Chard's pumpkin thread 56k die. Updated 06/16/2009

[Chardok]

As many of you know, or maybe not. I've been growing pumpkins for ricky this halloween, he's been very excited about it, and we've made a thing out of watering, weeding, training the vines, cleaning them up, checking out the flowers, and it's been an adventure.

But today....I'm so furious...


I came home to discover MY PUMKINS HAD BEEN SLICED, DICED, TRAMPLED ON, MANGLED, AND ALL BUT KILLED OUTRIGHT BY THE NEW IDIOT DIPSHIT MEXICAN NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING NO GODDAMNED COMMON SENSE HAVING MOTHERFUCKER ON THE GODDAMNED LANDSCAPING CREW WHO APPARENTLY CANNOT READ THE PIECE OF PAPER I HAD ON RICKY'S WAGON, WHICH BY THE WAY WAS BLOCKING MY LITTLE PATCH OF GARDEN SPECIFICALLY TO PREVENT TRAMPLING THAT SAID:


PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB THIS AREA - NO WEED-EATERS, LEAF BLOWERS OR RAKES - ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE SEE JO AT THE MAIN OFFICE - THANK YOU

So I am absolutely livid beside myself furious. This thread will either serve as a chronicle of my nursing them back to health, or serve as their memorial.

for those interested, 2 females survived for the moment, but it is unclear if they will continue because I was forced to prune ~60% of the mature leaves from 4 out of the 6 vines because of the pumpkin-cide.

Here is what is leftover after pumpkin-geddon

[Aaron]

Sorry about the pumpkin genocide dude but how do you train them to climb?

[Chardok]

Pumpkins are remarkably clever. Their tendrils will find any handhold and hold on with a deathgrip. It's a simple matter of "Helping" the tendrils to find the handholds you want them to grab onto and it will grow in the direction of the tightened tendrils. See below:

[Aaron]

That's pretty amazing, is that last one hanging onto the porch ceiling?

I'm going to have to give pumpkins a go next year thanks to this thread.

[Chardok]

That's pretty amazing, is that last one hanging onto the porch ceiling?

There are two likely survivors, three are all but destroyed, and one probable survivor. It has been rewarding and fun to watch them grow from a single, tiny seed to the SURVIVING plants you see. Sadly, even if I planted new pumpkins again this very day, it is unlikely they would fruit by Halloween, which was the goddamned point of growing them in the first kriffing place!

Sorry. I'm still furious - you should definitely give it a go. They are hardy, resilient, and easy to care for - you almost can't overwater them after they've established themselves, and you require very little in the way of fertilizer (Too much nitrogen, however, will cause them to not fruit.

[Aaron]

That's pretty amazing, is that last one hanging onto the porch ceiling?

There are two likely survivors, three are all but destroyed, and one probable survivor. It has been rewarding and fun to watch them grow from a single, tiny seed to the SURVIVING plants you see. Sadly, even if I planted new pumpkins again this very day, it is unlikely they would fruit by Halloween, which was the goddamned point of growing them in the first kriffing place!

Sorry. I'm still furious - you should definitely give it a go. They are hardy, resilient, and easy to care for - you almost can't overwater them after they've established themselves, and you require very little in the way of fertilizer (Too much nitrogen, however, will cause them to not fruit.

No need to apologize, I'd be pissed too if I was growing pumpkins with my son and some fuckmook destroyed them.

[Chardok]

Here are the three surviving female buds - they represent the last, best hope for fruit in the fall - it is not clear if they will all survive - there is one that looks promising - the rest are already showing signs of weakness. (Female flowers are very, very sensitive until they're pollenated)

This young lady looks promising, but not entirely healthy


This one is the youngest - sorry about the shit focus - she's looking okay, and was on the least damaged of my ground vines - my climbers have no females at all (Apparently, it's easier to produce females when there are multiple root-points.)


This little girl was a surprise - I did not even see her yesterday, but she is on one of the heavily damaged vines - the leaves look healthy, though, so I'm hopeful it will make it - plus, the vine itself is growing int an area which is shaded most of the day - it should make for a very deep orange fruit if she holds on. Also - there was a honeybee on the plant this evening - this makes me hopeful that they at least know where the plant is now - I hope he tells his friends. The pumpkins could certainly use the help.


For reference - this is an immature male flower. You can see that there is no immature fruit at it's base, indicating it's manliness. Man-flowers don't do sissy girlfruit. Plus, they don't have to pay child support, since they die the same day they make sexy-time. This guy is on my proud doorframe-climber. He's looking pretty healthy - I'll definitely be getting shots of him when he opens up.

[LadyTevar]

Here's hoping the male survives to mate.

[The Yosemite Bear]

eww pumpkin sex....

[Chardok]

As I suspected, the females all died. But as you will soon see, pumpkin vines are apparently more resilient than I gave them credit for - the black stuff you see is compost peat - I buried the main vines with it because of the drought. It should help prevent moisture loss and allow the secondary roots to extract more nutrients from the soil - and hopefully cushio any further stompitation by idiot landscapers.


A new male flower it's huge - it'll be dead by tomorrow.


For CPL Kendall - my attempts at training the vines aren't going as well as I'd hoped - but that's mostly because the vines are growing so damn fast! (Check out the timestamps on this one and the previous picture of my Door climber vine) This is a mere 6 days later!


They've recovered from pumpkin-geddon pretty nicely, actually. (Note the new leaves in the middle of the picture!)


A communist shrubbery. The vine is using enhanced interrogation techniques to wring valuable intlligence from it.

[CaptainChewbacca]

What did the landscapers say? Just shrug and mumble?

[Aaron]

Thanks Chardok, that's pretty impressive work for that plant in such a short time.

[Chardok]

What did the landscapers say? Just shrug and mumble?

Luckily for them, I was not off this monday, so they escaped my ire. Hopefully I'll catch them next week and give em an earful. got a couple new females, and one is looking like it *might* actually bloom - we'll see!

CPL - Yeah, I've "read online" that they can grow 6 inches in a day under ideal conditions. Makes sense, I guess, 'cause they have to be done by fall, when they will be killed by the first frost.


Of course, here in Texas, we don't get a frost until like mid to late december, so, who knows?

[Chardok]

Okay - sooo....with some intensive care, lots of water, fertilizer, and sunlight - the pumpkins have, for the most part, recovered from pumpkin-geddon. I even have some FRUIT to show off!!!!! the first of the year, with another on the way (I will be pollinating it manually tomorrow morning! I am damned excited - and to celebrate -


It's the size of a baseball already!



This is the immature female (note the fruit) that will bloom tomorrow morning - you can tell when it's ready to bloom - the day prior, the petals turn orange.


Another pic - with hand for size reference.



This little lady will bloom in 2 or 3 days - this will give me one mature fruit on each of my three ground-vines



A view facing the apartment.



And away from it.



Here are my wall-climbers - Sadly, they're not thriving because they cannot put down secondary roots IN THE WALL - bt they're kind of cool to look at.

[Phantasee]

Dude, your old pictures aren't showing up anymore.

[Chardok]

I know, I put them in heir own folder and cannot be fucked to change the linkzorz.

[Chardok]

Vine Borers. Survive a bushwhacking by cold, internal-cumbustion-engine-driven steel to be killed by worms. Great.

The Pumpkins are dead - long live the pumpkins.

[JointStrikeFighter]

R.I.P Chadz