Newbie needs help Western Canada

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Hi folks:

 

 

Hi All:
Looks like membership is filling up nicely, if you know friends that
grow giants invite them to join our group would you, the more the
merrier. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/giantveggies101/

My Post today has to do with Watering and fertilizeing Giant
Pumpkins. To give you a little back ground on myself I have been
gardening for about 8 years now with the usual veggie's except for
tomatoes or should I say GIANT TOMATOES which average 4 to 5 lbs per
fruit. I use heirloom seed only never hybrid and never buy store
bought seedlings, I start most in my grow station (just built a new
one over the winter the super deluxe model(but that's another e-
mail)) except for the direct seeding in the garden. I use square
foot gardening for growing except tomatoes. I have learned quite a
bit and am still learning, I live in Saskatchewan Canada and start
planting the first to middle of April (yes with snow on the ground)

Getting to the question, while trying to get new info on growing
giant tomatoes I kept running across Giant Pumpkin Growing. After
much reading I was hooked and decided I would try it this year I
even went as far as buying a vacant lot next door to our house off
the city. So I now have a completely open 50' x 125' lot to use as
my new garden (drule).

I have learned alot but I can't seem to find info on watering and
proper fertilizer, yes I have read people water every 4 to 5 days
and people using 20-20-20, 15-15-30, etc.

What I plan to do is take a 15'x15'(is this large enough space per
pumpkin???) patch x2 for two patches to grow a couple pumpkins put
in soaker hoses criss crossed through the patches to ease in
watering plus I have an electronic timer set-up on the water tap
like in ground sprinkler type sort of. I was thinking watering each
patch once a day for say about an hour (enough or to much???) plus
adding miracle-grow with each watering. Once a week feeding each
patch with compost tea and every other week adding 15-15-30 after
fruit set. What do you think not enough to much ??? your help is
greatly needed as tomatoes are a little different I water them every
3 days and with miracle grow, compost tea every week.

As far as the patches go they will be brand new I will be bobcating
off the top 3" of soil(weed seeds etc.)tilling the ground then adding
60% top soil,30% compost,10% manure. hopefully with ph of 6.5 - 6.8
total depth of new material 12".

Well this is quite long so I will leave it with you and hope some of
you know the answer. By the way if you need info ask because I have
alot of tricks I've learned

TTYL
Ernie
Moderator
Giant Veggies 101