Pumpkin Plant is Out of the Hoop House Now

I took the 1791 plant out of the hoop house today.  It was  a little scary because it was 2 feet out of the house (the main vine is a little longer than 9 feet now) so trying to maneuver it and not snap off the main vine was a challenge. I would only do this during the heat of the day when the vine is a little more rubbery.

Once I got the plant out of the hoop house I started staking down the vines with bamboo sticks and burying the vines.  If you bury the vines you'll get roots out of the top and the bottom of the vines at each leaf node.  I also took off the start of any tertiary vines because you don't need those and if you let those grow you will end up with a jungle mess of  vines.  Lastly I put down a little myko and Azos at each leaf node.

I'll use a modified Christmas tree pattern for my vines.  From the main vine I'll let the side vines grow out and I kind of bend them back towards the stump so it looks like a Christmas tree laying on the ground.  A good example of what this looks like can be seen at on this old blog post.

After burying the vines, I then put up a silt fence to help protect the plant from wind.  The plants are kind of vulnerable at this point until the side vines get a little longer and have roots down to anchor the plant.