Foliar Application of RAW Bloom on Pumpkin Plant

Today I did a foliar application of RAW Bloom (3-12-12) on the pumpkin plant.  The phosphorus and potassium should help continue the growth of the pumpkin.  I applied a relatively small dose.  You don't want to pop the pumpkin this late in the season.  I'm actually surprised the pumkin is still growing.  With where the plant was at in August I would have never guessed the pumpkin would grow this long and not split.

Squash Squashes Colorado State Record & A Near Giant Pumpkin Record

When helping Joe get his pumpkin out of the patch, I would have guessed that he had a new Colorado state record, but the scale doesn't lie. Marc Sawtell had better luck however, breaking the 1,000 barrier for giant squash and set a new Colorado record.  The following video I shot and got on 9News.

The Night Before the Weigh-off

I think late September and October are awesome for multiple reasons, but the weigh-offs can make them amazing.  Great weather, football,  and the winding down of another pumpkin season really caps off the fall.  I'm not taking my pumpkin to the Jared's Nursery weigh-off tomorrow, but I thought I would talk about what the night before a weigh-off is like and give some advice to newer growers.

First thing, make sure you load up your pumpkin tonight!  Don't wait until Saturday morning to load up the pumpkin.  Too many things can go wrong and you don't want to wait until morning to have the pumpkin loaded.  Along with that, put the pumpkin on a pallet so it can be easily unloaded at the weigh-off. Also, leave a little of the vine on the stem and attach a water bag to it.  You can gain a few extra pounds that way.

Second, make the pumpkin loading experience a party.  My first year I had a 755 pound pumpkin in the patch and I wasn't sure how I was going to load it up.  I got my self a lifting tarp and then invited a bunch of friends to a "pumpkin party" which was my rouse to get a bunch of strong guys to come over and get the pumpkin on a pallet on a trailer.  The next year, everyone was asking if they could come to the pumpkin party so it has become an annual event, even though we now use backhoes to lift the pumpkins.

There is a lot of hard work in growing a pumpkin.  Too many hours to count.  So celebrate the cutting of the vines with friends.  Honestly, they seem to love to come see the pumpkin every year.
 
Third, enjoy the weigh-off!  Again it is a celebration, regardless of how big your pumpkin has grown, so enjoy the time with the other growers and ask the better growers lots of questions.  You'll get advice that will probably add hundreds of pounds to your pumpkin the following year.  No pumpkin is too small for the weigh-offs if you tried as hard as you could try.

Fourth, you may find yourself strangely anxious as your pumpkin goes to the scale.  Even the years that I thought my pumpkin was small, I hoped for the best.  Nothing wrong with that.

Sixth, be prepared for your pumpkin to weigh less than you hoped.  This can be a very hard thing.  Especially if you thought you had a personal best going to the scale.   The estimation charts are just that:  "estimations."  Not only that, they are an average.  Which means 50% of the pumpkins are going to go heavy and 50% are going to go light.  Remember you've already got a 50% change of going light, so expect it and then be surprised if it goes heavy.

Two years ago, I grew what was the 2nd biggest pumpkin ever grown in Colorado in terms of the inches.  It was a fun season.  However, on the scale, the pumpkin ended up 18% light.  That is massively light.  7% below the charts would be considered a lot light and I couldn't have been prepared for 18%.  It kind of hurt at the time.  By the next day, I realized I had grow a pumpkin that was hundreds of pounds bigger than anything I had grown before that was a personal best.  That made if feel better, so keep everything on the positive side.  Some things aren't in your control.

Enjoy the weigh-offs and may all of your pumpkins go heavy!

Go see one of the RMGVG weighs this fall and see pumpkins over 1,400 pounds. 

Got Fusarium in the Pumpkin Patch? Try Kelp & Silica.

Here is an interesting excerpt from some studies using kelp and silica on cucurbit plants (the same family that Atlantic Giant pumpkins are in) to help battle fusarium.  the results are interesting.

"Crop losses due to Fusarium spp. are important to cucurbit growers along with an increasing interest in natural ways to improve disease resistance. Extracts of the brown seaweed, Ascophyllum nodosum and products containing silicon have both been shown to promote disease resistance on many crops. In a 2008 watermelon trial located in Upper Marlboro, MD, Fusarium solani symptoms were suppressed by extracts of Ascophyllum nodosum. At the final rating, 30% of the watermelon plants were dead from this pathogen in the control plots vs. 10% in Ascophyllum extract treatments. A second study was implemented in 2009 on Gladiator Pumpkins. Calcium silicate and Ascophyllum seaweed extract were applied to pumpkins grown in a field known to have Fusarium spp. infected squash three years prior. At the final rating, 24.6% of the pumpkin plants were dead in the control plots vs. 19.2% in the silicon plots, 13.6% in the Ascophyllum extract treatment, and just 6.1% in the plots with both calcium silicate and Ascophyllum extract. These field studies were further supported by two greenhouse studies where applications Ascophyllum extract to cucumber plants reduced incidence of Fusarium oxysporum and enhanced the activities of plant defense-related enzymes including chitinase, β-1,3-glucanase, peroxidase, polyphenol oxidase, phenylalanine ammonia lyase and lipoxigenase as well as elevated levels of total phenols compared to the control."

