Update 7/19/03 the Good & the Bad
For those who don't know I have been growing Pumpkins for 25 years which can
be a bad thing. I now have heavily diseased soil and not enough land to
rotate crops sufficiently. This has resulted in steadily shrinking Pumpkins then
finally the inability to even keep a plant alive. If the current approach
doesn't work my alternatives are sterilization with chemicals which I don't want
to do because this is also my vegetable garden. That would only be a temporary
solution anyway because the primary chemical used in that process is
scheduled to be taken off the market. The other option would be to not grow anything
and do solarization for a year or two. What I'm trying this year is a
biological soil treatment and so far it seems to be partially successful. Though all
could change for the worse at any time. I have treated soil around all types
of curcubit family. It would seem that not all plants become successfully
inoculated even when side by side. I had two Turks Turban which I have found to
be highly susceptible to wilt they were only 10" apart and one plant died of
Wilt while the other did great. In the pumpkin Patch two plants came down
with wilt and had to be pulled but two other did great. This leads me to believe
the inoculation doesn't always take place, but if it does, it fights off
disease successfully. All plants in the squash family that thrived seem to do
better than normal and take up fertilizer more readily. Seeing how little the
thriving plants are affected by heat leads me to believe that many times heat
stress is brought on by a weakened plant fighting disease in the root system.
Maybe we should always use a soil treatment? Off course some of the diseases
could still hit my remaining plants at any time but so far so good. I've
updated the Web site with some pictures taken today.
George Brooks
North Tewksbury, MA USA
<A HREF="http://www.greenholloworchard.com/photo3.html";>2003 Pumpkin Patch Updates</A>
Approximately 25 miles Northwest of Boston
in the Merrimack River Valley
Zone 5N
Personal Bests
617.6 1991
641 1993
648 2000 (Unofficial & died prematurely on Aug 29)
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