RE: Pruning and lifting

George,

Thank you for the pruning information, and also the area allotment requirement. I am planning a lot dedicated specifically to one plant, theoretically I could plant 28 plants next year each with 800 sq. ft., it's the luck of having a large family farm to work with I suppose.

Thanks for the lifting info, this is what I was hoping to find.

Thank you,

Peter Kaulback

In the hour of 10:16 PM 8/29/2003 -0700, George Webster spoke this:
Peter,
Pruning at anytime during the season will not hurt your plant.
It may or may not affect the fruit size depending on the overall
square footage of the plant and the age of the pumpkin.
Your post suggests that you are allowing from 67 to about 90 sq. ft.
per plant. If these are Atlantic Giant plants you will need aprox.
a minimum of 200 to 400 sq. ft. (or more) for one plant.....most
serious growers will use 400 to 800 sq. ft. per plant.
As you mentioned......you are growing "purely for fun".....yes, you
will have some nice pumpkins by crowding your plants .....but don't expect
much over 200 lbs. with a tight pack.

As far as lifting your pumpkins.....using a tarp is better that trying
to lift and load a pumpkin that is on a pallet.  Put the pallet in bed of
a truck and put some padding on it. Use a tarp to lift the pumpkin on to
the pallet thats in the truck.  When loading the pumpkin use about one person
per 100 pounds of pumpkin weight.

Best of luck,
George Webster
Napa, CA

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pumpkins@hort.net [o*@hort.net]On Behalf
Of Peter Kaulback
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 6:47 PM
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Subject: Pruning and lifting


I'm growing giant pumpkins this year purely for fun. Last year I had one
come up from my compost pile, it topped about 165 pounds so I saved the
seeds and tried something bigger scale.

I have a 25 by 75 foot patch with 28 plants and a 25 by 25 foot patch with
7 plants, I know it's too many but this is for fun and you don't want to
know about my Connecticut field patch as it's a nightmare through and
through :) So far I have 15 giants in my largest patch and 4 in the
smaller, I may have more that is hidden by the leaves and vines, case in
point: yesterday I discovered a 98 pound specimen with a 77 inch
circumference but it is extremely flat. Now none of my giants are over 100
pounds but I thought I should prune things out a bit after finding the last
giant. Can I still prune, or is it too late?

I'm not doing this for competition this year, I'll carve them and make
pie's, two things I love to do every year but can I prune them still?

Also what can one do about lifting them?

I lifted the giant last by throwing out my back getting it up on a low
wagon <grin>, but I would like to do something different this year. Is it
safe to place them on pallets or is it better to use a tarp?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Peter Kaulback

--
I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

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