Saturday, September 6, 2014

Pumpkins

Im a little concerned about my pumpkin patch.  It's not a critical path item, like the corn or the alfalfa/grass, but I'd still like it to do well.  The biggest problem is that it's hard for me to get to the weeds in between the plants along the row.  So there's a bit of weed growth, and I think it's retarding my pumpkins.  But they're out there, and they're growing.  This is the first year I've grown commercial quantities of pumpkins, so if I were to do it again I'd do a few things differently, but I'm only out about $100 for the seeds and $300 for the tractor time

I planted howden pumpkins, acorn squash and sugar pumpkins.  the howdens like a lot of space and are agressive growers.  The acorn are a little less agressive, but still good, and the sugar pumpkins are the least feisty.

I saw an implement that made a very nice field, and it'd be perfect for plastic-mulched planting.  Surpress the weeds and warms the soil both...


 

1 comment:

George said...

I've done an acre of winter squash via plastic mulch and there are still plenty of weeds. If you're not spraying down at the beginning of the season you'll have em once the vines start running all over.

If you think of a good way to weed mature vines, please let me know !!