Pumpkin Growing Challenge 2012

Surprisingly good crop of pumpkins from my three 'Jack o' Lantern' plants this year.
No prize winners here, but I'm quite happy with this little lot, best crop I've had for about three or four years.
The biggest of these weighs in at a little over 16lbs.

 

Nicely done Trunky...interesting to note that the two bigger fruits at the back are elongated.

Steve...

 

What a lovely "harvest festival" picture Trunky;they all look very bonny,
Jenny

 

It's really frustrating if you're growing them for perfectly shaped Halloween lanterns and that happens, as you sometimes them like like from bought seeds, but the incidence of elongated ones is normally worse if you grow them next year from saved seeds as I reckon they cross with any marrows/courgettes around.

P.S. I've got an electronic max/min next to my blanket swathed pumpkin tonight, with an external sensor outside of the frost protection to check if I'm covering it up enough overnight.

 

I thought that too Steve, I grow 'Jack o' Lantern' from bought seeds every year and the shape and size is usually quite consistent.
However....I did notice a lot of pumpkin seedlings appearing around the vegetable patch in early summer, presumably these grew from last year's pumpkin seeds which were in the compost heap and got dug in with the rest of the compost.
I normally grow butternut squash and courgettes as well as pumpkins, so maybe those elongated ones are some kind of courgette/squash/pumpkin hybrid.

 

Nice one Trunky,they look great
Scrungee.....the rate of growth is amazing...
****Alert***...... stupid question coming up....is it really possible to grow a bog standard pumpkin seed as big as this or do they have to be specialist seeds...i just can't imagine my poor chap would ever have got that big...Obviously you have to know what you are doing,which i don't yet....still an apprentice but it's facinating stuff

 

Bog standard 'Atlantic Giant' seeds sold in garden centres can grow to quite respectable sizes, but those from more recent strains of giant pumpkins have the genetics to grow much heavier.

I've found Atlantic Giant flesh was approx 0.06 lbs/square inch, but better strains are heavier, meaning a pumpkin of the same size as an Atlantic Giant will weigh much more.

 

A realy big one can put on 25lb per day!

As Scrungee has already said the Giants of recent years have the genetics to grow really big. And in Pumpkin growing circles seeds are swapped and strain are crossed with other large strains, they do this in an attempt to grow even larger ones and improve upon the genetics, some strains will give a more orange fruit or be rounder or have heavier flesh, some have thicker skins or more seeds etc etc.

Steve...

 

hi all can ag cross with courgette, acorn squash or with queensland blue

if u want seeds from european pumpkins join for 15 euros egvga- european giant vegetable growing association- u get seeds from giant pumpkins, need to join beggining of year to get seeds, p.s that was the price last year

 

It's true John, if you remember earlier in the year my plants where racing away whilst some here had not even sown seeds. I think I planted out too early, they got a slight chill and stopped and sulked. I had three strong plants, 2 died and one clung onto life just about and I now have a smallish pumpkin on it..somewhere around the 15-20lb mark.

The 120lber I grew last year survived a few grass frosts too and was not harvested until Haloween weekend.

Steve...

 

And here's the results: Inside a cosy 9.2 deg C and outside a chilly 1.9 deg C




I've been reading through last year's thread to checkout what was happening this time last year and found that Zig's pumpkin was estimated at 73.3 lbs (OTT method) on the 24th of September, so I'll take the scales and weigh mine tomorrow as a comparison with last year. I measured and estimated mine at 69lbs this morning and it put on over 4 lbs since yesterday morning, so it's going to be pretty close despite the rubbish weather and now the cold nights. But can I go on to get it bigger than Pete's 160 lbs 2011 winning pumpkin?

 

Go for it Scrungee...could you use a duvet ?...i would

 

And an electric blanket next month?