If you think you've got the soil borne disease fusarium, try RAW Kelp and Silica in your pumpkin patch.  I took some of my own advice and did a foliar and soil application of kelp, silica and humic acid this evening.  I don't believe I have fusarium, but a little prevention goes a long way and like we've talked about on this blog before, kelp, humic acid and silica have a lot of other good benefits.

Some Last Azos for the Pumpkin Patch

I did a soil application of Azos this evening.  Soil temperatures have to be decently warm for Azos to grow and typically in Denver this time of year it would be a little too cool, but the forecast for the next 10 days looks to be 80 degrees and above and I had some Azos so I figured I had better use it up before it expires. 

Azos is a nitrogen fixing bacteria that can produce substances that are similar to gibberellins, which is a plant hormone, so I figured I should get something out of it this year.

Some TKO with RAW Grow as a Foliar

This evening I did a foliar application of TKO and RAW Grow on the pumpkin plants.  I measure the pumpkin this morning.  First time in almost a week and it is still growing.  Around 4 pounds a day right now.  We are a month away from when I plan on taking the pumpkin to a weigh-off.  I don't suppose that it will still be growing by then, but would be very pleased if I could get another 100 pounds in the next month.

It's Colorado Giant Pumkin Weigh-off Time (2015)

It's the best time of the whole year.  Football in the full swing.  Major league baseball play-off action and most important of all, the pumpkin weigh-off season.  Starting next week the weigh-offs begin in Denver.  Great family events and the biggest pumpkins you will see in Colorado!  Check out each of the five GPC weigh-offs.  Pumpkins weighing in at over 1,000+ pounds:

Jared's Nursery Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off & Festival
September 26th (2015)
10500 W. Bowles Ave, Littleton, CO 80127
303-979-6022

Nick's Great Pumpkin Weigh Off
October 3rd (2015)
2001 South Chambers Rd, Aurora, CO 80014
303-696-6657

Fort Collins Weigh Off
October 4th
Fort Collins
Hopefully will start in the late afternoon.

Flower BinOctober 10th
1805 Nelson Rd., Longmont, Colorado 80501
303-772-3454

Old Colorado CityOctober 17th
Colorado Avenue and 25th Street
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80904

Today I have the pumpkin plant some RAW Grow in the areas of new vine growth.

Nitrogen & Humic Acid for the Pumpkin Plants

This evening I sprayed on the leaves and soil some RAW nitrogen along with some RAW humic acid.  That will probably be the last nigrogen application of the season.  Pretty much will just give the plants potassium from this point forward.

Lastest Pictures from the Pumpkin Patch

This is a picture of the 1985 Miller looking from the vine tip towards the stump.  I'm guessing the vine is about 38 feet long right now. Lots of late season vine growth.   You can see a big difference in the leaves in the foreground to the leaves from the pumpkin backwards.

The Pumpkin is Still Growing

I put a tape measure on the pumpkin today.  About every five days I've been doing that to make sure it is still growing.  It is still putting on the pounds, albeit slowly.  5-6 pounds a day.  At this point of the season, with descent weather we've been having I would be hoping for 10-12 pounds a day right right now.

Surprisingly good late season growth on this plant.  The main is still growing and putting on side vines.  That should help keep the growing going a longer into the season.  My goad is to keep the pumpkin growing into the first week of October.

Gave the plant some RAW Grow with seaweed today.

TKO for the Pumpkin (and not the Knock Out Kind)

I sprayed some foliar TKO on the pumpkin plants this evening.  That is a good source of potassium for the pumpkin growth.  At this point of the season I would typically be adding potassium and some phosphorous to the soil as well, but I'm not going to have a big pumpkin this year, so I'm doing what I need to do to get ready for next year. 

Traditionally my potassium and phosphorous are too high in the soil, which can cause some problems.  Right now I'm letting the plant pull all of that potassium and phosphorous out of the soil so the soil will be more balanced next season.  Last season I did the same thing.  As a result, my potassium in the spring my soil report showed me being a little closer to  where it should be.  My phosphorous was still too high, however so I'm hoping by the end of this season it will be in the ballpark as well.

Today I talked to a pathologist at Western Laboratories about what I've seen going on with my plants.  From what I described, he wasn't sure what was going on, so I sent him some video of my 282 plant from a few weeks ago along with some photos to help diagnosis what is going on.

Pumpkin Growers Are Typically Good People

Had a casual get together with some different pumpkin growers yesterday evening and had a very nice time.  Conversations ran the gamete, but the conversation always came back around to pumpkins. 

There are some really big pumpkins in Colorado this year.  Other than May, the weather has been much better than average for growing this season.  I think there will be two or three pumpkins this year in state record territory.

I only fully realized how hammered my plants are with disease this season when I saw the Wiz's plants last night.  His leaves look about as good as they have been this late in the season.  My leaves look they way leaves should look at the beginning of October and not the beginning of September.   I've got some plans for next season to help keep the plants disease free.

This evening I did a foliar application of RAW Bloom, B-vitamins, Cal Mag and Silica.  Trying to squeeze as much weight into the pumpkin as I can right now because I don't think my pumpkin will still be growing at the end of the month.

Some Fertilizers for the Pumpkin Plants

Today I gave the plants some cane molasses, omina and humic acid on the soil.  This is in keeping with my former post on how to keep the pumpkin growing in September.