Mon Jul 07, 2014 8:23 pm
#85694
So here's the deal... I decided early this year that I wanted to TRY to grow some pumpkins on my own just to see if I could... I've always had great success with tomatoes, squash, cucumber, zucchini, watermelon, etc... But I have never ever tried to grow pumpkins. Mainly because I never thought I had enough room to allow for growth. This year, I bit the bullet, and bought some seeds with a determination to make my first attempt a positive experience. I printed off a planting guide from the agricultural department at NC State University, and made a big blueprint of my intended garden to include all of my plants and seeds, with detailed descriptions on date of planting, and distance between... My squash and tomatoes are doing ridiculously well! Those veggies were transplants that I bought from a nursery. Everything else that I planted were seeds. NOTHING germinated... NOTHING! Except for the pumpkins, but there is one problem. The blooms are showing no signs of producing. the large orange flowers are there, and have been for some time, but nothing has given any inclination of doing anything other than that. It's like my vines are teasing me... So I have a few questions...
1- What could cause all of my seeds to fail except for the pumpkins?
2- What could cause the transplants to do so well (thrive actually), and pretty much no luck anywhere else.
3- Am I just being paranoid, and overambitious? According to the planting chart, I have a window from April 15th-July 1st to plant seeds. I planted the pumpkins in late April... I have exact dates written down in my notebook somewhere...And the length of time from seed to harvest is 115-120 days, which I know is still about a month-ish away, but I would have THOUGHT I'd have been seeing evidence of little pumpkins by now. Habing never planted real 'kins myself, I'm kinda clueless, and I originally just did this as an "eh well, we'll see what happens" project, but it's become more of an interest since I have such great looking vines now.
4- I have noticed a LOT of insects... the leaves on the pumpkin vines seem to be just fine, but I have lost pretty much two whole spuash plants. I'm always afraid of using pesticides because i'm paranoid my dog getting into anything and making her sick, but I would be more than willing to try something that's proven to be not harmful to pets... Thought about "Seven" but not sure.
1- What could cause all of my seeds to fail except for the pumpkins?
2- What could cause the transplants to do so well (thrive actually), and pretty much no luck anywhere else.
3- Am I just being paranoid, and overambitious? According to the planting chart, I have a window from April 15th-July 1st to plant seeds. I planted the pumpkins in late April... I have exact dates written down in my notebook somewhere...And the length of time from seed to harvest is 115-120 days, which I know is still about a month-ish away, but I would have THOUGHT I'd have been seeing evidence of little pumpkins by now. Habing never planted real 'kins myself, I'm kinda clueless, and I originally just did this as an "eh well, we'll see what happens" project, but it's become more of an interest since I have such great looking vines now.
4- I have noticed a LOT of insects... the leaves on the pumpkin vines seem to be just fine, but I have lost pretty much two whole spuash plants. I'm always afraid of using pesticides because i'm paranoid my dog getting into anything and making her sick, but I would be more than willing to try something that's proven to be not harmful to pets... Thought about "Seven" but not sure.