From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

I am seeing lots of pictures from you new growers. Your plants look excellent. You have the vines nicely buried, and then there is this pumpkin stem sticking out of the dirt. You will wish you never did this in about 30 days. You need to start now to put slack in your vines with an "S" curve or the pumpkin will pull away from the stem. I always under estimate what I need. Then end up having to use supports to get the vine to stretch

6/20/2013 7:30:50 AM

Germany

...just an addition, for those new growers who don´t have a clue what the S-curve is, here is a nice intro into this matter, with a helpful description of the procedure and supporting picture.

http://how2growags.blogspot.de/p/v-behaviorurldefaultvml-o_5612.html#_Preventing_Stem_Stress

6/20/2013 8:44:06 AM

Wi

Trouble starts with no s-turn before 500#. Trouble starts with a good S-turn about 1400#...lol.

6/20/2013 8:50:07 AM

Germany

At least in my opinion the biggest problem about is that some people are not aware of the growth potential and growth behavior of the pumpkin. Some people probably don´t consider that the pumpkin is growing in all directions, and a pumpkin with a final diameter of maybe 4 ft will push the vine back by 2 ft from its original location, and it will lift the vine by something like 1.5 ft. People need to think BIG and wayyyyy aheaaaad. At pollination time people should already try to imagine the big one sitting in their patch and where the final position of the stem will be (...and which side vines will be in the way of the big pumpkin, so they could direct them in a detour, then they don´t need to cut off too many secondaries as the pumpkin is growing bigger and bigger).

6/20/2013 9:13:08 AM

Germany

...forgot to write "vine stress" right after "about" in the first line. Sorry.

6/20/2013 9:14:04 AM

Corbin, KY

make sure the little pumpkin is level and on sand while they are small. Start right a lot less trouble.

6/20/2013 12:54:07 PM

Ohio

I agree Shannon,
I never bury the first 2 or 3 secondaries before and none after the pumpkin and hold off adding any micro to the vines, including the main. Makes moving the vines alot easier in the long run when your not pulling up roots and breaking them so you can get slack in your vine for your pumpkin to have room to grow. Once i have the S curve in place then I add the Micro and bury the vines.

6/20/2013 1:37:00 PM

Federal Way, WA

Good info and awesome link Pumpking...that site is a great resource. Being a new grower, I'm gad I caught this stuff now :). With a main only out to 3ft right now, I've got a bit of time to figure it all out, ha.

6/20/2013 2:10:34 PM

anytown U.S,A,

Maybe you could post a couple of good examples for the newbies Shannon.

6/20/2013 7:19:18 PM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=161101

6/20/2013 8:09:32 PM

Midway, UT

In the past, in addition to an S curve, I have had a small pile of sand that the the vine ramped up on with the pumpkin at the top of the small pile. This allowed some extra slack because the vine was already going up from day one. I then just slowly lowered the pumpkin down is it grew. It has worked nicely.

6/20/2013 8:55:48 PM

hillsdale Mi

So as for burying the vines do you wait until youv selected your female or do you unbury the vine for the curve? Probably dumb question but im confused on this part.

6/25/2013 7:12:14 AM