It's Nice to Have Strong Friends

Long time friend Jeff Tyus was invited over to the pumpkin patch today for his annual adjustment of the pumpkins. Jeff is a power lifter and his good wife once bought him a shirt that said, "I may not be smart but I can lift heavy things over my head." I love Jeff. And his ability to move heavy pumpkins so they are better positioned on the vine. A Colorado grower recently had his pumpkin nearly picked off the vine because the pumpkin grew into the vine and nearly snapped it off.

Last year, after trying to move the pumpkins myself, Jeff literally moved one of them with just a shoulder and one of his arms. It was very impressive. This year he had to use both arms on the 1204 and 868 plant. He didn't know it but he made my day when he said that both pumpkins were much more dense than last year's. My two pumpkins last year went very light to the charts so I have a little hope that maybe I can have the pumpkins hit the chart this year. I have zero expectations for going over the charts.

I went into the Biz bag of tricks today and put down a quarter cup of organic Richlawn fertilizer with humic acid mixed in with it to each plant. Although I give the plants a foliar fertilizer on a weekly basis I haven't gave the plants much NPK on the soil and I was concerned that the roots might start to bonk without a little something to get them through the next 50 days.

I should mention that my kid's pumpkin has been growing nicely over the last week. There was a couple of times early in the season that I didn't think the plant would make it. About a month ago it finally snapped out of it and started growing good. Hard to tell yet but they might get a white pumpkin.