I love high humidity. Actually los angeles is more humid than most of california that isn't near the coast. For some reason the extreme heat in los angeles and the air coming off the ocean makes it quite a bit more humid there than where I live. It can be about 60% humidity even in the summer in LA. Although that may be true, it never rains because the humidity isn't enough. San Francisco is very humid apparently according to this site, even more than I expected. But my climate is closer to Fresno, about 20% humidity in the heat of the day. If you go to northern california, visit Humboldt park. It isn't that well known to tourists compared with san francisco, but it is absolutely incredible. That is where the tallest tree in the world resides, and there are plenty of other trees that are at least 300 feet tall. Not to mention their gorgeous color and shape! In case you don't know what I'm talking about, this is the coastal redwood.

heres a link that might help. california cities are down a little bit.
http://ggweather.com/ccd/avgrh.htm

Sadly the female flower I thought would bloom shriveled and fell off. Some others are on the way and I'm hoping they'll do better. I'm not sure when the cutoff date is for pumpkins to establish. How long does it take for a pumpkin to ripen after being pollinated?

I did find a pair of conjoined male flowers. Sadly one bloomed today and the other will probably do it tomorrow. It would have made a good picture if they bloomed together.

I thought I was only going to have one pumpkin for the whole year, because that's all I saw for the last two months. But suddenly I spotted another growing yesterday, very large and very fast. I suppose it's one of those GIANT seeds I planted.

I feel a bit better now because what I THOUGHT was powerdery mildew looks to me now that it is just a lot of some sort of whitish dicolouration that is spreading across the leaves. I've seen this same sort of thing in university videos so, I guess it was a false alarm.

Tisthis- I've heard that it takes about 50 days for a pumpkin to grow and mature after it's pollinated...I'm not sure if this is true though

Hi all,

This is my first time planting pumpkins so bear with me lol.
I have a bit of concern on my pumpkin plant. Its growing great, nice and healthy, deep green leaves, etc. but have not had any female flowers yet. I have had about 10-15 male flowers but no females. I use Black Kow and have fertilized with miracle grow, water twice daily, enough to get all the way down to the roots, and it gets plenty of sun daily. 6-8 hours of direct sun daily. Is there something im not doing right or is it too hot for it o produce female flowers right now? Please help.

Thanks,

Josh

I just spotted a third growing now, so happy because I wanted to carve three exactly for October.

josh, heat isnt going to cause it to not have females but heat cane cause it not be pollinated. miracle grow is 24-8-16 and what you need is something with a higher middle number like 5-30-10(example) which causes rooting and blooming. miracle grow just gives you a big plant that looks good. after you get a pumpkin set then go to a more neutral number fertilizer like a 10-10-10.

My pumpkin patch is doing pretty good. I'm just wishing I had more land. I have very poor soil (mostly rock & sand) Last year brought in a trailer load of barn~yard dirt and spread it foot deep and banked it with straw. I have over planted my pumpkins then hadn't the heart to thin so I have a giant octopus in the yard. Lost a few squash & pumpkins to deer, so put up an electric fence and have had no trouble since. Have got 15~20 pumpkins basketball down to apple sized. Many females have aborted before the flower is mature enough to open. Heat or not enough nutrients to support it I imagine.

for your zone doesnt sound that bad. i grow in self watering containers and have 2 basketballs, there putting on 2 inches of girth a day. just trying to beat my own record. and think its going well. 250lbs is the goal.

Not so good. 4 Jack-Be-Little/Delicata F1s have just started producing fruit. I've lost My 8-Ball Zucchini to SVB completely, which I've replanted in hope for a late september crop. And I think 2 of the JBL/Delicata plants may be infected with SVB.

@terrybull thank you for the response :) I went looking at work today (lowes)but couldnt find anything with a middle high number the best i could find was a 10-10-10. Any ideas where to buy a fertilizer with a high mid number?

Thanks

i found one fertilizer with 11-35-15 but its for orchids... could i use that? Prob. a dumb question lol

yes it should be ok. its for rooting and blooming. the stuff i use is fertilome 9-59-8.

@terrybull did you buy fertilome from a local store or do you purchase online. Would like to use it :) Thanks again!

