We have had some crazy warm days in the last couple of weeks, and while it’s been hot at home I decided to go to Christchurch and ended up wandering around in 34 degree heat.
What about the pumpkin plants.
Well they stayed in the patch and decided to bask in the sun and get a bit of a tan on their leaves, the watering setup seems to have worked OK, but the day after I got back one of the connections blew out, it did have a clamp on it so I ended up putting another one on it and squeezing it with pliers as hard as I could, so far it seems OK, but it does pay to check these things all the time.
Water Restrictions
Being in town means there can and currently be restrictions on water usage, recently the area used the most amount of water it has ever used in one day, and the restrictions are coming in sooner than normal, currently we are on a level 2 restriction, which means sprinklers can be used every second day, and I think hand watering is still good anytime? It will be interesting to see how the rest of this hot summer plays out.
Luckily, I’m out their daily removing weeds and burying vines, which is quite a novelty in the worlds smallest giant pumpkin patch, I got another bag of compost and have been keeping an eye out for any other problems.
The application of epsom salts seems to have cleared up the spots that were present in the early growth leaves, and for the size of the patch the plant is looking pretty good, looking forward to seeing how the pumpkin growth goes later.
The blue drum I have near the patch which I’ve been chucking broken/rotten pumpkin into has a lot going on, I’ve given it a bit of a water now and then and it will be a mixed bag on what will appear later in the season.
Very soon I will switch fertilisers to a more balanced NPK mix, and I’m going to remove more weeds and even some of the grass that’s in front of the patch as it annoys me.
The Giant Pumpkins NZ Vlog EP5
Here is the latest vlog episode, it contains a little bit of a tour of Christchurch and you can see how the worlds smallest patch is shaping up. Next one will be out in two weeks, maybe on Christmas day, a bit before or just after, we will see.
