The subject is Docgipe,s Giant Pumpkin. Follow the complete story of what goes on in my backyard this Spring and Summer. There will be everything from giant pumpkins to burnt doggies, a bit of hardscaping and anything else that happens here. If a pink elephant appears you will see it first there on the diary....even ahead of CNN or FOX NEWS. There are twenty posts or more for the opening of 2008.
This message was edited Apr 1, 2008 3:50 PM
I STARTED A DIARY
If you go beyond pink elephants there are always plaid porcupines. Is the diary under your user name?
Not sure I can answer your question. It's in the Gardening Blog heading of Docgipe's Giant Pumpkin.
OK so you did answer the question.
http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/t/docgipe/8713/
If it wouldn't be letting out any trade secrets, what do you plant for a winter cover crop, please?
We in the Northeast have few choices. Most of us use winter rye. Texas is big and has many climates. If you can grow a legume or a vetch that would be the way to go for your best returns far better than what we can grow in every way.
Last year the whole area around here could not get or ran out of winter rye early. Some claimed it all went abroad where the returns for the crop were greater than could be achieved here. I could not find any at all. I went to a poor second choice of winter wheat. This year I already have purchased the five pounds I need. I saw it in a catalog and captured it early.
If at any time we are faced with no satisfactory cover crop we need to think in terms of an over winter mulch of some organic material. At this hour I would use leaves. There is a likelyhood that all wood products will be going into compressed pellets. Everything but the bark has already gone to that market. Farmers are having difficulty getting sawdust for bedding. We are indeed in a changing world with changing demands and needs.
Personal opinion is we have become a "consuming" society with little or no eye to the future... Just pods' opinion!
Thanks for the cover crop info. I have been reading and think you are right ~ vetch will be the choice for here. Thank you.
There was one time when I was in deep guanna and all wrong! I woke up the next morning believing I had just been self defeating by my own incorrect opinions. :) Glad to help to whatever extent I can.
doc, I enjoyed your blog - will be rooting for the big one!
Good! Yesterday I did not know what a blog was......today I are one. :)
Does that mean I am now a Blogist?
Sounds like a religion.
Now that is a class religion. If I run for office how do I hide that? Do you think it will usurp the pumpkin insanity which approaches another religion. I'm forever on my knees for some reason.
You can combine the two and use your record-breaking pumpkin as your campaign vehicle.
OK...........that's a dandy idea. May be a possible third party issue entangled in there somehow. I think I can spread the crap about as good as any I see coming down lately. I would not really run for any city top seat unless it had four legs and I could ride it. I would'nt do this if I thought I was not qualified. :)
You can spread the crap to any gardener who'll take it!
docgipe, What about Crimson Clover http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2230/
Is that good for the North too.
Love your Granny Swatch house jacket!!
~* Robin
Clover is excellent if you are able to let it in the ground and growing for a year. It would be far better than winter rye grass. It could be used between wide rows as is suggested by some. Here again I see more work than I want to do. Clover is a sun loving crop. Between the rows is often under the canopy of the garden. Winter rye grass makes up fast in the fall, rests over winter and gives you lots of fast growth in the early spring. I think it best for that short time period in our gardening needs.
In the Northeast ground covers are best achieved using hay, leaves or straw in the order of my choices.
Rule of thumb is to keep something growing or covering the ground at all times. Whatever grows or rots quickly is best to build soil health and/or good structure. Think soil first and the plants of your dreams will follow. If you can trust your soil building intents just stop using manufactured fertilizers and never look back. You will be glad you did.
docgipe,
Thank you very much for the Info! I think I'll be growing more winter rye grass. I'll get it from my local Agway.
When do "turn it over" for planting your veggies? Do you look for inches (what height) or the time of season?
I'm not trying to change the subject of your post; but I hope you'll bear with me, seeing that you are wiser about the soil info.
~* Robin
Height is what the specific Spring will give you. If it gets to tall weed wack it before tilling it in. If it has three weeks or longer the rotting process will be far enough along to not be tieing up anything your plants need to grow. If per chance you do get yellow lettuce one foliar feeding with a product like the inexpensive liquid Ironite will be a satisfactory Rx. I say this because both we and Mother Nature sometime mess up. We can till to late or till to much in on occasion. On occasion Mother can give us a long cold Spring.
I am agressive with fall leaves, cover crop being lightly fertilized. Maybe once in five years I get carried away doing to much adding of organic matter. Using the liquid Ironite or other Mirical Whipps as a foliar feeding can save the day for a gardener. This is the 2% I say I lie about and is specifically one of the reasons you hear me avoid the claim that I grow organically. I am pretty darn close but not quite. I try to say this once in awhile so I don't get shot out of my saintly perch. :)
Thank you once again, docgipe.