I've had a string of 4 female flower blooms over the last few days and I think they've been pollinated. The oldest one that bloomed on Thursday is the size of a tennis ball and lost its flower. Only one plant has not had a female flower bloom, but hopefully it will soon. I'm glad they should ripen on the vine before the first frost.

The leaf yellowing problem I've been having has continued and I'm pretty sure at this point its a nitrogen deficiency. I haven't fertilized since the yellowing started and its only gotten worse. It matches the symptoms for squash, plus my corn is showing symptoms as well. I gave them a bit of nitrogen fertilizer today and hoping they'll show improvement.

Just went outside and took a very close look at the new leaves and flowers coming through and found 5 females :)) *Happy dance*

Ill take pics along the journey

josh, i got mine local. but im sure you can buy it on line. maybe amazon. but it sounds like you are still outside duing the happy dance. congrats.

@Terrybull yeah I did the happy dance for a while lol. Went outside to check up today and found another one i missed yesterday. Took pics of them., going to try to upload them here.

http://josh-jordan24.tumblr.com/post/8651200410

just wanted to say miracle grow makes different mixes for example theres something like azalea food (they make these stupid names for stupid customers) which is the high nitrogen blend, and then there is like all-purpose with is balanced, then they have bloom booster which is high middle number (never remember what they each are except nitrogen). They have some other stupid blends which I haven't tried cus I mainly just use the all purpose one.

No females set yet! Been stupid hot here tho.Getting a little nervous, promised my grandgirl a punkin or two. Plants look good,lots of males, plenty of time, right? ;~)

I have 3 plants, 15, 20 and 25 feet long, 1 pumpkin about 80 pounds. But, I got the bacterial wilt from striped cucumber beetles and everything is slowly dying off :(.

One of my vines is dying and just about dead. But to be honest, I think I may have STEPPED onto the vine the other day, so maybe I squashed it in a vulnerable place, becuase it looks like it is rotting in that spot. Is that possible?

One vine looks like i could have bacterial wilt as well, but I'm not 100% sure yet. I did the wilt test a while ago and it came back negative, so I have hope.

Damnit. I wonder, if I tie that vine to the ground, and then put dirt over it, shouldn't it re-grow or something?

The New England Pie Pumpkins are amazing to watch. You can see the difference in their sizes every day!

Finally hand pollinated my first female Big Max blossom on Saturday, and it is already a bit larger than a tennis ball. 2nd female blossom was pollinated today.

Hello fellow gardeners. I am new a little new to growing pumpkins, and I work a lot of hours, so i don't think I could maintain a large pumpkin patch right now. Since this is my first year, I only have a few plants growing. The main vines on them are close to four feet long, and starting to get pretty thick. My problem right now is that I haven't had any pumpkins start to grow yet. I still have plenty of flowers blooming, but another thing I noticed is I haven't seen any female flowers. I saw a pic online that showed the female is normally real close to the vine and there is a ball at the top of the stem. I haven't seen that on my plant. The bag of seeds I purchased said this type of pumpkin variety is "jack'o'lantern", i don't know how accurate that is. Can anyone give me some helpful advice? My plants' vines ARE growing good and fast, but i know it will also be a waste of time if I don't starting getting vegetables sprouting soon (I was hoping to have them ready to pick a few days before halloween for my kids of course). Any advice will be helpful.

My Jack-B-Little/Delicata Hybrids are now developing. They're growing in the shape and size of a Jack-B-Little, but currently have a light green color instead of the light yellow immature JBLs usually have. Hopefully they take on some of the striping when they mature.

midigp, whats your weather been, when did you start them, are giving them any fertilizer etc.

this is a female.

{{gwi:41315}}

I started my seedling about mid March. I decided to do a verticle pumpkin garden and onto the metal roof of my shop and haven't been able to find much on how to do this well, so I have improvised with watermelon blogs, etc. I have one pumpkin that has taken off and I would say is the size of a basetball and weighing over 10 lbs. I have suspended it with a control top of a panty hose and a 2ndary hammock made from netting. Has anyone alse attempted this? I would welcome any ideas. So far it appears that I have lost 2 mini pumkins and about 3-4 more that I will need to hang (if they survive). I also have about 3 little ones about the size of grapefruit started on the roof! I love them and hope to have many for friends!

