Re: Tall Tales.....
Vince,
Thanks! The plant grows between corn hills, and the long-stemmed leaves are
on the west side only. We plant the corn every year as a windbreak because
the patch is otherwise pretty much unprotected. Oddly, the corn is higher on
the east side, but the pumpkin leaves on that side seem to be normal height.
So it may be the crowding of the vines. David had missed a tertiary, which
climbed the cornstalks, used its tendrils first to pollinate the corn and
later to husk it for us, and planted a pumpkin precariously atop the whole
heap.
Kathie
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>From: vince <anaid_tecuod@yahoo.com>
>To: pumpkins@hort.net
>Subject: Tall Tales.....
>Date: Thu, Aug 5, 2004, 9:32 AM
>
> I don't like tall leaf stems. They are a problem - making
> leaves more vulnerable to wind damage and sucking energy from
> the plant to elevate themselves in the world. My 1230 Daletas
> plant last year had short stems and the leaves survived the
> buffeting by the wind much better than my taller plant.
>
> I think the leaves that do the tall stem thing are sun seekers
> - that try to one-up their neighbors to pig out on borrowed
> rays. So extra tall leaves probably mean that your vines are
> too close together and the leaves are crowding each other....
>
> This year I was meaning to address this problem by spacing my
> vines farther apart. So I hacked and whacked secondaries with
> great resolve. I figured that if you have 24" leaves - the
> vines should be spaced 24" apart...
>
> Then I noticed that my leaves this year were as tall as ever -
> taller than some of my tales... Medusa (1230 Daletas) is
> particularly tall. How Tall?? I don't know. I do know that I
> just put 12" extenders on the three-foot risers of my watering
> system and some leaves are already threatening to overtake
> them.
>
> I measured the leaf diameters of the leaves on the first
> secondary on Medusa and found the problem. The largest leaf is
> 34" in diameter! This leaf alone covers over 6 square feet!!!
> The two next to it are 33" in diameter. In fact, every leaf on
> this vine is over 30" in diameter. That's Medusa for you - big
> leaves... bigger attitude.
>
> So my vine spacing is off again... No surprise. AG's don't
> particularly like to cooperate with their growers and generally
> pull off stunts like this to harass those poor fools who think
> they can tame them.....
>
> But my other plant, Little Lilu (1048 Companion), that's
> another story. The perfect plant... Absolute Perfection. She'll
> do almost anything I ask - she gave me 30 pounds last night -
> something I've been begging her for... She surely doesn't like
> me posting her weight on the web. But, she graciously tolerates
> my enthusiasm because she's the perfect little lady....
>
> http://zunino.net/diana/chronicles/of_lilu.htm
>
> vince
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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>
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