Forget if, I just now found my first male flower on the Cornfield pumpkin, I should have plenty of time to get a crop. The Brazilian seems to be the slowest of the bunch, maybe I could cross pollenate with the Butternut. I have only grown Butternut one time before, but it did not take off like it has this year. The Seminole and Butternut are both in new beds where I just tilled up lawn without killing grass or anything else except soil amendments and mulch. The Seminole was mulched with Oak shavings and the Butternut with Oak leaves.

Larry, I think they will be fine. July normally is the month when all my pumpkins and winter squash grow like mad, bloom and set fruit almost non-stop even if they already set a few in June. They really love the heat and respond well to it. I was out in the front garden harvesting Kandy Korn this morning and noticed my Old-Timey Cornfield Pumpkin was going crazy, trying to climb the fence and escape from the garden, was trying to move into the cucumber area and had crossed the pathway to the raised bed full of tomato plants and is starting to climb a tomato cage. It also was climbing corn plants. Now that I am harvesting the last rows of corn, I'll remove the stalks and the cornfield pumpkins will grow even better without the shade of the cornstalks.

All my gourds, pumpkins and winter squash stalled in the late May/early June heavy rainfall and cooler temperatures, but started putting on a lot of new foliage and just exploding in growth about 3 weeks ago. That is pretty typical behavior in my garden. Usually by the time the vines really take off and are rambling and roaming all over the place, earlier crops are finishing up and I just let them roam and ramble however and wherever they please.

I did pull the cornfield pumpkin vines back from the tomato bed and tried to redirect their growth in a different direction, and also tried to redirect them to grow away from the cucumbers so that the cucumbers don't get buried beneath the pumpkin vines.

Even if you sowed seed right now, I imagine pumpkins and winter squash would have plenty of time to sprout, grow, produce and mature fruit. Pumpkins and winter squash experience explosive growth in the heat so often late plantings will be maturing pumpkins and winter squash at about the same time as the earlier plantings.

The OSU-recommended planting dates of winter squash and pumpkins for the fall harvest are July 15th-30th, just in case anyone reading this is wondering if they still can plant pumpkins and winter squash now for a fall harvest.

Dawn

Larry - I only wish my little seedling looked as healthy as yours! Yours look mahvelous! I'm "green" with envy.

And Dawn - thanks for the info on timing. I've STILL got seedlings of Hopi Cushaw, Seminole Pumpkins, Acorn as well as summer yellow squash and zucchini in 4" pots on my front covered porch. I "hope" to get them in the ground in the next week. Glad to know they've still got a chance of producing because those little suckers are blooming and they're only on about 6" vines!!! Guess they heard me when I told them if they wanted to survive, they'd have to work for it.

Paula

Good to know Dawn. I'm so far behind it's sad. I now have hope. If I don't get out there early the garden has to wait till almost dark because I can't do the heat. Good luck to all the late gardeners.

Dawn, thanks for the info, I had no idea that pumpkins could be planted so late. I want to learn more about crops that can be grown easily and store for a long time.

How do you water a pumpkin patch?

I have a volunteer vine growing right outside my back door. It's convenient so I water it. I noticed new growth. This post makes me realize I might actually get a pumpkin or two!

The vine is now six feet dense and I don't know the point of origin and I notice the vines are starting in ground elsewhere.

I just hose everywhere but I'm getting the leaves wet.

I swear, this year has been very productive without my assistance.

My ground is cracked like this picture, too, even though we received hordes of rain

Dawn, I'm still harvesting carrots. It's amazing.

Thanks

Bonnie

Paula, Get those babies in the ground and let them spread their roots and grow!

Tree, If you can get plants established and growing in this heat, you'll likely have a great fall harvest. I am amazed at how much the plants produce in fall even after enduring a miserably hot and dry summer.

I usually am outside from around sunrise until 10 or 11 a.m. I cannot take the heat after that. Even the cats and dogs come inside when I do, and none of them want to go back outside until after dinner when the sun is starting to sink low in the western sky. I guess we have hit the dog days of summer now for sure.

