Longest Growing Pumpkin

The 747 pumpkin is 103 days old today.   I put a tape on it this morning and it is still growing.  This is the longest I've ever had a pumpkin growing.  I'll have to thank Matt McConkie for a good tip at the beginning of the season.  He did a Facebook web cast encouraging growers to get started.   I'll have to admit, I didn't go into the season as prepared as I usually do, because things were very busy.   Initially I had planned on starting my seeds on April 15th, but he mentioned the weigh-off date and I realized it was earlier than I thought.  That next day I started my seeds.

With the cool to cold morning temperatures I've had this year, I would have thought I would be way behind in the early season, but both plants grew fairly well.  For the first time I used heating cables in the soil and I know they really helped.  That 747 seed, also is a pretty aggressive grower and I had the earliest pollination I've ever had, with an June 6th pollination.  That has given that pumpkin time to grow and it has needed it.   This pumpkin peaked at around 25 pounds per day.  That is pretty bad.  The most I've ever had is 43 per day.  But since this pumpkin has been a long grower it has put on the pounds.

It got down to 34 degrees last night.  Wasn't forecasted that low, but this morning I could see a little  frost damage on the leaves and when I checked my app, it showed how cold it got.  Some cold nights forecasted the latter part of this week, so there is probably a 90% chance the leaves will get fully frosted this week.  That is good for the 1685 plant because it still has another two weeks to grow.

Gave the plants some TKO with a touch of nitrogen on the leaves.