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Illinois

Hi everyone,

After four years of various mistakes, I've finally gotten my first giant pumpkin growing. It's 10 days in now. I started a six-lobe fruit at 11'. It's now at 22" circumference and still shiny. Last night it put on 4 lbs!

I've been tracking measurements every day and it's consistently growing 3" in all directions every evening. I'm wondering if there's a way I can boost this to four or five inches. I've been foliar feeding every other day with miracle grow and seaweed powder. I've buried a drip hose in the ground and turn the faucet on very low so it can drink all night (ground is moist in the morning but not flooded). Every few weeks I foliar spray with neem oil on a cool night and that has worked wonders for keeping the bugs away.

The entire plant is about 23' long. I have a second insurance pumpkin at 16' which I started three days ago. There's a third tiny female starting at the tip which might blossom later this week. I terminated the main and the longer vines (no longer than 10'). There are still many male flowers on the plant, maybe a few tiny female flowers as well which I haven't found (this thing is huge!).

Is there anything else I can do?

7/21/2013 9:08:06 AM

Ny

Pumpkindad,

First, I would ask what your N-P-K ratio is for your Miracle Gro. It would appear as a number such as 24-8-16 or 10-52-10 or something else. At this stage, it is important to back off on the nitrogen, which is the first of those three numbers on the Miracle Gro box in order to maximize fruit development. Otherwise, more attention may be directed to the development of other parts of the plant and not the pumpkin.

There are a few different feeding schedules out there for your purposes. I personally like to go by the one on the Holland's Land O' Giants site.

If you go the Holland's route, it sounds like you are at the point where you might want to consider adding calcium and even a bloom booster/fruit finisher to your feeding schedule. This would be in addition to the seedweed powder as well. I feel that all three products are very important at this stage in order to put massive growth into your pumpkin.

Good Luck! It sounds like you have a plant that is showing some real promise.

7/21/2013 10:56:34 AM

Illinois

Took your advice and applied a foliar calcium solution. Pumpkin grew an extra .5" last night (+3.5" circ ... previous best was 3"). Now sitting at over 12 lbs just 11 days in.

I measure in the mornings but was curious to see if it grew any during the day... holy **** it put on 2" already!

It went from a softball to a bowling ball in 24 hours. Looks like tomorrow it will be huge ;-)

7/22/2013 11:41:23 PM

Menomonie, WI (mail@gr8pumpkin.net)

Your pumpkin is not growing during the day..the fruit grows at night

7/23/2013 7:25:42 AM

Illinois

Yeah, don't know what to tell you there. Every day up to this one there was no growth at all during the day. But yesterday it grew some between sunrise and sunset. I'm very fastidious with my measurements, it is what it is.

It put on more at night to be sure though... 6 lbs gain total in the past 24 hours.

7/23/2013 9:37:41 AM

Nova Scotia

your best inches growth should be between day 15-25, best weight growth between day 35-45.

7/23/2013 9:43:07 AM

Upa Creek, Mo

I am completely shaded after 130 pm and mine grow each day (much slower than night), and have for 3 years.

7/23/2013 9:56:01 AM

Ny

Pumpkindad,

I'm glad to hear about your recent success. Some time ago after a frustrating growing season with high expectations, but disappointing results, I decided to go with the "Holland's Land O' Giants" feeding schedule for the following season. I really for the first time went from growing decent sized pumpkins to much more substantial sized ones. The daily growth was staggering to my mind. I feel that Joel Holland has such fantastic knowledge when it comes to giant pumpkin growing. I figured that listening to an expert like him might give me what I needed to get to the next level. So, I thought I'd pass along what worked for me with the hope that it would also work out well for you.

7/23/2013 2:05:49 PM

Germany

Shannon, in 2010 I had made the experiment to measure a pumpkin twice a day, with almost exactly 12 hours in between (something like 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.), and within the experimental errors the gains during day and night time were very similar. Therefore, I cannot agree 100% with the statement that the fruit grows at night but not during the day. However, I must admit that some environmental conditions (for example greater differences between day and night temperatures) might shift the gains towards night time (night shift, LOL). I can only recommend for those who are interested: Do that experiment, find a time of day when you can measure the pumpkin in 12 hours intervals (7 a.m. and 7 p.m., or maybe 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. or something like that), and do these measurements over 3 weeks of good pumpkin growth (to minimize taping errors) for example between day 25 and day 60.

