RE: Update from Saltspring Island

Denise,

I would check the weight figure you have for Don Langevin's pumpkin. I
believe the 9 and 6 got turned around.

ZOO DOO

>----------
>From: 	denise beck[SMTP:denise@saltspring.com]
>Sent: 	Thursday, May 14, 1998 2:10 PM
>To: 	pumpkins@mallorn.com
>Subject: 	Update from Saltspring Island
>
> Hello again, pumpkin-heads! Here's what's growing on around here:
>
>Planted the four best growers of my seedlings: the Anderson 977, Anderson
>815, Anderson 634 and Langevin 963 in my newly-created pumpkin patch of
>equal parts topsoil, sand and chicken manure, not to mention weeds (I said
>not to mention weeds!). One outstripped all the others by far -- oddly
>enough not the one you'd expect, but the Anderson 634! It sprouted first,
>grew fastest, strongest and thickest stem, put on more leaves and bigger
>ones, etc. than all the others. It's still way ahead now in the pmpkin
>patch. Far and away the most sincere pumpkin I have -- Great Pumpkin please
>take note!
>
>Second most vigourous WAS the 977, but just before I transplanted them I
>discovered a large stem split starting at soil level and continuing up the
>stem to the cotyledon leaves. Groan, moan, much gnashing of teeth and
>tearing of hair and after considering long and hard (well, two minutes at
>least...) should I plant the other 815 even though it wasn't growing as
>fast? Should I wait for one of the Ottawa-St. Lawrence Growers'seedlings to
>catch up? Well, no, it was seed from the first-prizewinner last year and I
>planted it anyway. It was a healed, dry split, not oozing or anything, and
>I figured that this plant has the ability to root wherever it's buried, so
>I just buried it up to those first leaves, supporting the weight of the
>stem and four true leaves on a handy clod of clay. SO far it doesn't seem
>to have suffered any setback at all, apart from a slight tendency to
>yellowing in the stem and first two true leaves. We'll see what we see.
>
>Incidentally, I discovered a transplanting fertilizer that has Butylolic
>acid in it (or something like that) that encourages rootlets to form and so
>far seems to have made transplant shock non-existent in all my plants,
>squash, tomatoes and pumpkins included. You water the soil in the hole in
>which you're transplanting and also water the plant in with it, and they
>just start leaping out of the ground immediately. A great investment, one
>bottle makes gallons of watering fluid, too I recommend it highly. My
>pumpkins were all in 2-gallon black plastic pots, and I cut away the pots
>when transplanting to minimize soil disturbance and gently set them into
>their holes.
>
>I still had five plants left and a packet of Howard Dill seeds, and no more
>room to plant any, and couldn't stand to let those excellent genetics go to
>waste, so I placed an ad in the local paper offering Giant Pumpkin plants
>free to serious growers. I'm going to sponsor cash prizes and a trophy at
>this year's Fall Fair for the largest. Gave away two yesterday, to the guy
>who runs the Ganges Sewer plant. He plans to grow one at home on his
>(son's) vegetable garden and one on treated sewage sludge! He took the
>Lloyd 900+ and the Geerts 741.5, me trailing after them and gabbling
>instructions about transplant shock avoidance and stem burying techniques
>as he got into his van and drove my darlings away. It was like giving up a
>child for adoption! Oddly, I haven't had any other calls. 
>
>I'll keep the group posted about the Fall Fair competition, which will be
>open to anyone. I'm hoping to be able to have a $500 first prize, if the
>local newspaper publisher can be talked into matching my funds. He's the
>one whose "giant squash" beat my "Connecticut Giant Pumpkin" at last year's
>fair, when the Stupid Judge declared my pumpkin to be a squash because it
>didn't have the "five-point stem to fruit interface" that he insisted was
>the sign of a true pumpkin. Humph!
>
>Denise McCann Beck / Earth Island Organics
>USDA Zone 7
>Sunset Western 4
>Coastal Bristish Columbia
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