Here is my largest pumpkin so far. She is only a couple weeks old. I have her hung with a control top pany hose and knit hammock as a 2ndary hold. I have more starting on the roof that are maybe the size of a large onion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hanging Pumpkin

Since their are so many aspects to the Vertical Pumpkin and Roof-top garden I have decided to write a blog. This way you can also see my photos and remark. I hope you enjoy!

Belinda

Here is a link that might be useful: Belindas Blog 1st Time Pumpkin Farmer

I have 7 vines that I planted back in June and I have no pumpkins yet. They vines look healthy, I get about 5 flowers per day but the problem is that ALL of them are male flowers. My daughter and I look every day and all of them are males. They are open for one or two days and then wilt and die....
Are there male and female vines? or male and female flowers on the same vine? Is there something in the enviroment that is making the vines produce just male flowers? or is it just genetics? Is there anything I can do, or is it too late? (End of August).
I will appreciate your answers...thanks.

Are there male and female vines? no.

Is there something in the enviroment that is making the vines produce just male flowers? no.

or is it just genetics? yes.

what kind are you growing?

No idea. My daughter and I bought a package of seeds and did not keep the package with the label.
Same thing today...all male flowers.

I am a newbie pumpkin grower and have just now discovered the forums, so I am delighted to see others having the same issues as me. I have 4 plants, two of which have set pumpkins in the last 10 days. They are gaining weight nicely.

However - white clingy powder mildew seems to be taking over my vines starting at the root! Eventually the leaves develop yellow spots and wither. So I got myself some pre-mixed Daconil, but it won't "stick" to the leaves! I have taken to hand-painting the Daconil on the undersides of leaves and stems. And I mean hand painting each leaf with a paint brush in order to coat every part of the leaf and stem. I have looked at other forums and they mentioned spraying it by thinning down the formula and adding detergent to the mix to make it cling to the leaves...so does that mean what I think it means? Do I add liquid detergent?

Also, do I cut off the leaves that are yellowing, or leave them to die on their own? I have been cutting- but how many leaves can I take off before I do harm to the pumpy?

There is prolly another forum for these issues, but I havent found it yet. Any suggestions are welcome.

And I hope you all have a great growing season!

adding detergent to the mix to make it cling to the leaves

Use a mild dishwashing liquid -- Dawn is often recommended -- rather than anything that calls itself "detergent" or "anti-bacterial." Johnson's Baby Shampoo is considered the ultimate in mildness.

The soap functions as a surfactant or wetting agent, reducing the surface tension of water and allowing liquids to stick to objects. Most homemade garden formulas use a small amount of soap for this purpose.

I've never used Daconil on mildew.

Garden Safe's Fungicide 3 (which I originally bought for spider mites and have also used on aphids; Walmart carries the concentrate) helps against mildew. The mildew comes back, but the cukes are still producing. [On the other hand, I bought a container of mildew-resistant hybrid cantaloupe seedlings: Hallelujah! No need to spray them!]

Here are some products you can make yourself:

A gallon of water with 1 tsp. of baking soda and a few drops of dish detergent. I've used this and it works well.

Or a gallon of water with 1 tsp. of baking soda, 1 tsp. of horticultural oil, and 1 tsp. of horticultural soap.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7774366_homemade-fungicide-powdery-mildew-cucumber.html
(I've used the milk spray but not the chive spray)

try adding 1 tbls detergent to the daconil and give it a try. i dont know what size bottle you have. but if it is the one im thinking of thats a good start. remove all the really bad leaves and put in the trash.

i have used polmolive det. just the plain one no antibacterial the green stuff.

All of my vines seem to have caught powdery mildew. I've been trying the baking soda/oil/detergent spray to try and slow it down at least until the pumpkins are old enough to ripen off the vine.

This is the oldest pumpkin. Its flower bloomed on Aug 4th.

Its probably my largest as well, but I find it odd that its so lightly colored compared to 3 others a little younger than it. The 3 others are a dark green except for the bottom.

