Re: Newbie needs help Western Canada

Roland , Manitoba also has a GPC  weigh off site.

>>> giantveggies@shaw.ca 03/08/02 04:02PM >>>
Hi folks:

The following message I posted on a yahoo news group and thought 
since I signed up here as well I would post it here too. Any help you
can give is
much appreciated. By the way there are no weigh offs here in
Saskatchewan Canada
heard of one in Alberta about a 10 hour drive from me, How can I get
one started. 
(funny thing) I was at coffee this morning (local stomping grounds) and
was telling a guy I 
was going to grow giant pumpkins he said his neighbour and about five
others last year had 
a bet amongst themselves to see who could grow the largest pumpkin.
$5.00 each the largest was
63lbs. any ways here is the post.

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

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