I went to the 2010 New Mexico State Fair yesterday and won first place for my littlest giant pumpkin and first and second place for my marrows (zucchinis). It was fun seeing all the different veggies on display and which ones won. Next stop-Great Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC) Weigh-Off in Colorado Springs, CO with my biggest pumpkin and marrow on October 2.
1st place-giant pumpkin 2010
1st and 2nd place-zucchini 2010
‘Kong’ has grown to 360 lbs. It is now my PB (personal best), still putting on weight and looking good. I wonder what it will end up at. I’m going to the Oct 2 Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC) weigh-off in Colorado Springs, CO. The New Mexico State Record is 404 and with this warm weather I have a chance to break it. A long shot but still a chance. So put a word out to the universe asking for Kong to break the state record! GROW KONG GROW!!!
‘Kong’, my only giant pumpkin left, hit 278 lbs tonight. (I’m putting ‘Harpie’ in the NM State Fair tomorrow-it was much smaller at around 100 lbs). If ‘Kong’ can put on 6 lbs a day till the weigh-off, I can beat the current New Mexico State Record. It’s been putting on 8-12 lbs daily for awhile but I know it will slow down to a crawl this month. Hopefully I still have 2 or more weeks of good weight gain before the crawl. Grow nagua, grow…
Here is a mini slide show of ‘Kong’, my biggest giant pumpkin right now. There is an apple on it for perspective. Kong is 35 days old and 228 lbs as of tonight. It’s been putting on between 12-17 lbs a day. I said a day! 17 lbs is the best weight gain in a single day I have ever had with a giant pumpkin. I know others have greater gains but we have harsher conditions and shorter growing season here. Kong is starting to get longer and bumpier. I like its looks! I love going out after work and measuring them every evening. You can actually see a difference from day to day. It is mind blowing!
‘Harpie’, my other big pumpkin, is beautiful, being perfectly round and not gnarly like Kong. It is at 100 lbs and its weight gain varies from 4-10 lbs a day. I will post pictures of it later.
It has been around 47 degrees during this past week so I have to put a blanket on both of the pumpkins over their row cover so they don’t loose so much heat at night. The pros say to blanket them when the temperature gets below 60 degrees at night. That way they don’t have to wait to warm up in the morning to continue growing. The row cover is to provide shade during the day (think like a light weight covering) so their skins don’t get hard. It is easier for them to grow when their skin is soft.
This is my pumpkin mantra, “Grow Naguas, grow” (grow pumpkins, grow). I say it everynight when leaving the pumpkin patch!
I’ve been getting ready for my first Giant Veggie Garden Tour for the Santa Fe Master Gardeners group next Sunday from 9am-12 noon. I have 3 giant marrows, one being around 30+ lbs, 2 giant pumpkins, many giant sunflowers, and a couple of giant tomatoes (still green). I’m cleaning up, trimming and generally sprucing up the garden. By the time they come next Sunday I should be ready. Seems like there is always something to do in a garden no matter the size. Fall is definitely in the air with the nights cooling off into the high 40-50s. Daytime temperatures are in the 80s. Perfect weather to be in the garden…
My 895 Grande pumpkin whom I’ve now named ‘Kong’ (as in King) is 24 days old and has put on 15 lbs a day for the last 2 days! Kong is long and oval shaped and just hit 105 today. My 925 N. Harp whom I’ve named ‘Harpie’ is 58 lbs and is perfectly round and beautiful, but the plant doesn’t have that many leaves while the Grande plant has an enormous amount of leaves. I’m excited about the Grande pumpkin, Kong. 6 or 7 weeks to weigh-off. Grow nagua, grow..
949 N. Harp flower
949 Harp pumpkin/20 lbs on 8-14
As Christy Harp, the new giant pumpkin world record holder (1725 lbs) once said, “Growing giant pumpkins-it’s not a hobby, it’s an obsession!” I have to agree because once you get some growing, it is so much fun to watch and I mean literally! The first photos are of my biggest on the N.Harp plant. Look how round it is.
895 Grande female flower
The other pictures are of my biggest pumpkin from the Grande 895 plant. Look how oval it is. I’ve shown the beginning pic and current pic-they are pretty much the same shape as when I first pollinated them. When I went out the other evening and measured those pumpkins, the 895 Grande had put on 3.5 inches in girth from the evening before. That’s in 12 hours. I have more pumpkins coming on but those 2 are my biggest and are now 20 and 25 lbs-small for giant pumpkins but they are only babies and will grow extremely fast in August and September. I haven’t named them yet but will this week. (yes I name them. Any veggie you grow for 5-6 months and grows this fast deserves a name) It has begun..
