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KENTUCKY

I had been slowly raising my vine on my Garrell fruit. The last couple of days it got very "tight". So today I took it off the supports and the stress relieved some. The stem is pointing down toward the ground. Then I noticed that the pumpkin has been doing most of it's growth on the "shoulders" close to the stem. Now my vine is in a reverse "s" curve. I was able to relieve more stress by moving the 150 lb fruit backwards away from the vine. Is that normal to have to move the fruit backwards? If yes, I guess I should be moving it a little everyday to get he curve back right? Then later on, when it is to big to even budge (now at day 21), what can I do then?

Thanks,
Mike

8/6/2003 2:26:15 PM

Utah

so the fruit is on the inside curve of the "S"?
like this +) not this (+

")" is vine and "+" is pumpkin ...

if so then you move the pumpkin as much as you can now
to get as much slack as you can now. so it will end up
looking like this +|.
you might have to "S" curve the vine vertically with some supports to do this... but as least you won't have to try to move a heavy pumpkin later.

8/6/2003 5:40:07 PM

Southeast

The mother fruit was moved backwards last year as suggested by Glenn Andrews and and the courage provided by Stan Pugh!

8/6/2003 7:47:12 PM