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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Saturday, January 19, 2008
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stinkersmellcat
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Bordentown, NJ
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Entry 1 of 20 |
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Well, I'm a newbie. Last year picked up a pack of Dill's Atlantic and split it with my brother, thinking we'd have a contest on who could grow the largest pumpkin. Realize now, that neither of us have ever grown any prize winner anything (garden state my butt!). We both have backyard gardens and I had a rather large plot and my brother ,though he has more room, likes to keep things small. We basically ammended our soil without a test, put a few seeds in a hill and watered it. I put a drip irrigation hose by it to go off for a 1/2 hour every other day. The seeds sprouted and got quite unruly in a very short time. I didn't know better and pruned any unruly vine that got too long. The flowers set and fertilized and I had 2 pumpkins growing. They grew pretty fast at first. I went away on vacation, came back and they were still doing pretty well. Then in the middle of July we had a couple of days over 100 and that sealed the deal on the pumpkins. One pumpkin rotted on the vine and the other one hung on but the vine rotted. I weighed in at a whopping 36 lbs. But I did beat my brother.
It shouldn't be too hard to beat my record this year. This year I will try starting some seeds inside. I shall test my soil as soon as my master gardener neighbor drops of a test kit for me...I know I'm already late. Once I get them outside I'll actually try fertilizing them this year, and use fungicide. Then I resolve to not trim the vines short. I swear, pumpkins grew better out of my compost heap last year than in the patch; though they were smaller, they lasted til October. Trial and error...first step heat mat?
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