Can anyone guess how much longer I'll have to keep the mildew at bay before these can ripen on their own? I think its pretty close to mature weigh.

Thanks for the powder mildew help! Since I already have the Daconil, I will add the soap to it and try again. It can't get much worse!

These hard rains aren't helping with the disease control. I am already looking forward to next growing season!

New to this forum but found you all because I had a question...2nd year planting pumpkins and my huge pumpkins are still yellow. I had these seeds left over from last year pumpkins seed package, I thought since last year was yellow and not very many and not very big and the skins were very thick that I would water more often thinking that must have been the problem...guessed wrong and now I have many pumpkins 3 larger than beach balls and a few basketball size and quite a few that are baseball size and most of the smaller ones are shriveling but the bigger ones are still growing right before my eyes, we still have a month before I told my grand-kids they could have them for Halloween. If I understand correctly, I need to expose the pumpkins to more sunlight while vines are still attached to the pumpkins, so I guess that would be cutting the giant leaves that shade the pumpkins. Our summer came very late here in the Northwest and I had just pushed 4 seeds into the ground once the temperatures at night were above 40 degrees, which wasn't until Memorial Day time this year. So what advice could you give me so I can turn over 'Orange' Pumpkins to the little ones...Thanks in advance for your input...

sounds like you have pepo maximus an atlantic giant or wyatts wonder another giant pumpkin and they uselly dont get really orange. more sun will help some.

Premature pumpkin harvest here. Heard a large crack in the back yard yesterday, and went outside to find my largest Big Max lying on the patio with a big gouge out of it. Either it got too heavy for the stem to support or the squirrels were playing with it. Anyway, it broke off and rolled down a slight slope and over the retaining wall fence. Decided it was nature's way of telling me to harvest and get the vine into the compost pile.

The big pumpkin weighs 43.5 pounds and has a 54 " circumference. The smaller one is only 13.3 pounds with a 31" circumference. Loved growing these this year and will probably grow them again next year. 3 New England Pie pumpkin plants have produced 5 good sized pumpkins and I have 6 more that should be ready in a few weeks!

boeremeisie, depending on your location you could try expanding out and growing other varieties. My personal favorites are pennsylvania dutch crookneck squash and sweet meat squash. Both are winter squashes and while sweet meat isn't huge, both are excellent for pies and cooking. The crookneck squash (also known as neck pumpkins) are essentially monster butternut squash and get pretty big in their own way.

Thanks for your info, planetes. I am definitely going to try some other types next year, maybe even some of those miniatures and some ugly ol' warty pumpkins for Halloween.

Hi everyone! I have a question about my pumpkins and I hope someone can help. I planted some pumpkin seeds on June 15th. I know it was kind of late but here in SLC it rained and snowed so long it was hard to get out there.

The package says they are Jack O' Lantern, and the days to harvest says 100-115 days. I just found my first actual pumpkin on this past Monday the 26th, and it's about softball size. Do I stand a chance of any of them actually maturing in time for Halloween? Is there anything I can do to help them along?

Thanks,

~Rae

Thanks... I am holding out much hope! I just checked the weather, and it's 39 instead of 50 and now they are calling for snow on the valley floor tonight. No frost or freeze warning here yet, though, so... crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I'll let you know what happens. :)

~Rae

I barely got seeds tonight from boyfriend carving a cat jack o lantern for his son. Just started the process for preserving them for after the winter. I'm hoping they'll grow nicely. The insides of the pumpkin from retrieving the seeds are going the chickens. lol maybe I'll get sweetened eggs??

*keeps her fingers crossed*

I planted 9 different types of pumpkins and then forgot to label what went where... The pictures show about 3/4 of the crop grown from my little straw bale garden (18 bales) seen behind the pumpkins.

Here is a link that might be useful: Idaho pumpkin patch

Some of my vines are thick and others not so much, I'd say the largest vine is about 10 ft long- and I am just starting to see my first female flower. I've had male flowers blooming for about 3 weeks. I'm getting nervous that there won't be any pumpkins for the kids- first year growing- I'm also worried about pollination, haven't seen many bees around. Any tips? I also have leaves that the jap Beatles have eaten, should I cut them off?