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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Saturday, August 01, 2015
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swhitty
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Bangor, ME
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Entry 28 of 48 |
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I had to make a difficult decision today. While inspecting the BES on the 1400 Lopresti this evening, I noticed the crack is getting deeper. My biggest fear is that the crack will go all the way through, which would mean the end of my pumpkin since it will start rotting the minute air enters the cavity. I am afraid it's on its way to doing that, so I decided to take some desperate measures. I read an article on a way to manage pumpkin cracks (http://www.bigpumpkins.com/ViewArticle.asp?id=52). Len Stellpflug shared an interesting method of healing splits. Basically what he does is he uses the "goo" from a fresh crack and packs as much into the crack as possible. He then puts latex caulking over it to seal it. At the end of the season, he cut open his two pumpkins, and both cracks had healed themselves.
Since my BES was beyond the point of "bleeding," I used a pumpkin that I just cullled yesterday from my plant (I had a stray tertiary vine that I missed that had a small pumpkin growing on it). I was able to get some "goo" from that to stick in the crack. I added some Captan powder to hopefully prevent rot/infection, and then I sealed it with latex caulking.
My pumpkin won't qualify for the official GPC weighoff with caulking on it. In a perfect world, the crack will heal and I'll be able to peel the caulking off. In a less-than-ideal world, I won't qualify for the official weigh-off, but at least I'll still have a viable pumpkin. I made my goal this year to grow a 1000 pound pumpkin. I don't need to win a state record or place in a weigh off, and if I can grow a 1000 pound pumpkin with some caulking on it, then that is still a success for me. Still better than losing a pumpkin because my BES went all the way through. We shall see what happens. I still have my two backup plants as well, although they aren't nearly as big as my 1400 Lopresti.
I wish everyone else luck with their pumpkins since I now see how devastating this hobby can be after putting so much time into it.
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