895 Grande/25 lbs on 08-14
Squash bug adult-photo courtesy University of Minnesota
Well it’s that time of year-Squash bugs Ughh! You can control squash bugs in your organic garden. Here are some ORGANIC things you can do to deter squash bugs:
-Plant a crop late in the season if possible. Many areas of the country only have one generation of squash bugs and if you plant later you may miss them. If you live in the south where they have 2 generations, read on..
squash bug nymphs-photo courtesy University of Minnesota
–Cover your plants with row cover to keep them off. This works beautifully but you may have to piece some row covers together to cover some of the larger plants. I use clothes pins to clip them together.
-Use Neem. It is an organic pesticide (and an added benefit is a fungicide). It must be sprayed very early before the bees come out or at dusk when they aren’t around as it won’t hurt them if it is not a direct hit as they only visit the flowers and it is a contact spray. I think it mostly helps deter the squash bug.
squash bug eggs
-Inspection, hand picking and kill the little buggars. (now you know how strongly I feel about them) By far the most labor intensive but very effective. I hate to handle squash bugs (or any bug-I’m squeamish) so I use gloves, a bucket of soapy water (it drowns them) and inspect each leaf underneath to look for nymphs, eggs, or adults. The adults I throw in the soapy water and if a leaf is really loaded with nymphs, I cut it off and throw it in the soapy water otherwise I just squish them. For the eggs (they are a cluster of rust colored eggs attached to the underneath side of the leaves) I usually just tear off or cut out that portion of the leaf (it won’t hurt it) and throw them into the soapy water. The key to keeping it under control, is to catch them before they multiply too much. I looked up the life cycle online of the squash but and it goes from egg to nymph in 7-10 days so if you get out there every 7 days you will catch them before they get out of control and multiply. Most people wait too late. Get out there and look at your plants!
-Companion planting. I think it was in ‘Organic Gardening Magazine that I read under ‘letter to the editors’, that a lady wrote in to say that you could deter squash bugs on pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash and marrows with diluted/strained onion juice. Evidently just grind one or two up, put it in gallon of water and strain the onions out so your sprayer doesn’t clog. Well she went on to write that doing that was too much work and she plants onions bulbs with her squash every year and hasn’t seen a squash bug since. Well I did the same for my summer squashes, but not for my winter squashes. There have been no squash bugs on the summer squash but I found one on the marrow which means there will be more. I told one of friends that owns a garden nursery about the onions and he said it was too late to plant onions but he was going to throw some chopped onions out in his patch. I’m doing the same today for the marrow and winter squash and will let you know what happens! It can’t hurt and maybe it’ll work!
I actually measured the baby pumpkin on the N. Harp main vine yesterday and today because it is starting to grow (at least for now). It is about the size of a soccer ball now. Circumference was 27″ yesterday and today it was 28.5″. A gain of 1.5 inches in 24 hours . This evening I measured using the OTT method which is more accurate and Harp’s total measurement was 51.5 and the 895 Grande main was 47 OTT. The measuring chart doesn’t go down that low so I’m not sure how much they weigh yet but should sometime this week as they start to really grow.
We’ve been getting so much rain lately that I am worried about Powdery Mildew (PM) and other fungal and bacterial diseases caused by too much rain. It is a blessed curse. The garden takes off and really grows from all the rain but the conditions are right for PM so I am trying to take precautions by doing several things to be as preventative as possible.
First I’m cleaning out all dead or yellow leaves that are usually underneath the canopy of the squashes and beans and tomatoes. I use clippers to cut out the dead stems or yellow leaves (like on the tomatoes) and I sterilize them between each plant so not to spread any diseases that the plant may have that I don’t know about yet. The idea is to clean up under the canopy of leaves and provide more air space. I have a small container that I fill with 4 cups of water and I put in about 1/4 cup bleach and use this as a disinfectant for my clippers and gloves. I just dip my clippers and hand with my glove into the container and then move onto the next plant. You can use isopropyl alcohol instead but you could go through a lot of alcohol and the bleach works just as well. The next thing I do is spray weekly with Neem and baking soda or instead use copper fungicide which is stronger but still organic. I think the Neem and baking soda are more preventative and if you get some fungal diseases then the copper can kill it. Copper is organic but one still needs to follow the directions but you can spray it right up to the day of harvest. All of these need to be sprayed on both the top and underneath the leaves and have to be resprayed if it rains. The third thing I’m doing this year is using a biofungicide that is used as a drench. This is new to me but it is just certain soil organisms that help the plant ward off many fungal and bacterial diseases. I’m using it on my giant pumpkins and will let you know how they do. Another biofungicide is Mycostop which is also suppose to do the same thing. There may be others out there, just google biofungicides.
