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Burbank, CA

Does anyone have any ideas for moving a pumpkin? I don't have a lot of room in my backyard so as a result I ended up with a pumpkin growing right next to a chain link fence and the anchor for a telephone pole guy wire. Early on I was thinking that the pumpkin wouldn't quite make it to the fence or the guy wire but I was wrong. Now it is about 2 feet tall, running into the guy wire, and in a bad location to get at. Yesterday I tried pushing it from the side but I couldn't get it to budge. I'm thinking it calls for more drastic measures but I'm afraid of breaking the stem in the process. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I was also wondering how much more growth I should expect. This pumpkin is from a 478 Kilbert seed that I planted around the beginning of May. It's been growing for a few weeks now and is somewhat cylindrical shaped, about 2 feet in diameter and about 2 feet long. The strange thing is that it's still quite smooth with extremely small ridges. And as far as I can tell it appears to be the same color yellow as it was from day one.

Third question is regarding my big max plant. I wanted to grow a couple of big pumpkins and a handful of decent sized ones. On my big max I have 7 pumpkins going on it. I stuck this plant in the ground in early april. I think that was way too early but I heard other California people saying that you need to start early out here because of the summer heat. Anyhow, the growth on my 7 big max pumpkins has been almost nonexistant for the last 3 weeks. But recently it started getting a bunch of new female blossoms. Does anyone know if its possible for new blossoms to get going after the plant has already produced 7 pumpkins? Should I cut the existing pumpkins of the plant since it doesn't look like they're growing any more or could they still get a late growth spurt?

7/17/2001 8:56:04 PM

Western Pa.

Goss,

I suggest you move the fence and guywire! You could probably move the pumpkin with some help, but if you try, move it in the heat of day and only a little bit at a time. This could also cause some stem stress later on. I will be posting a photo of the 478# sometime today so you can get some idea of how big they get. The Calai was a nice orange pumpkin, so hopefully yours will end up "oranger" than mine.Your big max will continue to set pumpkins, wait a while before removing the others and make sure they have stopped growing. I never remove pumpkins from my Howden plants, and they produce lots of "all sizes" of pumpkins.

Good Luck!

kilr

7/18/2001 9:40:37 AM