Bay Area Report

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So many pumpkins have spontaneously aborted that I have been picketed by anti-abortion protesters.  I made my soil a little too hot and now I'm getting serious leaf sun scorch on breezy 72 degree overcast days.  My wife scowls at me if I use the word pumpkin in a sentence and I'm beginning to think I need a hip replacement.

Geneva Electric (922 Emmons) is the most beautiful plant I have ever grown. 28" leaves on 3 foot stalks.  Thin elegant vines.  It  threw a five lober female 12 and half feet out on the main.  It hit 24" circ at 10 days then started growing asymmetrically.  The flower had a deformed lobe and I figured that one ovary was not developing properly so I cut it off - ouch.  The next female also had  a deformed lobe so I axed it.  Now finally at 17.5 feet is a decent start which is growing slower. (only 19" circ at 10 days.) 

It could be that the backup fruit way out on a secondary is slowing it down.  The backup pumpkin is in an awkward spot - I stepped on the blossom stub and snapped it off.  This one did hit 23" circ day 10 and 68" on day 20 but it's on a secondary....  I have no idea what to do here since all the really big one's seem to grow on the main vine. 

My other plant in the Yin and Yang patch, Buttercup (831 Zunino), has been a slow, cantankerous bitch.  The plant is growing slowly and gets leaf burn if I scowl at it for more than three seconds.  The main vine has cracked in six places and the females grow into the leaf stems Most of the females have mutant lobes.  I almost gave up on this plant but that would have ruined the whole Yin and Yang thing, so - just for style points, I continued to put up with its antics.

A female finally showed up at 12 feet - had a sixth lobe mysteriously growing from one edge of the blossom instead of the center. I pollinated it thinking - crap, here we go again - another mutant special.  Two days later I whacked the fruit pretty good with the leg of a shade structure I built to shade the plant's wimpy, kiss-ass leaves.....

No worries, I thought, I'll go with the next female on the main.  I got up at 5:30 to pollinate this one and low and behold.  The lobes were so mutated they looked as if they had been scrambled.  I just cut it off and went back to bed.  Then, of course, no more females even bothered to show up on the main - and this is the abbreviated version of this dismal story........

Then, I started to notice that that first fruit on the main was getting, ahh,  rather large.  It hit 25" circ at 10 days and was high and round.  It's now growing 5" circ a day, is a beautiful shape (except for the gouge) and has this beautiful long handle.   What da ya know?? Beauty and the beast.  It hasn't hit day 20 yet but 60" circ or so shouldn't be a problemo.......

The Back  Against the Wall patch is another convoluted story.  Audrey, the 995 Carter, first aborted the fruit on the main when it hit about 50 pounds.  Day after day growing 5" circ a day, then one day: DEAD STOP.   I had already cut off all but one of the back-ups.  Never had one get this large and abort like this.  I still had a nice one on a secondary as a backup.  It grew to about 100 pounds and STOPPED.  I have no idea what's going on here.

This is my most aggressive plant and it's turned into an abortion clinic.  There is now over 1,000 square feet of plant and not much else.  There is a fruit that set itself - some 24' out on the main - it's started to pop (19" at 10 days) but I'm not getting my hopes up.

That leaves the 940 Mombert (98).  This one has also grown slowly and gots lots of sunburn.  Maybe only about 350 square feet of plant.  The first female popped open at 8 feet on the main.  This one grew backwards, back over the vine on a short stem.  I thought it's too close to the stump and I'll never get it positioned properly so I pollinated it but never really prepped the vine thinking better go with the next.  The next two females, of course, had mutant lobes. 

Then the damn thing started to take off.  I somehow got it positioned on the right side of the vine but I'm going to have to cut every root back to the stump to keep the stem stress down.    This one has passed 100" circ and it's not day 30 yet.  Small plant, big pumpkin.  What can I say??? It's a Mombert 940.

So all my theories are trashed - with my smallest plants throwing the biggest pumpkins and my biggest plant crapping out entirely....  I'm not sure which end is up or where I will end up but that's the story - reporting live from sunny california.....  from the pumpkin patch - straight to the loony bin.....

vince
best 831, 2001
zone 9, the pumpkin zone