Re: Vandals....

Hi, I am Sorry to hear about that. My 550 from years ago developed a tiny crack that went all the way through in mid september. I knew it was DQ'd from competiotion but wanted to keep it around till halloweeen and knew that the fungi spores and bacteria had gotten in the opening and rot would soon follow so I got one of those huge plant syringes and injected powdered captan in the crack...a bunch of it...so it would float around and coat the interior of the pumpkin and coat as many surfaces as possible. then I injected a tiny amount of bleach...the fumes in there had to be pretty strong so that had to help. To my suprise the pumpkin kept growing and made it all the way till Halloween. I also plugged the hole with captan powder and re applied every few days and made sure it never was rained on. I carved it a few days before halloween and it was only just then showing a few mushy spots inside so the treatment it semed to work..it lasted about 45 days with a crack. I was happy. At least the vandals didn't steal it...I had that happen too to a 300 pounder. They were lucky I didn't catch them or they may have ended up with .22 bullet holes in them! Well, that's my formula for saving a opened pumpkin, I hope it can help. 

John
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mankes" <mankes@msn.com> 
To: <pumpkins@hort.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 7:44 AM
Subject: Vandals....
someone put two .22 bullets into one of my giants. The best looking one too, likely a specimen worthy of the Howard Dill award. 350 pounds and the most perfect shape and color. The scary thing is that these are planted in a tight 
little 1/2 acre lot subdivision.
Does anyone know if the Borax or anything else would be able to seal up and 
preserve this pumpkin.  The holes go all the way through and are about the
diameter of a pencil.



-Scott

Sun Prairie, WI

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