This year I was really hoping to beat rycamor the pumpkin king in an epic pumpkin patch smackdown.
Unfortunately, almost every pumpkin vine I planted this year was destroyed by something that tore into the stems. Most likely borers.
That is… except for one. The one that showed up spontaneously in my compost pile this spring.
Now it’s got at least five pumpkins on it, and they’re big, so I’m guessing they were some of rycamor’s type. He gave up a few pumpkins last summer, which we made into dinner and pie… then composted what was left.
Now we’re getting paid back for feeding the soil with compost pile pumpkins:
You know, if I could just make my entire yard into a gargantuan compost pile, I don’t think I’d ever have to plant another seed…
6 comments
Kinda like the "Back to Eden" concept. Masive mulch with layers of compost.
Yes.
So there's a small larvae that hatches in July and August that comes up from the ground and bores into the pumpkins when they;re green, before their skins harden. Propping each green pumpkin up on bricks so they no longer touched the ground completely stopped this from happening.
Well you definitely win the smackdown this year. Not only did all my pumpkin plants die, but so did the ones I planted at my parents' house, which I thought were protected by sitting on top of a giant bed of leaf mulch, a least 6" deep. No go. And yes, it was something that got into the stalks. Gloom…
dead link
here’s the live one
http://www.thesurvivalgardener.com/guest-post-pumpkin-summer/
Got it fixed – thank you.