Finally got a pumpkin!

I've seen all the trials and tribulations in here lately, and decided to
tell my own sad tale - maybe it'll help someone. I'm in South Central PA,
where the heat has been fierce.

I put kitchen scraps in my punkin hole all winter, as well as dumping in
all my leftover nightcrawlers from last summer.  SO, I figgered I'd be in
good shape this year.  Well...apparently all those leftovers provided a lot
of nitrogen, because my vine is huge this year.  But it took forever to get
flowers, and even then females were scarce.  And the males when they opened
didn't seem to have any pollen - maybe the heat, or maybe the insects were
scarfing it before I could get to it.

Anywho, I finally decided it was time for drastic measures - I had nothing
to lose anyway.  SO I picked out some flowers that were _just_ about to
open, male and female.  I ruthlessly tore them open and, yes, I forced
these adolescents to mate.  Oh, the shame!  But, I'll tell you what, those
young soon-to-blossom males had plenty of the good stuff on their, uh,
organs.  The girls didn't object, though, especially since I finally got
smart and made a little air-conditioned house for each of them out of
frozen liter bottles of water and drywall buckets, insulated with wads of
newspaper.  That was two days ago, and guess what...we have ignition!  SO,
dammit, I WILL have at least one  punkin this year, even tho' it will
probably qualify as the world's smallest giant pumpkin (hmmmm...new
catagory, anyone...?)  Well, at least I might be able to harvest some seeds
for next year (this vine is from seed I got from Gurney or Burpee, I forget
which...)

Now I presume I should hit it with some high potassium fertiizer?  What's
the best way to put my little gals in turbo?

Mike P.



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