Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins I have Jack-O-Lanterns on my mind. It’s getting to be June and with the warmer weather comes the planting of pumpkins. Not only am I planting pumpkins, but I’m also planting gourds and squish as well. I have already planted my giant pumpkins outside; my goal this year is to grow a 900 pound pumpkin. When going for the giant pumpkin make sure that you plant them early and get the right seed. Dill’s Atlantic giant is the standard for giant pumpkin growing so it’s a good idea to get this variety. People that just get started growing pumpkins can grow a 500 pound pumpkin the first year. A good book about the sport of pumpkin growing is World Class Pumpkins II. If you need any help or advice with your pumpkin growing endeavors leave me a message!

Until Later,
Plantfanatic

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins I have Jack-O-Lanterns on my mind. It’s getting to be June and with the warmer weather comes the planting of pumpkins. Not only am I planting pumpkins, but I’m also planting gourds and squish as well. I have already planted my giant pumpkins outside; my goal this year is to grow a 900 pound pumpkin. When going for the giant pumpkin make sure that you plant them early and get the right seed. Dill’s Atlantic giant is the standard for giant pumpkin growing so it’s a good idea to get this variety. People that just get started growing pumpkins can grow a 500 pound pumpkin the first year. A good book about the sport of pumpkin growing is World Class Pumpkins II. If you need any help or advice with your pumpkin growing endeavors leave me a message!

Seedless Watermelons

The Bee’s aren’t the only ones busy this time of year; it seems like there a million thing to do and only half the time to do them. I put out some cabbage, broccoli, and leaf lettuce this past week. My favorite variety of broccoli is Atlantis; it seems to grow quickly and has nice dense heads. I like my cabbage heads to weigh about 6-10 pounds for my road side stands. I now some people can grow 20-30 pound heads, but what are your going to do with all that cabbage?
I also planted my seedless watermelon today. If you have never grown seedless watermelon let me tell you, home grown seedless watermelon has it all beat. If you don’t know how to grow them they can be quite a challenge. The way we start our watermelon off is by planting them in our trays and then putting them in a dark hot room, around 90 degrees, and leaving them there for two days. You want to make sure that you trays are just moist otherwise they’ll rot in the trays. After you’ve left them in the dark room for a couple days take them to the greenhouse or into the sun and away they’ll grow.

Plantfanatic

Spring!!!

What a beautiful week!!! Its spring and there’s a thousand things to do. On Monday we planted our onions, we planted around 5000. Hopefully a lot of people will want to buy onions this year. Also today was so sunny that I felt like I should get out and do something. So it might be a bit early, but I went ahead and took the straw off my Darselect strawberries (offered by Nourse Farms). What a job, but hopefully it will be worth it. If you have strawberries make sure when you take the straw off, that you cut the dead plant away. If you don’t you’ll strawberries will rot right at the tips, no fun at all. One more thing if you haven’t separated your perennials yet now is a great time.

More Later,
Plantfanatic

Onions

Today was a snowy, cloudy day, not the kind of day that you would want to plant onions on. Which is what I was planning on doing, but the ground was a little to wet so I think I’ll wait a few days. Some of my favorite varieties are Candy, Walla Walla Sweets, and red Burgermaster. You can find all of these varieties at Dixondale Farms, I’m not sure if they have a website, but there prices are very good especially if you buy in large quantities like we do. My tomato plants in the greenhouse are looking good, though it looks like I might have burnt them a little with fertilizer, either that or they have some kind of disease.

The Quest for An Earlier Tomato

I planted my tomatoes recently hoping for an earlier crop this year. I don’t know about you, but it feels awful good to have beautiful tomatoes in the early summer. So I try to plant them as early as possible. I have also learned a few tricks. Such as when the tomatoes are about full size, but still green take a shovel and slice the roots about a foot from the base of the plant, this makes the plant think it’s going to die so it ripens the tomatoes up nice and fast. Also I don’t know if any of you have tried all the different little greenhouses that you can get to put over you tomatoes, such as Wall-O-Water or just plane milk jugs. These are nice to get them off to a great start. I’m sure there’s other ways to extend the tomato season, if you have any tips please leave me a comment.

Until next time,
Plantfanatic

When I was a young gardener I remember when I thought that the more seeds you had in a small area the better, boy did I learn, when your sunflowers are shading out your tomatoes that’s not so good. I’m a big fan of planning
I have heard it said that “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” I don’t know if they plan to fail as much as they don’t know what there getting involved, they have not counted the cost. I know most of you out there our experienced gardeners yourselves, but I think everyone should have a garden plan. You can get twice the amount of produce out of the same space if you have a plan of where to plant what when. Confused? Let me give an example say that you have a space that you want to plant tomatoes in, well we all know that tomatoes are a warm weather crop that you plant later in the spring, so before you plant tomatoes why not plant an early crop of radishes, kohlrabi, or lettuce (probably better to do a leaf lettuce instead of a head lettuce). See you get two crops for the price of one plot of land.