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Ma

Being a first time giant pumpkin grower I have lots of questions as the pumpkin grows what is the best material to use underneath the pumpkin to help is slide along the ground?

2/4/2007 10:34:03 AM

Frankfort Oh

hi chinken,,,,,,,,we use a felt material,,,,,4x4 sheets or bigger,on top of a 4x4 sheet of foam ,,,,with wholes in the foam to drain the water,,,,,our club sales this by the sheet ,,,if you want more imformation ,you can email me at [email protected],,,,,,,Rob

2/4/2007 10:47:15 AM

Montoursville, PA

Hi Chicken............we seek easy to find and easy to use inexpensive items for our area's new growers. My answer is place two inches of sand under the growing pumpkin where it is going to come down to rest. In addition to sand cut open a synthetic feed bag and position it on top of the sand. You may be advised to anchor the feed bag so that it does not blow away.

The primary objective is to have a bed that the pumpkin will settle into and at the same time a bed that will dry quickly.

As your pumpkin grows pull the bag up around the pumpkin and fill in the "<" space with some more sand. Doing this gives the pumpkin some support and may prevent concave cupping on the bottom. Please note that if the large fruit cups that is space that can not fill with internal mass weight.

There are other ways to do this but this is inexpensive and easy to do.

2/4/2007 10:57:58 AM

Farmville, Virginia ([email protected])

Doc,
Does the growing pumpkin slide easily on the synthetic material?

Mark

2/4/2007 4:19:52 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

We don't overhead water so this works for us: 4'x4' piece of plywood with 100lbs of sand on top. Once the pumpkin is @40lbs or so I make room for the plywood and put the sand down on top of the plywood and carefully move the pumpkin onto the sand. Sometimes we add more sand as the pumpkin gets larger. The plywood is mostly to keep gophers from tunneling up into the pumpkin.

2/4/2007 6:40:14 PM