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Fresno, CA

nascar fan,

I'd like to hear more about how you beat the heat in Highland, CA. Have you been able to get decent growth rates? My email is j dot endlesstrail at gmail dot com.

-j-

7/21/2009 3:38:07 PM

Highland, Ca

I'll tell you what Endless Trail, when I have real growth rates I will share them with you, My first pollinations were not a big success in june, I had one started out at about 13 feet on the main and one on a secondary at about ten feet. Well I asked a question about that and Pap answered that I should keep the one on the main and get rid of the one secondary (at least that's what I got out of it)sound advice I think,I cut the secondary from the main and left the pumpkin on the vine with the vine buried it is still hanging in there,a little growth each day, probably a nice porch pumpkin but the one on the main must not have been pollinated so it got soft on the bottom and croaked. Now I just pollinated three out at 23,25 and 27 feet all in the last week, I will keep you updated,I have shade cloth covering the entire 500 square feet and have misters stating at 10:30 to about 5:00 oclock about twenty minutes apart seems to make them happy so far of course my wife thinks I'm am looney and have been the butt end of many jokes as our neighbors get together for a Friday night beer but I will show them.

7/21/2009 7:57:30 PM

Colorado Springs, Co ([email protected])

lol, you keep on a going nascar fan. when you get the 1000 pounder, place it right in front of their garage door so when they try to leave the next day, there will be a big surprise waiting on them lol

7/21/2009 8:27:47 PM

Fresno, CA

I know what you mean nascar fan. My wife thinks I am looney too. Fortunately my neighbors can't see my patch and don't know how looney I am. I didn't consider misters or cloth until about 2 weeks ago. I put in misters a week ago and just added some shade cloth to plant 1 a couple days ago. Plant 2 has neither misters nor shade (yet). Plant 1 has a verrry slow growing 85 pound pumpkin that pollinated in early June and plant 2 has a pumpkin about a week old maybe. Each plant has about 200 square feet. My misters only come on every hour. I'm thinking next year I'm going to have to upgrade that and get shade in first thing in the season. The reason I ask about growth rates is that mine are somewhat glacial: about 1 lb/day. I was averaging about 4 lb/day until the temp went over 103. It's tough finding information on hot weather (100+) growing so I'm looking out for people who know. Thank you for describing your patch this year.

7/21/2009 9:12:25 PM

Highland, Ca

Thanks Will, heck of an idea on how to handle them,and Endless looks like we are in the same boat, now I know that pumpkins grow faster if they stay warm at night too,but what about those daytime temps? Is there a point that they might get so warm that it affects growth rate? We will figure it out,so keep at it

7/22/2009 8:16:08 AM