Ok, here’s the skivvy on giant pumpkin sex 101. I’ve been talking about giant pumpkin pollination a lot and have been giving bits and pieces of info and so want to be clear about WHY we choose to pollinate them and HOW we hand pollinate giant pumpkins.
First WHY do we pollinate them?
If I was growing regular pumpkins I wouldn’t pollinate them, I’d just let the bees do it but giant pumpkin growers want to know what genetic material is being passed from the male flower to the female flower of a pumpkin. why? Because it doesn’t affect this season’s pumpkin, but the next year’s seeds of that pumpkin. That way we can grow bigger pumpkins, prettier pumpkins, oranger pumpkins, rounder pumpkins, etc. next year. If we let the bees do it, we wouldn’t know which pumpkin plant the pollen came from as the bees visit many flowers from many plants.
So we grow several different pumpkins from seeds from different giant pumpkin growers. For instance, I have 3 growing right now and one that I hand pollinated the other day was from the seed of a 895 lb pumpkin seed grown by a grower named Grande in 2009 (hence it is called an 895 Grande 09) and I crossed that female flower with the male flower from a seed of a 945 lb pumpkin seed grown by a grower named N. Harp in 2010 (hence it is called 945 N.Harp 10). Why would I do it? I’m trying to cross 2 top notched pumpkins and see what I can get. I hope to get a round really orange pumpkin with great weight. The 895 Grande was really pretty but the 945 N. Harp came from great genetics. I know which pumpkins they came from because those growers list that with their seed. I can also look up the grandparents as well. If we let the bees do it, we would not have this information to help us decide.
Second question is HOW we do we hand pollinate the female flower?
male flower side view
female flower side view
First all pumpkins produce both male and female flowers on each plant. The male flowers show up first and then the female flowers start showing up. I watch the closed green female flowers closely for when they start to get big and slightly yellow orange on the tip of the flower but the flower is still closed. When I see that, I know it will OPEN THE NEXT MORNING. So I cover it the night before and some male flowers as well so the bees won’t get to it first with unknown pumpkin pollen. Then I get up EARLY the next morning as we have a 4 HOUR
male flower inside with stamen
female flower inside with stigma
WINDOW TO POLLINATE THE FEMALE
FLOWER, (GENERALLY 6-10AM) and find some newly opened MALE flowers (or uncover the ones from the night before) from the plant I want to cross the female flower with. It could be from the same pumpkin plant or a different one. Now remember we can tell the female flowers because it looks like a little pumpkin is attached at the base of the flower while the male flowers are on skinny stems only. See pictures. Also the inside of male and female flowers are different and when the flowers are open you can see the differences. Male flowers have stamens (kind of look like a penis-I told you we would talk sex) that have the pollen on it which looks like grains of powder all over it. The female flowers have a stigma (think vulva) and if the timing is right (remember 4 hour time period) will accept the pollen from the male flower.
male flower with petals peeled off revealing the stamen
So as a giant pumpkin grower I take a male flower and peel off the petals leaving the stamen and take that flower and brush the stamen loaded with pollen like a paintbrush on the inside of the stigma and also around the outside of the stigma as well. Then I close up the female flower with a twistie so no other pollen can get in. I keep it closed for one day and take off the twistie afterwards and wait to see if the pollination takes which could take quite a few days. Sometimes they abort when they are a little smaller than the size of a basketball.
male stamen pollinating female stigma like a paintbrush
Inside each female flower are many immature eggs waiting inside immature seeds holding half the genetic material. The pollen holds the other half of the genetic material. If the female receives the pollen, the pollen will germinate and move down inside the stigma to the egg within an immature seed and fuse its genetic material with the genetic material of the egg stored in that immature seed inside that tiny pumpkin. PRESTO! FERTILIZATION has taken place. Every egg fertilized becomes a a viable future seed. And every seed fertilized holds the genetic material for a future pumpkin If not enough pollen as passed, the baby pumpkin will self abort. (or if it is too hot-90 degrees or hotter, they can abort too) COOL, HUH?! The so next time you need to talk to your kids about sex, you can talk pumpkin sex as an example!
Ok, have I given you too much info? I figure this way we won’t have to go over this again.!
