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milford, CT,

I've never had one shaped like a wheel before and this morning my daughters pumpkin began to tilt back on the main vine. I repositioned the pumpkin and laid sand under it to keep it in place. I stood the pumpkin up so it is orientated straight up and down with the vine now off the ground and supported. After reading a few posts I fear this was not the right move. It seems that many other people just dig under the main to relieve stem stress and leave the pumpkin positioned pretty much upside down. Which way is the right way to position the wheel?

7/27/2005 10:42:38 PM

Eugene, OR

I also struggled with a wheel last year except mine was on the downhill side of the vine and wanted to tip away from the main. Like you, I used sand to keep the pumpkin upright for the most part. I had to repeatedly force sand under the blossom end to keep it from falling over throughout the entire season. I personally think keeping it upright if at all possible is a better plan than letting it grow onto its stem/main.

Here's a couple pics:
http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=26837
http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=27804

7/27/2005 10:54:22 PM

[email protected]

Mark,

A lot of growers prefer to position "wheels" on the compost pile. LOL

Dig around & under, add builder's sand or soil, heavy wheel chocks, etc to help persuade the fruit to see things your way.

Gravity will always win in the end. Trick it into working for you instead of against.

7/28/2005 5:09:31 AM

Follansbee, Wv

I am growing a wheel that rolled over onto the stem. After a lot of discussion with other growers I came to the conclusion that forcing the wheel upright will probably put too much pressure on the blossom end, where wheels are notoriously thin, causing a split later. Leaving the blossom end up places very little strain on it, hopefully allowing it to survive until the weighoff. The downside is that it's very hard to keep track of the stem.

7/28/2005 7:30:32 AM

Hudsonville, Michigan ([email protected])

I'm also trying the "Monty method" this year on a fruit. It's not a wheel, but was poorly positioned early with blossom pointed almost straight up, no slack in the vine and a short stem. I concluded that due to position, it would either rip itself off the vine or pull itself over onto the vine. So I'm ramping the blossom end up with sand to keep the stem end down since I don't have the proper space to position it right...The shoulders are headed over the vine now and in a few days I'll see the last of the stem for the season. In my opinion what you did is the preferred way to go, as long as you can give it enough slack to let the vine come up with the high growth of a wheel...
Frank

7/28/2005 9:06:37 AM

Follansbee, Wv

"Monty method" sure sounds nice, but I can't take credit for that method Frank. Joe Richards did it before, as have others. I was at a complete loss as to what to do. Thanks to Martin, Gordon, Joe Ailts, and many others for helping me figure that thing out. I was just fortunate enough to find people on this site that know a hell of a lot more about growing pumpkins than I do. My hat is off to all of them.

7/28/2005 5:58:22 PM

C N Y

maybe a bit late, but since i typed it for ten minutes, lol:

i think a nice piece of 3/4 inch plywood on either (both sides) of the vine where the pumpkin is at would enable the fruit to grow stem-down and be up far enough that the
stem would not be forced into the dirt and un-viewable,
provided that the plywood was built-up enough to accomodate
this idea in the first place....could be as much as 5 or 6 inches....
so, the vine goes this way and that, and the 1-foot-wide pieces of plywood go parallel to this vine, one on each side of the vine, each about four feet long.
once one side's plywood is in place, the pumpkin could be lifted up on one side (opposite the end that would contact the plywood first)---the edge of the fruit that is BEING lifted is lifted high enough for someone to shove another helping of the plywood under THAT side of it, the pumpkin is let-down onto the plywood on THAT side, and then it's nothing but admiring it as it grows. hmmmmmmmmmm.....
SORT OF like if you have some car ramps, they "lift" the car up enough so that you can do what you need to....
also, sort of like a "top"; make it upright, spin it and watch it go. i hope i made even a slight amount of sense.EG

7/28/2005 6:33:51 PM

C N Y

having read it?

NOPE! lol---good luck everybody with your stem stress
problems.eric

7/28/2005 6:35:31 PM

milford, CT,

Thanks for all the insite everybody. Thats the good news!
I have come to the conclusion this is not going to be my year.... so far over 90 percent aborts on healthy plants.
Today when I got home from work and another one bites the dust.Elizabeth's wheel pumpkin succumbed to blossom end rot. It happened so fast I can't believe it. Up until yesterday she was growing off the charts daily. I did a little autopsy and found some interesting things. You guys were right about the thickness of the blosson end being very thin...it was. It was less than 1/2 inch thick. The disapointment is thatwhen I weighed the pumpkin it weighed 91 lbs (less than 20 days old). I also saw a weird looking worm like growth(part of the pumpkin) inside the stem that I have never seen before. Any ideas what this could have been?
Thanks for the support, I will have to take a good look at my growing practice before next year to iron out some of these problems. Mark

7/28/2005 9:00:42 PM

mcminnville oregon

Kids love wheels? great pics

8/1/2005 1:19:46 AM