RE: Slow grower, or not?
Hi Steve and Kathie
It amazes me how big the internet has made the pumpkin community, covering
the entire globe!
Some info on the "pumpkin patch":
Firstly the seeds were planted in a large pot with the best potting soil I
could find. When I planted it the rest of the potting soil went into the
ground too. The soil was prepared with a few bags of compost and a bag of
composted cow manure. Once the plant got growing I fertilise once a week
with water soluble mix for flower development. This does have a higher
potassium content than nitrogen (planted beans all over the place to add
some nitrogen, they're growing like crazy), and was going to change to a
lower K and higher N content once the flowers had started developing. I'm
re-thinking that after your response Kathie and put in some other soluble
fertiliser (higher in N and lower in K).
Today I also realised that the original stalk has cracked all along its
length (about 4 inches), but also that the plant seems to be growing quite
fast now, sending out tendrils and developing new leaves already.
Info on soil, Temp and sun:
Soil is sandy, red in colour (i.e. iron rich) with not much clay. Drainage
is good, the other day we had 60mm rain within an hour which flooded the
garden, within about 30 minutes the pumpkin patch had drained already so no
problem with drainage. The only test done on the soil is pH, around 6,6 at
the moment. With regard to exposure to light: when it was germinating it was
in a window sill and only had sunlight, average temperature around 75
degrees in the window sill. At present there is sun light from about 9:00 am
to about 3:00 pm, then some "dappled" sunlight until 5:00 pm through an oak
tree overhead (the neighbour's).
Average temp is between 68 and 86 Fahrenheit ambient, although with the
African sun if you leave something in the sun unprotected the temp can go up
to 115 quite easily. Night time temperatures are probably around 60 degrees,
with a little bit of wind but not much (it's in a protected area, but no
shade or covers around it).
The amount of water provided daily via the bath is about 300 litres
(disgusting how much water we use, but my wife likes a full bath, so do I
conserve water or my marriage? or use the excess water in the garden). Not
all goes onto the pumpkin, it runs through a maze of furrows around the
pumpkin so the leaves only get wet when it rains. Often I test the soil and
find that even the top crust is hard and dry, the underlying is almost
always moist, so I hope the roots are growing all along the furrows and
absorbing the water.
One last thing, the type. I believe they are Atlantic Giants imported from
the US by the organiser of the competition in our area. Next year I think
I'll import some myself and start growing earlier, we should have started in
August not on 10 October.
Thanks for your encouragement and input, now can you help me win the
competition?
Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pumpkins@hort.net [o*@hort.net]On Behalf
Of Steve Jepsen
Sent: 27 November 2004 06:04 PM
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Subject: RE: Slow grower, or not?
Need more information. Average temperature? Soil Test results? Exposure
to light? Seed stock?
Something isn't right but I'll wager there is more than one thing wrong.
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pumpkins@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf
Of Alan Carpenter
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 4:06 AM
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Subject: Slow grower, or not?
I was looking through how much other people's plants grow and saw the
diary
of Urban_farmer. My pumpkin took 4 weeks to germinate and produce 3
leaves
and has now been in the ground 4 weeks. It is the size Urban_farmer's
was
after only 11 days!
I feed it with high potassium (3:1:6) liquid mix once a week for good
root
and flower development. Perhaps the one problem is it's get watered day
and
night from our bath. The water has very little soap and the only
differnece
I can tell is that it's raised the pH from about 5.8 to 6.6, and I read
that
bath water should not be bad for plants, is this wrong?
Otherwise it's looking strong and healthy. Any suggestions?
Alan
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