For watermelons I have seen a YouTube video (can´t find it right now) which shows the growth of such a fruit in time lapse, and in this case it clearly shows the enormous gains at night and that the fruit is just sort of resting during daytime. Was fun to watch this video.

Cheers,
Jörg

7/25/2013 6:20:08 AM

Illinois

I've been taking measurements about 12 hours apart as well. My pumpkin is only on day 15 so it's hardly enough data, but most of my growth has been happening at night. In the beginning, it was virtually all at night. Now it's maybe 75% at night. The daytime is growth is impressive... the nighttime growth is staggering.

Speaking of fertilizing, I've been doing some experiments and found that daily fertilizing has a big impact on fruit growth. Temps have been down for the past few days (75F daytime, 55F night). Coincidentally, I did not fertilize the first day of this cold spell. Growth slowed by 50%. It was about 5 degrees colder yesterday but I applied a calcium/seaweed foliar spray in the early evening. I woke up to find that growth had tripled!

I am currently at 108" OTT. The pumpkin gained about 10 lbs last night.

Too early to say for sure but I am back on track for a 1000 lb pumpkin. In any case, this is already the biggest one I've ever grown ;-)

7/25/2013 10:09:00 AM

Germany

Hi pumpkindad, on day 15 and the absolute daily gains related to this age there is still a pretty high risk in taping errors, and therefore I´m inclined to doubt the tripled growth upon foliar feeding, whereas growth decreased by 50% a day earlier. If a night of 5 deg. colder had such an amazing impact (50% decrease in pumpkin growth), then I wouldn´t have been able to grow any pumpkins the last two years, because in 2012 and 2011 I´ve had some nights of about 40F in the first week of August, but didn´t notice any significant decrease in pumpkin growth (maybe 15% less), but the pumpkins had a size already which made it easier to tape them in the same manner every day. If a drop from 55F to 50F would already cause -50% fruit growth, then the nights with 40F should almost stop pumpkin growth, but they don´t. Therefore, in my above post I recommended to do such measurements after day 25, because the daily gains are much bigger and the taping errors (percentage-wise) are much smaller.
Also, a strong plant should have enough nutrient buffer capacities to keep a young pumpkin (at day 15 like yours) going for a while, even if you stop foliar feeding for one day. Just imagine what otherwise would happen with a plant that had to feed a pumpkin with 30-40 lbs daily gains and there´s a missing foliar meal in between? No, the pumpkin won´t slow down to 2 lbs a day.

7/25/2013 10:38:08 AM

Germany

...by the way, I forgot to mention that I hadn´t done foliar feeding in 2011 and 2012 (except some Mn, two times in 2012...but nothing else), but the pumpkins were growing at decent rate. That said, it probably makes more sense to you what I had written above (i.e., that one missing foliar meal doesn´t cause the pumpkin to slow down so much, nor would the slightly lower night temperatures do).

7/25/2013 10:41:19 AM

Germany

....anyway, continue to measure your pumpkin twice a day, and I´m quite confident that after day 20 or 25 you will find that the ups and downs will be less pronounced, both between days and between morning and evening measurements.

7/25/2013 10:42:43 AM

Germany

May your pumpkin continue to grow for the next 80 days (or whenever your weigh-off will be), have fun :-)

7/25/2013 10:44:01 AM

Illinois

Hi Pumpking,

Tape measurements will definitely have more error to them at this point. That was the first thing I thought of in fact when growth had slowed down (to just 3.5 lbs that day ;-) I measured three times in all three directions and kept getting consistent measurements so I'm fairly confident in it.

I definitely don't have the experience with big pumpkins that you do and maybe it was just coincidence that the foliar feeding (or lack thereof) coincided with the temperature. A single data point is not that conclusive. I'm keeping accurate records though so I'm hoping in a month or two I will be able to draw some reliable conclusions.

In any case, I couldn't be more thrilled. I made every mistake in the book and then my neighbor outdid me and sprayed Roundup on the pumpkins last year. So after years of failed attempts, I would've been content with a 50 lb pumpkin. I was secretly hoping for 250lbs. But it's looking like it might just end up being much larger than that!

7/25/2013 11:11:11 AM

Illinois

BTW, it wasn't just lower night temps... it was lower daytime temps as well. We went from 90-95 degree highs to just 72 the other day. I read another post on here written a few years ago that mentioned a 10 degree drop in daytime temps equates to about a 50% drop in daily growth. No idea where that came from but it's pretty consistent with what happened to me (for what that's worth) ;-)

7/25/2013 11:13:04 AM