinate tomorrow with 6 males waiting.. #2 has shorter stem. More round. Sits at 14ft. Temps will be lower tomorrow. No ice needed.

I may not grow a Pumpkin next year, the stress of worrying about these are hard to take.

My pumpkins showed no growth for 3 days. I reset my timers I watered 3 hours yesterday afternoon, 8 hours last night and 2 more hours today. I have some new growth today.

I have spent a few sleepless nights over my babies. But the 1081 gained 13.4 and the 1112 gained 9.6 lbs, since yesterday.

This pumpkin growin' is serious business.



This message was edited Jul 16, 2009 4:49 PM

That happens to me, too, but I can take diuretics for it.

I completely understand Pat. I have fun growing them.... I think the stress would be less and it would be more fun if there were no competition. Also, as for me, There are a hundred eyeballs watching my pumpkin, a hundred people want to know what its goin to do. People in my neighbor hood and across town. That makes it even more stressful.... I keep telling myself to just have fun. The post master stopped yesterday and said " You sure are goin through a lot of trouble to grow that pumpkin."
I replied " Many people go through a lot of trouble to do some things in life."
I spend money on a pumpkin plant. The man or woman down the road may spend their money on Drugs or sit in a Bar every night. To each their own.

Can't remember if i mentioned the 820* females that were not reaching pollination maturity. Well, they did not and turned yellow. They were cut from the vine. But since then, several have been popping up here and there. I don't care if it grows huge or not, I just want a large green squash. I don't even think they have a giant squash record in Alabama. Funny if they didn't. Mine would be the first one.

So, the 820* Lovelace has a female that should be ready to pollinate Saturday or Sunday. (hoping Saturday) Will have a green female to pollinate about every 2 days for a week.

820* Lovelace, She's pretty. Long stem.

The SR for Pumpkin in Al is 401.5 set in 1996 by Massey Goree of Quinton there is no record for Squash.

http://www.backyardgardener.com/record.html

Yep, Massey Goree is nice man. He lives in the same County as I do. He has moved from the Quinton ARea which I use to live there too. Quinton is normally called Pumpkin Center. They use to grow fields and fields of pumpkins there. It has been 2 years since I talked to Massey.

So I got up this morning and pollinated. 898 2nd female. She has 5 segments. They are not perfectly lined segments, but definitely 5 segments. Ended up with 7 males to pollinate with. If she does not set, it won't be cause she didn't have enough pollen!

898 2nd female, 14 ft out, 5 ugly segments X self with 7 males. 6:10 am, cloudy morning. more rounder female than #1.

So far, if the 2nd female sets, she will be the better choice between the two.
1st, she is further out , more plant to feed the pumpkin.
2nd, she has more segments than #1.
3rd, she is round, #1 oblong. Most say round weighs more than oblong.----but sometimes round get top heavy and can cause more fruit splits from the weight. Some prefer oblong. I like round cause it looks more like a pumpkin instead of a watermelon.