Some Aminos for the Pumpkin Plants & Weeding

Yesterday I gave the plants some aminos (7-0-0).   Amino acids have a dramatic affect on calcium uptake by the roots; especially amino acid blends rich in the primary chelators--glutamic acid and glycine. In the soil calcium tends to react with phosphates and sulfates, precipitating out of solution as “lime scale”. Lime scale makes calcium unavailable to the plant (I have high lime soils--occasionally I find ancient sea shells in the soil).  Aminos help open up calcium ion channels in the roots making it more available and is a natural chelator.

Make sure not to use synthetic amino acids produced by acid or alkaline hydrolysis.  They have a “right-handed” orientation and are not biologically active. By adding l-amino acids derived from enzymatic hydrolysisure you can make sure to give your plants the full benefits.

I noticed a couple of days ago that some little weeds were just starting to pop up in the areas where a tilled in the cover crop weeks ago, so I took a rake yesterday evening and raked both patches to pull those weeds up.  One advantage of growing a cover crop and then  tilling it later is you have to a lot less weeding in the pumpkin patch.  When you have 2,500 square feet of patch, it can be a blessing to not have to do a ton of weeding.  I've had to weed around the pumpkin all season, but for the most part I've done very little weeding to this point of the season.  Now it is going to be a battle for the entire 2,500 feet for the rest of the season.  The key is to get the weeds early so you keep it under control.