Let's Fire Up The Idea Machine: Fertilizing Pumpkins

[SD51555]

How do you fertilize pumpkins properly from the start without burning them? Assume P and K are optimum already.

Mix up miracle grow and water it in?
Stir a cup of milorganite into the soil where you plant them?
Sprinkle AMS over the top after planting?

There's got to be a way. What say you?

 

[biglakeba$$]

My coworker fertilized daily when he was growing pumpkins that were 400 lbs... :)

 

[SD51555]

Ha! Well we're not looking for 400 pounders. 400 that were 8 pounds would be nice. Our best bet is visiting monthly.

 

[biglakeba$$]

I used to grow pumpkins and didnt add anything. Planted seeds, weeded and watered.

I got pumpkins up to 120 lbs or so. Atlantic Giants. Pick up some of those seeds.

We would get oodles of pumpkins up to 10-15 lbs. Biggest hurdle was keeping the deer off them until fall. Had to spray irish spring soapy water on all of them every chance I got. Otherwise the deer would gnaw on them. Dang deer would gnaw on one for a few nibbles and move to the next one. Rarely would they attack the whole pumpkin. On my Atlantic Giants, I would piss around them, leave chunks of Irish Spring soap on them after I sprayed them with soapy water and I was able to keep the deer off my select few I wanted to bring home.

The maintenance was WAYYYY too much for my liking so I stopped doing it.... plus my kids are older now and they could give a crap about going out to the great pumpkin patch to pick pumkins in the fall.

 

[SD51555]

I wonder if a plot of peas and forage beans wouldn't keep them occupied while the pumpkins grew?

 

[tooln]

Maybe NovemberForever will chime in. He does them every year.

 

[sandbur]

My neighbor usually grows a small patch for sale and for a grade school field trip. He keeps them well away from cover which reduces browsing.

He also uses Boost'Em on them. 8-52-8, I think. I just applied it to all of my vine crops and tomatoes on Saturday afternoon.

When we had more deer, I have seen them take a bite right out of my squash vines and then move to the next squash plant.

I use Irish Spring for my showers-maybe why I see so few deer?

 

[biglakeba$$]

I use Irish Spring for my showers-maybe why I see so few deer?

We have a bottle of Irish Spring soapy water in a windex bottle here all summer long. The wife sprays all of our hostas with it weekly. If we dont, the animals devour the stuff.

 

[wiscwhip]

Not really feasible in a food plot situation, but when we gardened back when I was a kid, we made sure we had plenty of filleted fish carcasses in the weeks leading up to planting time. We would dig a hole about 8" to 10" below the ground level and throw in 3 or 4 fish carcasses, then make the mound over the top and plant the seeds into the mound. Sometimes we would go on a carp shooting or sucker spearing spree the weekend before we would plant and use whole carp or white suckers. We would always make sure we had more than enough to do the garden and have a bunch left over to smoke.

 

[SD51555]

You underestimate my ability to catch 16 inch pike.

 

[wiscwhip]

You underestimate my ability to catch 16 inch pike.

Doesn't really fit this forum, but that would be a great signature line on a fishing forum!;)

 

[biglakeba$$]

I should tell the wife to stop using the Irish Spring and throw hammer handles around all the hostas.

 

[SD51555]

So I'm gathering the overall consensus is to mix in a cup of milorganite at planting? and add another cup each month until they're done?

 

[Wild Thing]

Pumpkins are really pretty easy and they provide tons of deer food for not very much effort. Here is my recipe:

Fertilizer - 1.5# per 100 square feet of 6-24-24.

Plant seeds 1" deep every 3' apart and 6' between rows - not necessary to plant on hills.

I erect a solar efence around mine to make sure the deer dont get them before hunting season. Dont know if it is necessary in all areas but it probably is here as we have a fairly high deer density. The efence is the only real hassle involved.

I have planted about 1/3 - 4/10 of an acre of pumpkins 3 years in a row now (I rotated between two fields so im back in the first field this year). The first two years I broadcasted 200# of 6-24-24 and disced it in. This year i mowed down last fall's winter rye, sprayed RU (probably wasn't even needed) and broadcast the fertilizer before a rain. Punched a little hole in the dirt with a screw driver and dropped the seed in and stepped on it. Took my wife and i about an hour and a half to plant 500+ seeds in 7 rows. We have planted Gladiators, Howdens, and also some seed that my wife collected from the Halloween pumpkins which were 3 years old when she planted them. This year we als planted some Gurneys Magic Giants. We got excellent germination and production from all of them. The first year, not knowing how many would germinate, we planted them every 18" down the rows. We got 100% germination so we went down the rows and pulled every other plant. Since then we just plant them 3' apart and save 500 seeds . We have managed to plant them somewhat late all 3 years (June 19, 2013, June 28, 2014 and June 24, 2015) but we still had great crops. We average 1- 1 1/2 pumpkins per plant, the pumpkins probably averaged 12-15# each with some of them going 30+# . Do the math - it is a lot of deer feed and they eat everything but the stem. . Good luck with your pumpkins.