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C N Y

My honest opinion is that you won't have any troubles with too few flowers, shriveling and dying of them otherwise and generally poor plant health with frequent applications of a water-soluble fertilizer at the recommended dosage but at 3-5-day intervals that has an exaggerated 'P' content (NPK/10-52-10, see?) or similar, then watering quite noticeably 36+ hours later to give the fert time to absorb fully-foliarly, lol, laying offa that and PerHaps going to 20-20-20 after pumpkins are decided to be 150-pound 'keepers'.
JUST my opinion and you could hear 15 other recs on any given day. I had the same as you in like 2024, where I went BY what the plants were saying and a little late, I began hitting them with said 10-52-10 and vwa-lah, everything started picking up in those departments. What might you be fertilizing them with/how often anyway, if you don't mind my asking? Massively pollinating will not affect whether it will take or not, but yeah, more pollen HAS to be better, lol. The numbers are there for their reasons. I can't WAIT! to be watering my plants including + all I want, but they are just getting into the ground this week.
Some grower I am! Take care---eric g

[Last edit: 06/04/26 10:36:04 PM]

6/4/2026 10:28:43 PM

Grittyville, WA

Can always try more fertilizer rather than culling as pumpkinpal suggests. Things are rarely hopeless with these plants. They can look like crap but then transform into good looking plants almost overnight.

6/5/2026 1:03:55 AM

Huntsville, AL, USA

I fed 15-30-15 plus a seaweed fertilizer once a week for the first 4 weeks and now I'm feeding it 24-8-16 plus seaweed fertilizer in water and as a spray once a week. The ones that are growing are doing so at a pretty good rate, I think the Lowes plant was just a dud, honestly. Any of the plants I've grown from that seed group have produced poorly even in exact growing conditions of other plants, so I wasn't too upset about it. I don't have a huge patch and I had, at the time of culling, 7 plants growing in various locations so I was going to have to cut down at some point just to make sure the successful ones had space haha I'm mostly concerned about overcrowding in the main hill. I'm not sure if, at some point, they'll start harming each other in there. I wonder if I should go back to the 15-30-15, maybe I swapped too soon?

6/5/2026 9:12:48 AM

C N Y

I'm no one for fertilizer advice but the/your program for next year may be a reverse of what has been done thus far although before I even KNEW of different formulations of water-soluble fertilizer, I used the 15-30-15 exclusively because I didn't know of any other, early-on (1999...). I suppose that initially, a higher P constituent is admissible but not preferred, but there is no 'plant penalty' for the supposed reversal. Ultimately, High N, High P and finally, High K. Please don't go by this fully - sometime, you can look at others' diaries and pick 2-3 to follow for years backward and go by those whom have grown what you know was spectacular. Do as a millionaire does, to be one. My lineup would currently be 24-8-16 (Not kidding - I have it in use!), then 15-30-15 upon males *forming* and 20-20-20 upon final fruit deciding-upon, through to the end. Higher and lower #s would be par for the Giant Grower's Course! I personally think that most growers do not fertilize EnOUgH. I would not wanna kill that $400 seed, either, lol---eric g

6/6/2026 1:39:43 AM