Time for an Experiment

The plant is growing well. The misting and watering system fires for a few minutes every hour during the afternoon. And amazingly, that's legal - there are no watering restrictions on a vegetable garden.

So I've laid down the tape measure and we'll record how much the vine grows in 24 hours.

Premie II has shown up now. If I can' I will probably pollinate at least two pumpkins, and try to hedge my bets against a season-ending disaster. But I've never successfully pollinated more than one fruit on a vine before - it takes a really healthy vine to do that I think.

For Unto Us a Child Is Given!


Ok, that might be a bit premature.

This first fruit probably won't be strong enough to survive to blooming, and if it does I might cull it anyway.

So I'll name her Preemie 1 for now.

Preemie 1 is squat and round, as opposed to the long and lean Bessie. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But her short little stem... that thing better start growing longer, or this is going to be another issue before long.

Either They Go, or I Go!

I had a minature pumpkin vine doing great, it already had five baby pumpkins on it. But it was sitting exactly where the big plant wanted to put down some roots. So with a sigh, out came the minature plant.


Huh? What's this?!

Can there already be squash vine borers ripping up my vines???








The minature plants didn't get treated with insecticide in the pre-season like the main plant did. I doused all the plants this evening. Looks like the war has begun!

She's got some pretty nice leaves on her! It's time to get some fish fertilizer sprayed on them. The plant will absorb the fertilizer directly though the leaves, very efficient. Very smelly too. But that's a blog for another day...

The vine has been moved

Amd it's dead-center now.

But man, it doesn't look good does it? The posts you see are trying to hold up the leaves. The plant isn't wilting, it's just fussy after the big rearranging. It's interesting that the vine never even thought about cracking during all that.







Wow, what a difference a day makes! The leaves all perked back up, and we're ready for some serioous growing!

Well, the vine missed the path by a bit. I'll start moving it bit by bit and see if it can be done without snapping it. Next year I might start the seed in a pot and avoid this altogether.

We're leaving town for a week.

The camera is packed, so I can't easily take a picture. The vine has finally flopped over, sort of, and in exactly the direction it was supposed to. Now, if it would just be smart enough to grow down the right path while I'm gone.

I've got a super fancy new water timer, but I couldn't get the darn thing installed last night because the pipe threadings aren't right. So I put the old timer back up, though it will leak 24 hours a day next week. The pumpkn should like that even if the water bill doesn't.

Playing with the Irrigation Toys

You can see the stick in there where I'm trying to encourage the plant to grow towards the yard.

If she runs towards the house instead, I'll have to take out the patio, and that'll suck. But when I have to take out the family room carpet after that, the rest of the family may revolt.

The Big Question right now is...

Which way is the main vine going to grow?
Usually it goes opposite the first leaf, which would have been good.
Then, the plant flopped over in a perfect direction.
Now, it's looking like it will go straight up at first. I just can't tell. If it goes totally wrong, I may pull the plant and start over.


And another question - what are these darn eggs on the plant so early? I picked some of them off at this point last year too. If the eggs are laid on the pumpkin, I assume the hatchlings eat pumpkin leaves. Well, not on my watch, they won't!

No Surgery Needed For Now

I thought I was going to need to dig up the plant and rotate it 90 degrees so that the vine would grow into the yard instead of into the house. But judging from the first leaf, the vine should point ok though not perfectly.

I've decided to use a dollar bill to show size for now. It's about the same size as last year's Coke can, and it's symbolic besides. It is symbolic of how much more money I've spent on this plant than I ever did on last year's plant.