39" as of 8/30/05

25" as of Wednesday 8/24/05

I'm still on track for my 2" growth per day.........

Top 10 list for growing a pumpkin - and maybe a big one too

1. Plant your seeds in a sunny location
2. Don't eat your seeds, plant them
3. Water your plants daily
4. Fertilize regularly
5. Don't trim your vines, you need long vines to get flowers
   
6. Deport your squirrels
7. Don't go on vacation
8. Don't plant your pumpkin seeds with other squashes (they cross pollinate)
   
9. Be patient, and have fun
   
10. and most of all..........Try again in 2006

I have a pumpkin - where's the competition?

Here's my pumpkin. It was pollinated on 8/11 so I decided I'm going for the latest pollination date category in the competition. It's measuring 17" in circumference after 9 days, almost 2"/day. If it keeps up and we don't get an early frost it could grow another 52" by Sept 15.

I've been peeking over a few neighbors fences and just on my street alone I know of 2 pumpkins that are at least 3x bigger than mine. I also heard from neighbor Mark that he's having problems with cross pollination and his pumpkins are looking more like spaghetti squashes and falling off the vine. The leaves on his plant don't look like pumpkin leaves but he swears they are the seeds I gave him. Is anybody else having this problem?

There's got to be somebody else in the neighborhood that can give neighbor Dave a little competition. His pump is over 68" in circumference now but he says it is slowing down. I keep telling him he better watch out, mine could catch up to his since the weather is cooling off and is more conducive to growing than back in July when it was so hot and his was starting.

Other web sites concerning Giant Pumpkins

In response to Lesley's request.......

Here are a few websites with information on growing giant pumpkins:

http://bigpumpkins.com/Diary/Default.asp
http://www.pumpkinnook.com/growing.htm
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1646.html
http://www.giantpumpkins.com/

Boulder, we have a bud!!! and it's a female too

I've been peeking under leaves, only to see male blossoms for the past 4 weeks. What a disappointment too. I thought I saw 1 or 2 female blossoms but nothing was really happening with them. Then tonight, I found my first real female blossom and it actually looks like it might flower soon.

Here's hoping for some happy bees that know their pollination business when the flower opens.

I might actually be in the competition yet!


PS Neighbor Dave says there are always more male flowers than female ones.

Unpumpkins so far

Unfortunately while I was traveling around France looking at their gardens, my sprinkler system was not performing as expected. I had carefully programmed my sprinkler so it would water my garden 3 times a week while we gone. I had aligned the sprinkler so it would get all the areas of my garden especially my competition pumpkins, which were doing pretty well when we left 6/25.

But, what I didn't calculate for, was our teenage son moving the sprinkler so he could mow the lawn while we were gone, and then carefully putting it back in place. The overlooked factor was which direction the sprinkler should be facing. In the law of averages, you have a 50/50 chance of getting something right or wrong. My garden fell into the 50% chance of getting it wrong. The sprinkler was replaced so it watered the grass and not the garden for at least 2 weeks while we were gone. So I came home to find a pretty well xeriscaped garden 3 weeks later.

Since then I've been diligently watering it and it seems to have made a pretty good recovery. The only problem is, I have wonderful vines and lots of male flowers but very few, if any, female blossoms and no pumpkins. I have one female blossom I'm still hoping will eventually open to be pollinated. One can always hope. Hey, I've got 3 months till Halloween, there's always hope. In the meantime, I have giant pumpkin vines that are attempting to take over my garden, see the attached picture.

The pumpkin plant that had been planted in the front yard dried up at the base and withered away to nothing. So that plant's out of the running despite neighbor Dave's attentions.

But, speaking of neighbor Dave, his pumpkin is doing fabulously, 65" in circumference the last time he measured it. So watch out! he's the biggest competition so far. See the attached picture of his pumpkin from this past week.

Send me your pictures and be sure to post comments so we can hear how everyone else is doing with their pumpkins. Also stay tuned to this blog and the MANA website for future details of when and where the final pumpkin festivities will be held.

Pumpkins in France

I've been remiss in posting news to this blog because we have been off traveling in France for 3 weeks in June and July. While we were traveling I left my garden and pumpkins mostly unattended w/ the sprinkler programmed to water it while I was gone. More on that in another posting....

But let's talk about gardening in France here.

One of our adventures was to visit the Chenonceau chateau in the Loire River valley. Besides the chateau being gorgeous, they had a huge vegetable garden demonstration, similar I'm sure to when people occupied the chateau in the 16th century. I think I spent as much time in the vegetable garden as I did exploring the chateau.

Their growing season has to be much longer than ours in Boulder and their vegetables and plants seemed to be at least 4-5 weeks ahead of ours. Plus, I'm sure they get much more rain than we do. Many of the trees I saw around there were ones I remember seeing in Louisville, KY, magnolia trees for example.

There were glass cloches (like our 'walls of water') sitting around that had been used earlier in the season for frost protection and beautiful bamboo trellises, ornamental flower gardens, shrub mazes, and, of course giant pumpkins growing. In many of the rooms of the chateau they had beautiful flower arrangements which I'm sure were composed of flowers that had come from the surrounding gardens.

In the kitchen there was a centerpiece on the table that was made from at least a dozen miniature tomato plants with baby red tomatoes on them. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture to share.

So to tempt my fellow gardeners who are reading this blog, here are the pictures from that fabulous visit to Chenonceau.