My plants are at about the same stage of growth as last year's plants but I'm not loving our weather this early season. Partially cloudy makes it hard to control the temperatures in the hoop house. I'll watch the temperature monitor and the hoop house will go from 75 to 88 and back down to 75 in the course of an hour depending on if the sun is out or not and it changes a lot. We haven't had many of what I would call sunny days this spring. Sun in the morning and then cloudy most afternoons.
Ideally I'd like to have the hoop houses at a constant 90 degrees. The humidity stays higher in the hoop houses so 90-92 degrees is great. You don't want much more than that. Without the hoop houses I'd like about 88 degrees. I think a perfect enviroment for pumpkin plants would be about 88 degree days with a bit of humidity and then about 80 degrees at night. These plants don't like big transitions in temperatures so Colorado isn't an ideal growing enviroment with our 60 degree summer nights and 93 degree days with low humidity.
Today my son and daughter's planted their pumpkin plants. We are about two weeks late but they are both beautiful plants. Both plants already have their vines down on the ground. If the plants can transition to their outdoor environments quickly they will both do fantastic. My daughter's 335 Scherber plant in particular I think will do well. Round 1161 Rodonis leaves like papa had tells me that it will lean a little more to that side. My 335 Scherber plants have the pointy 1421 leaves so it will be interesting to see how those pumpkins turn out.
Today I gave all of my plants a divided portion of four gallons of aerated compost tea with one teaspoon of liquid seaweed, teaspoon of fulvic acid, half a tablet of Biotamax, 1/2 tablespoon of Azos and a touch of Actinovate added to the tea just before pouring. I might have over done it but that biology added to the soil could do some good to promote growth and help protect the plants.
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5 comments:
Hello Jamie...
I Know you specialize more in giant Pumkins, but could you give some advice on the problem I have with my Hubbard squash plants?
Here in Winnipeg it's been very cold this past spring, and my 5 Hubbard squash plants have not been able to be planted outside yet. Their roots are like a foot long coming out of the biodigradible pots, and their vines are approaching 1 foot long, growing very rapidly. I've been giving them lots of water, and I been sprinkling bonemeal on them every to weeks (I planted them about 3 or 4 weeks ago). The forecast does call for some nicer weather in the 70's F next weekend, so I could probabley plant them outside then...
Untill then, whats the best thing I could do with my Hubbard squash plants?
Thanks so much for your advice,
Willy
Much appreciated!
Knowing when to plant in these cooler weather climates is always a guessing game. The nightime lows is the key because you don't want to freeze the plants. If you night time lows are above 42 every night for the next week and your plants have been hardened off then get them outside right away. Otherwise I would re-pot those plants so the roots don't get bound up.
I think i'lle re-pot them; the night time lows are expected to stay well below 42 F till next weekend when they are in the 50s F.
Could you tell me where you buy all the things you feed your plants? We have very little where I live..
I bought the Actinovate at a local nursery but I know you can find it online as well. Buy Biotamax at http://www.biggerpotato.com/GrowBigger.html. I used to sell Azos and mykos but I don't anymore because I lost the supplier. Lots of places you can buy it online however. Mykos I buy at a local garden center. You want to make sure you get endo type mykos however.
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