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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Monday, August 11, 2025
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Fattires
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Winchester, Ohio
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Entry 79 of 79 |
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Well my season is officially over, the patch is all tore down and ready for cover crop soon. Bacterial wilt cost me one plant and yellow vine disease on the other 3. It was tough to have all that time and work result in nothing for a weigh off.
I have cereal rye, hairy vetch, crimson clover, balsana clover, rapeseed and turnip mixed to seed soon.
I did not come close to getting a pumpkin to the scale this year but I did learn a lot. I'm going to put some of my ideas here so I can look back in the spring.
Some lessons to apply and things to do differently next year:
Grow fewer plants, I just don't have the free time to properly care for 4 plants. Next year will be 2 full size plants or maybe 1 full size and 1 150sq ft
Better insect control early season as well as control insects in the vegetation around the patch. I had pigweed nearby and cucumber beetles like pigweed too.
I might try pearlite under the main vine, something to keep it dryer.
Better weed control, I think I imported quite a few weed seeds with my manure, next year I am going to use preemerge herbicides. Most likely Treflan and Dual, this should help immensely with small seeded broadleaf weeds like pigweed and lambsquarter which are my biggest issues.
I will likely switch to drip irrigation so that I can accurately, easily apply boron, imidicloprid and other things. My overhead watering this year was not as even as I would like.
I think I want to cover the patch in shade cloth, I used overhead watering to keep the plants cool but we just had too much rain and that made excess moisture worse.
I would like to increase soil organic matter to improve soil texture and drainage. I'm still trying to decide on the best way to do this. I have access to beef feedlot manure that I generate here on the farm but that is going to raise soil phosphorus levels and I already am at 200+ ppm. I need to figure out if there is harm that comes with further increases other than zinc tie up.
I would like to get the plants in the ground a little earlier, my first pollinations were June 20th or so and I would like to start that a week earlier to give myself more chances to hit a good weather window.
I am hoping to attend a couple weight offs this fall to meet some other growers and get more ideas.
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