Pumpkin patch practices and gourd garden grooming.
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By amandap80
#99761
This makes me so happy to see! My pumpkins failed this year. I need to learn your secrets! They look just gorgeous! :jack_o_lantern:
#99764
Wow, that's a pretty nice harvest. What kind of seeds did you plant, and where did you get them? My results so far this year have been really disappointing. Very small pumpkins, most of which I won't be able to carve.

I love what you have. The stems look really nice and the coloring is perfect.
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By DeadKing
#99768
amandap80 wrote:
Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:08 pm
This makes me so happy to see! My pumpkins failed this year. I need to learn your secrets! They look just gorgeous! :jack_o_lantern:
Thanks, and I do not tell my secrets.. :cool: :lipssealed: Just kidding.. some work, good weather, do not make soil compact by walking to much around them (they like well tilled and aerated soil to have big roots), water it regularly if you do not have watering system or rainy summer :grin: .. and a little bit of knowledge.. :cool: LOL..
Mayor of Haddonfield wrote:Wow, that's a pretty nice harvest. What kind of seeds did you plant, and where did you get them? My results so far this year have been really disappointing. Very small pumpkins, most of which I won't be able to carve.

I love what you have. The stems look really nice and the coloring is perfect.
Varieties that I grow this season are Spartan F1, Zeus F1, and my own hybrids of those two, self crosses, reverse crosses, etc.. Spartan F1 is bigger, PM tolerant and a little bit elongated, and Zeus F1 is round, beautiful pumpkin which is tolerant to powdery mildew and most importantly has good resistance to viruses.. overall great disease tolerance.. even my own F2 crooses show same traits..
I got seeds from Germany and Netherlands shops who seel pumpkin seeds, but ofc. you can find them in US, for example I think that johnnyseeds and harrisseeds have them..
By OrangeOrb
#100093
What a great harvest! You’ve definitely got the growing part figured out. My pumpkins and gourds almost always end up victims of the squash vine borer. I don’t want to use too many chemicals if I can help it.
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By DeadKing
#100172
OrangeOrb wrote:
Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:45 am
What a great harvest! You’ve definitely got the growing part figured out. My pumpkins and gourds almost always end up victims of the squash vine borer. I don’t want to use too many chemicals if I can help it.
We do not have SVBs here, but we do have a lot of aphids which transmit plant viruses, so thats another problem.. Insecticide doesnt help in this case.
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By DeadKing
#100173
mesmark wrote:
Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:49 pm
What a great harvest! I'm super jealous.

I say it every year, but I might just try to grow my own pumpkins next year.

It seems you keep the garden pretty free of weeds. I can do that. And I have a tiller so I can fluff the place up. Do you add horse manure or so fertilizer?

What are you placing under them?
I try to maintain the garden weed free as much as I can, but at the end of the season there are some weeds in it afterall..

I am adding organic pelleted fertilizer (horse and cows) when I transplant seedlings to the ground, but at some places in garden I also do green manure in fall, or so called "cover crop" (winter rye and peas... peas to add nitrogen to soil).

Under the pumpkins I place a piece of thin styrofoam, so the pumpkins do not lie down on potentialy wet soil, to avoid rotting.
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By Zombie Pumpkins!
#100255
So you can't just spit some seeds out the window, and magically have a great crop of carvable pumpkins? :razz: I guess if it was that easy, we'd all be doing it. You surely sound like you know what you're talking about it. It's a bit too involved for me, but... maybe someday! Your pumpkins certainly make me full of envy!
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By DeadKing
#101050
Zombie Pumpkins! wrote:
Fri Oct 12, 2018 11:40 am
So you can't just spit some seeds out the window, and magically have a great crop of carvable pumpkins? :razz: I guess if it was that easy, we'd all be doing it. You surely sound like you know what you're talking about it. It's a bit too involved for me, but... maybe someday! Your pumpkins certainly make me full of envy!
Ha ha, you can try throw some seeds in the ground just to see what will happen.. who knows, with a little bit of magic, everything is possible :fangs:

It is not so difficult or complicated as it sounds. When you learn the basics of growing and see what is working for your soil and climate, it is quite fun acctually. :jack_o_lantern:
You should definitely try it someday, you will be hooked for sure :grin:
By Shilden_72
#101211
And of course, it's pumpkins, vines and other tasty and beautiful things which are hard to grow, while nettles and all of that stuff will grow through concrete if they have to, the world is unfair :fangs:
But no matter how frustrated I can be at the fact I can't grow what I want how I want, congratulations for your harvest and your beautiful garden!

Edit because I wanted to ask: you're from the Balkans, right? If I'm not mistaken, that blog name is in Serbo-Croatian (which I wanted to learn after I was done with Russian, but you're NEVER done learning Russian, or so it seems).
So, my question was: how is the Mediteranian climate for pumpkins? From what I see, it looks like it's perfectly appropriate! Because my wife and I were planning to buy a house in Montenegro, and I figured I'd ask someone who lives around.
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By DeadKing
#101577
@shilden_72
Thanks.

I am from Croatia, which is in Europe and EU. It's a website and it is in Croatian and a bit in English, for international visitors.
I'm from the continental part of the country, not mediterranean, which is quite ok for growing pumpkins, sometimes better, sometimes worse, depends on year.
Wouldn't know for Montenegro, because that's a different country, so I can not advise on that part.