Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin

[rdback]

Yeah, but it's FREE SHIPPING George!

This is funny. I was going to tease Ron about maybe trying to send me one of his pies via USPS. Now I'm scared of what his price might have been lol.

[heavyhitterokra]

rdback,

I'm in the wrong business. I need to be selling pumpkin pies.

[macmex]

LOL! I suspect they put it at that price thinking they might sell a couple to unsuspecting folk who didn't read carefully before clicking on it. I was telling Ron, however, that the local "Walmart pumpkin pies" are so heavily spiced that it makes my family feel queasy when we eat any of them. We make our pumpkin pies with less cloves than they do. We also tend to make ours less sweet. 

My wife has an egg and dairy allergy, which developed in the last few years. So, we have even learned to make pumpkin pie without eggs or milk of any kind.

[heavyhitterokra]

I got my Old-Timey Cornfield Pumpkins planted out today, right before the heavy rains. I hope it warms up a little bit by the time they germinate. If so, we'll be on our way to more pumpkin pies next Autumn!

Old-Timey Cornfield pumpkins are always a 'feel good' crop for me. I can't wait to see the little green seed leaves breaking ground in the coming days and weeks.

Thanks, George, for introducing those to us.

[macmex]

Maybe I'll get mine planted today. I have a new one, called Arabat, from the Ukraine, this year. I'll start a thread on it soon. But Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin is a must in my garden.

I sent seed for this one to two folk in NJ this year. We'll see how it does for them in a more moderate, moist climate.

[heavyhitterokra]

I once had a Professor at OSU tell me to plant a seed at a depth equal to 3 times the diameter of the seed. However, I've planted seeds at various depths and had good luck with bigger size seeds, such as corn, up to 3" inches.

I do remember getting some seeds 'capped' by heavy silt last year though. I don't remember what kind of seeds they were? But I remember they never came up because pounding, heavy, rains caused the soil to become compacted above them. When I dug down to find what became of the seeds, I found their sprouts had run laterally, trying to find their way out and ended up dying just below the 'cap' from lack of sunlight.

Sometimes, after heavy rains, you have to help them out or they'll die, but I have a quarter-acre garden, so individual attention to seeds is rare.

Capping can be avoided by the introduction of lots of organic material the year before planting. Or by mixing sand and sawdust into your seedbed the same year you are planting. Mine usually just experience 'survival of the fittest' because my garden is too big for only one person to manage.

Hopefully, my pumpkins will break through. I planted them in first-year soil that has never been tilled, so it ought to have plenty of organic matter from having been pasture grasses for so many years.

[heavyhitterokra]

My pumpkins came up just fine, but the deer found them and ate every last one of them. Not one survived.

Some of them were those big seeded Amish Pie Pumpkins, which my wife likes so much, for roasting. Those were all of that seed that I had on hand.

I do have extra Old-Timey Cornfield Pumpkin seeds though, thanks to my good friend, George. (Not the first time a fellow seed saver has saved my bacon). There has been more than once that I would have lost all my Heavy Hitter Okra, if it had not been for 'farming out' seeds to other growers.

I've learned the hard way over the years, (never put all your eggs into one basket) especially, where rare seeds are involved.

A note to Jesse: George and I have your Hamby pole beans planted in more than one location, in case of disaster.

A note to Glen: We have your peppers planted in multiple locations too, for the same reason.


Sometimes, planting new ground comes with high risks.  I just cleared some more trees this Winter, to extend my garden, but the deer haven't decided to move out of that spot yet.  I'm beginning to think that if a deer hunter had a deer stand made of Plasticulture, his chances of seeing a deer would greatly increase!  I just laid plastic last night and there are already fresh tracks across it.

[macmex]

I struggle to thin, It hurts to pull up a perfectly healthy plant, but it's better to do it. You'll probably get a better harvest if you thin to no more than 3 plants there. Conventional wisdom says 2 plants for such large plants. No matter what, you'll have a huge mass of vines and fruit in about three months.

[heavyhitterokra]

Bon,

You've inspired me!  I replanted my Old-Timey Cornfield pumpkins right before the downpour.  Maybe, I planted more than the deer can possibly eat?  I hope so anyhow.

[heavyhitterokra]

Maybe, I need to plant a decoy of sweet potatoes. The deer seem to be so drawn to those at times that they ignore everything else. That might be a really good idea. Thanks, Bon.

[heavyhitterokra]

Looks like that compost really helped them along.

[mountianj]

one of my old timey cornfield pumpkin look good so far

[macmex]

I think I've finally got all that I want started. Today I put in two hills of White Cushaw, from 2012 seed. Was crossing my fingers over that one. That's getting pretty old, but I did store it in the freezer for some years too. I pre-germinated the seed and had about 70% germination. 

[heavyhitterokra]

As I was out in the garden, hoeing weeds away from the Old-Timey Cornfield Pumpkins, I took time to count the survivors from all the deer depredation. I counted 112 of them still standing.

Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll have plenty of seed to share this coming Autumn. Of course, the squash bugs haven't made it to my garden yet, so things could still go South on me pretty quick.

Speaking of things going South ... I discovered that I have a heavy load of Japanese Beetles on my elderberry starts. I had so much work to catch up on today, that I didn't have a chance to squish any of them. They really do a lot of damage fast!

Thank goodness, I still have a bottle of Pryrethrin Pyganic-Pro, around here somewhere. That stuff is expensive but it works pretty fast. It's made from the oil of Chrysanthemums and smells like donuts frying when you spray it. It doesn't actually kill the bugs, it just paralyzes them and causes them to fall off of the plant, where the sun can bake them or else they eventually starve.

[macmex]

My experience with Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin is that once it begins crawling it is pretty much impervious to squash bugs. I'm trialing a Ukrainian squash, also a c. moschata. Apparently Arabat is not impervious to squash bugs at this stage. Fortunately I was able to kill them and neutralize a bunch of their egg clusters and Arabat has now been almost a week without any visible sign of squash bugs.