I dont even have the pumpkins plant yet and my tree already need pruning.

I planted 8 seeds, but so far only 7 have come up, but they look healthy.

After I plant I will build an irrigation system and cover all the soil with a mulch. I will show a picture later if this experiment works.

Larry

Larry, I think you must stay up nights to think of this stuff. LOL

I hope Seminole grows well for you. I have mine planted along the 8' tall garden fence on the north side of the garden this year so they can climb the fence and go straight for the woodland to climb the trees after that.

Your set-up looks great, but I think that for 7 Seminole plants you should expect they'll go hog wild and run all over the place. You cannot control them. I like them precisely because they are growing like crazy in July and August when everything else is slowing down.

I think it will look amazing if he has squash growing all over it. Larry, do you have a helmet for fall harvest time?

Carol, I was thinking the same thing! Your ingenuity amazes me along with your work ethic. I want to see a progression of photos as your pumpkins grow, mature, and are harvested!

Carol, I think I have a nice hardhat out in the shop, about halloween will be a nice time to use it. I was thinking today of some kind of joke to pull on the grand-kids. Like, maybe, taking one of those pumpkins and sticking a sparkler in the stem, lighting it, dropping it in there trick-or-treat bag and telling them it is a bomb. I bet you cant guess why my grand-kids are such a mess.

I have the Seminole planted now and waiting on the Corn field pumpkins to sprout. The bed is ready for them also, but I have not put as much work into it because it is about two years old and only needs finishing touches.

Larry

Larry,

I look forward to seeing how your Seminole pumpkins turn out. I've got nine planted myself. This is the first time to grow them. I'm hoping they grow to the edge of the woods and take off up the trees. But more likely they will try to take over that portion of the garden. It will be a battle between them and about 50 butternut squash plants. It'll be interesting.

Scottokieman, I have never grown Seminole before either, I have only grown Butternut 1 time before. I have been waiting for the corn field pumpkins to sprout. If they dont sprout I will put another type of pumpkin in that bed.

I still have Tromboncino squash and Armenian cucumbers to plant. I may spend a lot or time mowing these plants this summer to keep them from taking over my house.

Larry

This is an update on the Seminole pumpkins I plant 2 months ago tomorrow. Susan an Scott had expressed an interest on the pumpkin's progress. They seem to doing okay, but I think we may 3 more month of growing season left and no telling what kind of mess I will have by then

Larry

Larry, It looks good and I think you'll have a beautiful mess three months from now.

How much room does Seminole need? All the room you have. It will grow and grow and grow. That's why I love it so. Even better, the pumpkins have a very hard shell and last forever. I still have about 20 of them left in storage from last year's crop. I've had them last well over a year sometimes. You'll practically need a machete' or a chainsaw to cut them open, and I believe that very hard shell is the reason they store so well and for so long.

I've never had a pest bother them, but I've got voles eating plants in the back garden which is where the Seminole is growing and I'm getting worried they'll get the Seminole roots. The voles seem upstoppable since they are moving underground and they do so deeply enough (in old gopher tunnels apparently) that you cannot tell where their runs are, making it hard to trap them. I'm wishing I had planted more Seminole in the front garden too....but, then, the voles have been in the front garden too, first eating potatoes and now they are eating the roots of flowering plants and herbs. I'm starting to wonder if I'll have anything left by fall. It isn't that they are taking a lot....just a plant here and a plant there, but after a few months, it starts adding up.

The native people who grew them in Florida let them climb up into the trees. I wonder how they harvested them? (Because, as you can tell, a Seminole could easily climb 30 or 40 feet up into a tree.) Maybe they pulled the vines and the whole mess came down out of the trees or maybe they just left them up there until they fell on their own. When mine have climbed into the trees, I used a ladder to get as close as I could and then I yanked on the vines and pulled them down. I did it while the vines were still green, thinking if I waited until after a freeze that the vines would be brittle and would break without the pumpkins coming down out of the tree.

I bet you're going to have a great Seminole pumpkin harvest in the fall!

Dawn

Dawn, thanks. I hope I don't flop on this experiment. I was hoping to try some hand pollinating. I am excited about the Brazilian squash and wanting to try cross breeding of some of these pumpkins, but the Old Timey Cornfield pumpkin and the Brazilian have been lazy bloomers. The Cornfield has produced one male bloom and the Brazilian has two male blooms forming today.

My soil is shallow clay, which gives me a small margin of error, especially on watering. I let the Seminole get stresses and it was aborting fruit before I broke down and gave it a good soaking, I don't plan on that happening again. It is very dry here, but we are being given a small chance of rain later in the week.

Larry

Dawn, I ment to tell you that I had bought a machete' not long after planting the Seminole. It is a cheap one from Harbor freight, I plan on grinding the saw teeth of the back of it and grinding a notch in the end of it and use it much like a paper cutter to cut the pumpkins.

I meet with a Surgeon in about 3 weeks to see if he can fix my right shoulder. Someone else may be doing my "Pumpkin Chopping" for a while.

Larry

Great pictures Larry! I think you're going to have a spectacular harvest! I put in three hills of Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin. While they were still tiny, one hill (two plants) was killed by squash bugs. But the other two are just starting to take off now. They've bucked the grasshoppers. I notice that they and my White Cushaw have really rough, raspy leaves. I suspect the grasshoppers simply don't like that texture.

I'm hoping you can get your shoulder fixed. That will give you years more of pleasure, working on projects around your place.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Larry,

Every gardener needs a machete!

I am glad you are going to meet with the surgeon and get your shoulder fixed. Remember this: my friend, Fred, has had several joints replaced and has had major back surgery, and he still is ranching and gardening and he is a couple of months away from turning 90 years young. I believe the surgeries he had are what have enabled him to remain as active as he is at an age when most people are sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch. He is not now and never will be a rocking chair kind of guy....he is too busy to sit in a chair on the porch.

George, I interplanted Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin with my Kandy Korn this year. It grew pretty well, but didn't really take off until the corn had finished up. Now that the cornstalks aren't shading it, it is doing great. It has a lot of blooms and has one pumpkin about the size of a volleyball. Hopefully some of these newer blooms will get pollinated and will set fruit now that the cornstalks are out of the way.

Seminole in the front garden is on the shady northwest side of the garden and is just now flowering, but the Seminole plants in the back garden have several fruit already and a lot of flowers open this morning.

The bad news is that squash bugs have arrived, so I'm going to have to deal with them.

Dawn