Try planting Dill or false Queen Anne's Lace throughout your pumpkin patch. They will attract tachinid flies, among others, which help control squash bugs, along with Japanese beetles.
Pumpkin plot
- Thread starter CedarSwamp
- Start date
Thanks, my wife had wanted a Mastiff for a long time. We'll probably never go without one now as this breed is awesome. Sookie is the sweetest lapdog we have ever had, but you do not want to step foot on our property if she doesn't know you. Jehovah's witness no longer comes to knock on our door. Lol
I would recommend a Mastiff for anyone who needs a dog for protection.
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
Good to know! Thanks.
We grow around 8-9 acres of pumpkins and squash with plastic mulch It works very well for us. We usually plant the longer day varieties with plastic as it helps them mature faster.
North Mo
5 year old buck +
We have planted pumpkins for the last two years. We bought the seed from Todd's Seeds and planted Howdens Field pumpkins and Big Max. The deer really go for them at our place and the timing is just right from mid October thru the third week of November. Even a small plot of 1/3 acre with turnip and radish broadcast in at planting the first week of July produced enough to last until late November. I thought the pumpkin might shade out the turnip but it actually worked very well and it's hard to imagine planting anything else in a small plot that would produce more tonnage per acre. The biggest problem we have had is in a 3/4 acre plot in the timber where squirrels dug up most of the pumpkin seed within a few days of planting. The deer like the pumpkins so much that they continue to eat them even when all that is left are rotting pieces of broken pumpkin until no trace is left. The date on the top picture should be October 2019.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
Who has pumpkins this year? It's our first year trying them on a decent scale. Our local cub scouts chapter disbanded and I don't like doing travel activities, so we made a list of projects for the boys to do throughout the year, trying to give it a scouting feel. Once they accomplish 5 activities they earn a small reward. Got the patch put in last week and they're emerging well. My initial main concern is the wildlife eating the small plants or flowers. I have a doe and fawn living right in that spot now. Should I be dropping haircut clippings all around it? We planted 3 seeds from a 1,000 pounder, hoping one of them can take.
My wife usually buys several pumpkins for Halloween that she paints instead of carving. I will bust them up and scatter the seed out over one of my food plots. Will usually have a dozen or so come up, grow, and produce pumpkins the following year. They wont be very big - not quite as big as a soccer ball. Never had a deer or hog touch the vine or the pumpkin
Wow. I have to repeatedly spray both the vines and pumpkin fruit with repellents to keep deer off of them.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
What's your favorite repellent?
Deer Out works here as long as I spray again after heavy rain.
TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
I ordered the Deer Out. Do you spray it on the blossoms as well?
I don't. I would if the deer were eating them
I plant a bunch of pumpkins every year and I've never seen anything eat all of the pumpkin leaves like that. Your weed control around the pumpkins might have been too good - the pumpkins stuck out like a turd in a punch bowl! Once the pumpkins get established they can really hold their own against weeds so I don't get too worried about weeds in that area. Perhaps the weeds in my pumpkin patches hide them from critters that like pumpkin leaves.
I bet your pumpkins will bounce back and still produce. Hopefully you can get a crack at the woodchuck that did that damage.
I bet your pumpkins will bounce back and still produce. Hopefully you can get a crack at the woodchuck that did that damage.
fishin coyote
5 year old buck +
That was probably a little one or two that munched them. I trying to get one now that is eating the wife’s kettle gourds it’s only about the size of a kitten
Here's my pumpkin plot. It's cantaloupe and watermelon on the left, pumpkins down the middle, and sunflowers on the right.
This was a horse pasture for 6 years until the mare had to be put down. It was vacant the last two years, so never had deer in it. I took down the fence on the near side of it for easier access. The garden is behind me, with the house farther behind.
I broadcast a cover crop of buckwheat and crimson clover, and mother nature has supplied some ragweed. I don't know that the cover crops will help with the planted stuff this year, other than keeping and attracting soil biology, but they should help next year and beyond.
Deer have checked out the plot, chowing on the buckwheat and ragweed, even eating that stuff in the sunflowers while leaving them alone.
I've also got some pumpkins planted straight into a manure pile. These plants should yield a couple of 60+ pounders each, which will go for $20 a piece in the fall.
This was a horse pasture for 6 years until the mare had to be put down. It was vacant the last two years, so never had deer in it. I took down the fence on the near side of it for easier access. The garden is behind me, with the house farther behind.
I broadcast a cover crop of buckwheat and crimson clover, and mother nature has supplied some ragweed. I don't know that the cover crops will help with the planted stuff this year, other than keeping and attracting soil biology, but they should help next year and beyond.
Deer have checked out the plot, chowing on the buckwheat and ragweed, even eating that stuff in the sunflowers while leaving them alone.
I've also got some pumpkins planted straight into a manure pile. These plants should yield a couple of 60+ pounders each, which will go for $20 a piece in the fall.
