Friday, August 31, 2007

giant pumpkin vines!

vine
Thank goodness I only planted four large pumpkin plants! They are monsters! I bet they are growing a foot a day. And I have no doubt they will cover my entire garden by the season's end if I don't keep after them. I tie them to the fence around my garden. Since this is nearly covered now, I will soon let them crawl on the lawn.

The variety of my big vines is Howden, an old standard for Halloween pumpkins and produces fruit 15-25 pounds (up to 40 pounds) in 115 days. Large vining pumpkins usually need at least 100 square feet of space. Let's see, 4 plants times 100 sq ft in my 350 sq ft garden. Hhmmm.... But its fun to see them crawling all over the lawn.

The plants are just starting to set fruit. They've aborted 3 or 4 fruits so far (before blooming). Probably because of the very hot dry weather we have now. The plants seem very healthy, so I'm guessing fruit set will be successful soon.

baby pumpkin
pumpkin flower 2 pumpkin flower
tendrils
pumpkin vine
Pumpkin -- Cucurbitaceae spp.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Great photos!! And beautful plants. i llok forward to seeing your pumkins in October.

kathy said...

Hi Alice. I just went out and sprayed the pumpkins with a fungicide. They are getting a lot of mildew. I'd really like to see some pumpkins too. I hope Safer's sulfur spray counts as organic.

Anonymous said...

Now I think I know my mystery vine in with my yellow squash. The seeds must have come from the cereal my mom put in the compost. Young "fruit" is about 3-4" and round, very dark green with stripes. thanks for posting this.
Darla
watertown Tn