I don't mess around too much with the fall leaves; 'iffin that's what they wanna do, that's fine by me. I'd just as soon mow 'em over as a supplement to my part of the lawn (such a small area. lol) The ones that fall into the area with my bulbs; I leave 'em be. That's why they're called leaves. Thank God for "heavenly mulch."
I DO collect leaves & green matter from other sources that are organic to put into my mulch making Tumbler though. I really get the tumbler cooking by adding a few bags of store bought composted manure in the springtime! I added a 5 lb. bag of a product called "Green Sand" to it this year though.
Nice chatting with you.
~* Robin
Green Sand is one fine trace element product. I like to mix it up but alternating trace element sources by using a different product in a three year rotation of them. I also use granular Ironite and Azomite by Fertrell in the rotation.
amazing pumpkins... do you have to get them off the ground while they grow.... or just sit on the soil?
Hey, that was lots of fun! I'll be checkin in on those pumpkins! Sarah
Dear Doc,
Love your blog. The world for 2007 was 1689 pound Atlantic Giant grown by Joe Jutras from RI. This came in to the Topsfield Fair Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off in October 2007. Topsfield, MA is about 15 miles north of here as the crow flies and my fave part of the fair is to go and watch the giant pumpkin weigh-off. It has "grown" over the years from a bunch of guys moving the pumpkins to the scale with tarps to pallets and forklifts. They pass out a scorecard with the entrant's names and you get to record the weight of each fruit as it comes to the scale. Love those GPs!
Martha
I will try to keep my blog or diary light and not delve to deeply into records and dozens of different ideas how they were achieved. The general practice of the growers of the last five world records has been all organic leanings. It's the stuff I talk about on our threads.
.......I know most of the key players in the world of Giant Pumpkins. I council with some of them who think as I do about growing things. Thank you for posting the near 1700 pound record by Joe Jutras.
About a year ago I posted the aerobic brewer on another site. Over forty growers from just about everywhere said they would be making aerobic tea this summer. I am just now begining to hear from some builders of the system.
I know it takes a wonderful amount of commitment to grow GPs. I have great fun when I get to the competitions. I am always amazed by them. Every time. We have a local gentleman who grows them for the competition and he puts his secondary back up pumpkin on the lawn at town hall for Halloween and Thanksgiving and he gives his tertiary back up pumpkin to a local ice/sand/wood/pumpkin sculptor who has appeared on the Today show. The man carves the GP and exhibits it on his front lawn. Since he lives on the corner of two main streets here in Saugus, his front lawn is his gallery. Do you know of anyone who cooks and eats their GPs?
Martha
The giants are often grown with very agressive daily feeding. The ultimate in assumed care above the ground includes more than ordinary use of insecticides and fungicides. Some guys even use herbicides. They have been grown under agressive management by use of harsh chemicals as well as largely healthy patch practices. Either way the plant produces a pumpkin by exceedingly fast growing processes. In the case of pumpkins going for two tons now I know of none that would by choice be eaten. Cows love them. Like many very large grown fruits they are beyond what we call good eating. If one wants to grow a pumpkin pie one should stick with seed that produces the well known quality pie pumpkins from the seed catalogs. Carving or other foolish things done with Giants is a more noble activity. Pumpkin Regattas are becoming attractive activities. In Canada last summer when man went to singing "pumpkins away my boys" some ten thousand spectators came to wittness the foolishness. This is right up there close to insane. Something like this can be a very desirable promotion late fall when all normal things are put away for the winter.
Growth of the Atlantic Giant Pumpkin is flat out crazy. Most growers pollinate the female by hand to protect the genetics management on or about the first of June. At that point the female shows a small sized yellow ball at the base of the flower. Movement and fast growth is instant. Golf Ball comes within two days. Basket ball comes up weighing about a hundred pounds in about two more weeks. That is the last time you can pick it up and reposition it on the vine. All the rest happens by the first of October. I will have been growing about a hundred to a hundred and twenty days. How big is big? I doubt we will be able to put a 2000 lb. pumpkin on the back of a Ford 250. Even if we could the gross weight permitted would be exceeded and the center of gravity would make the ride dangerous.
I spoke to Mother Nature's spirits of the four winds just yesterday. I mentioned the fact that my trailer has a gross of 3500. We could safely haul the first one ton fruit to the weigh off. Within
half an hour the sun was burried in a dark sky and it started raining. I'm not sure what that meant.