In the last update about my seedlings I mentioned they were growing great in their grow box. They have now got big enough it is time to transplant them into the patch.
Before I get into that I wanted to talk about a comment I received on that last post from Aaron who talked about the method he used to get his seedlings off to the best start possbile with a bit of recycling thrown in as well.
Aaron uses ice cream containers as pots when starting his seeds off. A hole is cut in the bottom of the container and with the lid attached filled with seed raising mix. When the seedlings are ready to be transplanted the lid is removed from the bottom allowing the plant to be removed with minimal root disturbance all while providing it’s own mound to grow in. This concept is new to me and is something I will have to try next year.
Fixing the website
If you tried to contact me via the contact page and haven’t heard from me I may not have received the email, it just decided to stop working over the last couple of weeks and I have fixed it up, I’m also in the process of fixing up the sign up form for the Pumpkin Post newsletter as well.
Transplanting the seedlings
If you have been following the growing calendar I have set up, you would have seen that I transplanted my 2008 Neptune seedling yesterday. I am really liking the calendar as a way of tracking my season.
More info on transplanting your giant pumpkin seedling in the How To section of the site.
This seedling is looking a lot better than the other one which has mis shaped leaves for some reason.
I should have planted this seedling out about 4 days before I did, but it was still better than previous years efforts.
Shelter
Due to having the pumpkin growing in such a small area, I really only needed a small shelter. So I recycled part of the larger frame I had last year and with my helpers we put this together, I also covered it in MikroClima. (I also failed to get a photo of that, and the seedling in the ground *facepalm*)
I did put Mycho in the planting hole, which I almost forgot to do. Sometimes it pays to have lists with you.
Watering
I’m trying a couple of differnt things this year, all things that are probably more complicated than they really need to be and may have varied results. I will cover more about that in a later post, but for now here are some photos of what I played with yesterday.
I’m excited for this season, and if I can get on top of this watering stuff it will be very cool.
