My garden took the latest day of record heat very well, probably because it was only scorching hot for the day, then by 6pm it cooled back down. But for some reason my pumpkin vine didn't fare so well.
As you can see the older parts of the vine died right back, even though I watered it just the day before. The newer growth is still powering along, though, it's even putting out more baby fruit though I don't know if I want it to try to make more pumpkins or just finish off what's already there.
You'll notice in this picture that the pumpkin on the bottom left is a lot smaller than the others. It's always been smaller, though it turned the same shade of ripe orange. No idea why it's so small.
The evening of the hot day I went out to inspect the vine and was surprised to see the stem of the little pumpkin had broken off! I thought, maybe it was ripe? But when I turned it around to look at it, I got quite a shock. It was like Norman Bates in psycho - turn over a perfectly lovely pumpkin and you see THIS shocker.How could it have rotted so quickly? There are already nasty little caterpillars moved in, and fungus ... just ew! I guess I can only hope this doesn't happen to the other five.
4 comments:
Oh lord...this is so distressing! What a shame! I hope your others will do better, for sure!
Hey, followed a link here from your other blog. I sympathize with trying to grow a garden in hot weather! Best of luck, and mulch a lot... it really does help.
Our pumpkins made it through the summer in Vegas, so I have hope for yours! Also, there's a variety of golden tomato that seems to do better than most.
i watered my pumpkins three times that day! but i have a tank
i like your trellising. i am gogin to try that next year instead of have them take over the garden!
Thanks Ran. I'll definitely keep using the trellis, just make sure you tie it up very securely, and periodically tie up the vines. A bit of wind can tear them off the trellis and cause a great mess!
And make sure you put "hammocks" on your pumpkins as soon as they reach the size of a tennis ball or the combined weight will pull the vines off too.
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