945 N. Harp 5 segment stigma
So the 945 N. Harp pumpkin flower that I said was almost ready to open, did this morning as pictured above. That was really fast to open. So I got some male flowers off the same plant that had pollen and broke them off, stripped away the petals and used them like a little paintbrush to go all around the outside and also inside the stigma. Notice this stigma has 5 segments. Most big pumpkins have 4 or 5 segments and some have 6 but many of the six segment ones abort due to insufficient pollination.
female flower with male flowers around it after hand pollination
The next picture is of the flower after I hand pollinated it with the ‘spent’ stamens in front of it. I almost feel like smoking a cigarette!
The last picture is where I closed up the flower with a twistie tie so the bees won’t accidentally pollinate it with another pumpkin’s pollen. By controlling pollination, I try to control (somewhat) what the future seeds of the pumpkin will be but it won’t affect this year’s pumpkin and what it will look like only it’s seeds.
pollinated giant pumpkin flower closed with twistie
I will cross pollinate some of the other female blossoms with some of my other pumpkin plants to see what the next generation’s seeds will produce next year. But this one I self pollinated it. So on the same pumpkin plant you could have some pumpkins that were self pollinated and others that were pollinated with other pumpkin plants.
945 N. Harp female blossom almost ready to open-tip turning yellow
Last week I saw a bunch of male flowers, still small and closed but no female flowers. Yesterday I saw some baby female flowers with their baby fruit attached. Yea! Finally!
945 N. Harp female blossom not ready to open-blossom green
Yesterday I noticed the female blossoms are still small and closed but the male flowers are now blossoming and ready for the girls! There are two female blossoms on the main vines and 7 more on secondary vines. The picture on top is almost ready to open as the blossom is just starting to turn a subtle yellow color on the tip. In the other blossom pictures in this post, the blossoms are still very green and will open later. I will pollinate all of them when they are ready and see what I get.
895 Grande female flower
Look how different the shape of the baby pumpkins are on the different pumpkin plants! The 945 N. Harp pumpkin flowers have round little pumpkins attached and the 895 Grande pumpkin flower has an oval shaped pumpkins attached. I think that is so cool that you can start to see the future pumpkin shapes even on the blossoms.
Even though the blossom looks like it has a baby pumpkin attached to it, it still needs to be pollinated which happens after the flower opens. Some will abort if pollination is not complete or if the weather is too hot. I hope the females open this week as the weather is suppose to be perfect for pollination-80’s all week. Not too hot. Anything over 90 is problematic for pollination.
I’m pretty sure that something was a rabbit. I have them covered at night with additional row cover right over the plants themselves to protect them but evidently the wind blew one of them partially off and some of the leaves are half gone. I think it will survive. I think they are getting in under the gates-I’ll have to do something about that! The rabbits aren’t interested once the pumpkin plants get big so I’ll have to keep a close watch on them and covered at night for now…
baby pumpkin plant under low tunnel with shade cloth open
They’re in! The giant pumpkin plants are finally planted in Bri’s Pumpkin Patch. I rototilled the extra composted horse manure in and finished the low tunnels and put them in place Saturday in record breaking 99 degree heat here in Santa Fe. Brutal.
949.5 N.Harp 09 baby pumpkin plant
Sunday I planted my four baby giant pumpkin plants-949.5 N.Harp 09, 817.9 Schieder 09, 1166 Mohr 09, 895 Grande 08. I planted them at a 45 degree angle in the direction they will vine and up to the cots (baby leaves) so their stems will be protected from snapping off in wind. They are just starting to lay down so I built up the soil under them to support them. I placed them in the direction to grow out of the tunnels (remember to look at the second true leaf and that is the direction they will grow). I was worried that even with row cover over the top of the low tunnels, it would still be too hot for the baby giant pumpkin plants so I covered them with additional row cover. I had them in the windowsill but not outside to really harden off so I was afraid they would be really tender to the intense heat. I watered with Super thrive and seaweed fertilizer to help with the shock.
In addition, I went out and got some shade cloth to put over the row cover and to shade the ends. That should help with the temperatures expected to be in the mid to high 90’s the rest of the week. It ended up with much lower temperatures on Sunday- 86 degrees because a storm moved in all day and cooled things off and dumped some nice rain that night. Perfect planting weather! Not too hot. Nice lightning storm too.
4 low tunnels with pumpkins
I checked them last night after a 96 degree day and they are doing well what with all the extra protection. I still have to get in the drip system for the pumpkin plants but that should be easy the way I designed the patch. I also want to put a path around the patch to discourage people from walking through the patch and compacting the soil.
I also planted the last of the eggplants-Thai yellow egg and the winter squashes-Chiogga d’ Marina and Galeux de Eyesines seeds. Finally, I only have to get the corn in…almost there.
giantveggiegardener 