Larry, You're welcome. One thing I've noticed about many winter squash and pumpkins is that the heat doesn't bother them the way it bothers most other plants.Those big leaves often will wilt in the heat of the day, but they revive in the evening. This is especially true of the C. moschata types---they like heat more than anything else I grow, and them seem to speed up and grow and mature more and more quickly the hotter the weather gets as long as they are getting some moisture. I suspect that if I kept careful written notes of the days the C. moschatas set blooms and then the days those blooms produce a ripe pumpkin to harvest, I'd find they mature 2 or 3 weeks faster in hot weather than in milder weather. My Seminoles go absolutely bonkers in July and August of every year, growing and setting pumpkins like mad. I just think it is exactly the kind of weather they love during that time frame.

Bon, Carrots love to grow and produce in the heat. They are pig-headed that way. The issue can be that their sweetness declines as the heat goes up. Some years I notice that a lot with summer carrots and other years I don't. Normally their flavor is better when they mature in cool weather, but that doesn't mean they won't grow and produce in hot weather.

Water pumpkins low and slow....meaning maybe using a water hose set to a very low flow rate, or a soaker hose or a drip irrigation line. If you use a hand-held hose, just place it on the ground and set it at a low flow rate so that the water can soak in. They have large and deep-rooted root systems, so you want to water at a low rate for a relatively long time so the water can soak into the ground down deeply to where the roots are. If you see water starting to pond or puddle on the ground (you have clay, right?), turn off the water, wait 30 minutes to an hour for it to soak in, and then turn the water back on. If you water slowly at a low rate so the water can soak in deeply, you can water deeply once a week and they'll be fine.

Getting the leaves wet can lead to foliar disease, so I'd try to avoid that. It might be that we are so hot and dry that the diseases won't develop even if the foliage gets wet often.

Depending on what sort of pumpkin you have growing, watch for the black-and-orange squash vine borer moth. If it lays eggs on any pumpkin or squash plant, they're pretty much goners. The reason we grow winter squash/pumpkins from the C. moschata family is that they have solid stems which tend to deter the SVB grubs from tunneling through them, thereby saving the plants. For the first 6 or 7 years we lived here, the SVBs didn't find us and I grew up to 30 types of pumpkins a year, mostly from the C. pepo family. Once the SVBs found our garden, there was no point in planting C. pepo varieties any more because the SVBs get them 90% of the time.

Dawn

Dawn;
Thank you for responding. I'm sorry it took so long for me to come back. I've been swamped with work.

You're right. I have clay, especially in this untreated area. In fact, it's rock hard on the surface. (Tonight we're receiving a nice slow drenching rain.)

Okay, I'll let 'er soak. It had one fruit that fell off. It looks like I may need to help it along by hand-pollinating.

Bon,

You're welcome. I'm sorry you have been so busy at work. I hope it slows down a little so you can relax some.

I thought I remembered that you had clay.

Hooray for the rain!!! Slow, drenching rain is absolutely the best kind. Of course, at this time of year, we're happy to have rain in any shape, form or fashion.

Sometimes the bees don't find pumpkin flowers very easily because they can be hidden underneath the huge leaves. Hand-pollinating is easy and one male blossom can be used to pollinate many female flowers.

Dawn

Amazing how things change. I've a huge garden area, now, and have 3 different varieties of water melon sprouting, melons sprouting and old timey pumpkin, too. ha

Bon, if you have never grown the Old Timey Cornfield pumpkin, I think you are in for a surprise. They produce like crazy. I did not plant any this year but I do have some volunteer squash/pumpkins of some kind coming up.

I have one large hill of small melons and one large hill of Hills Best cantaloupe, plus 4 plants Italian squash and 6 veggie squash, which are all new to me.

Larry

First time. If I can battle the squash bug well, it'll be awesome.

Battling the squash bugs isn't that bad. You just have to be consistent about looking for them and destroying them once or twice a day because they will be very persistent. Getting them all early helps a lot. It doesn't mean more won't show up, but it does mean you likely won't have their population surge out of control.

Tim found one yesterday and killed it and I found and killed 5 today. Then I checked the undersides of the leaves and found 4 or 5 egg clusters, and destroyed all them, all on one single plant out of 8. The other 7 plants are bug-free so far. The squash bugs were slow to arrive this year, but they are here now.