Pinching a Pumpkin in the Open GroundPerhaps this is why gardeners often do not pay enough attention to the culture, allowing the growth and development of powerful plants to drift. As a result, due to poor pollination or care errors, the crop is not as plentiful as desired. Fruits are not pleasing to taste, rot at the ovary stage and poorly stored.
How to grow a pumpkin that would be really tasty? What activities include care culture? And what signs should pay the most attention, watching the pumpkin grow?
Pre-sowing activities
How sweet and juicy will be the pumpkin grown on its plot, including, depends on the seeds chosen for sowing and the preparation they will undergo before sowing.
Seeds, obtained from the fruits grown in their garden, must be ground before planting, disinfecting from diseases and pests using potassium permanganate solution. In the liquid seeds are up to 30 minutes. After that, a viable seed is selected by submerging a 25% saline solution:
- Empty, under-ripened seeds will give out, floating to the surface.
- Immersed - ready to give healthy large shoots.
Selected healthy seeds are washed in clean water and for about 3 hours, dried at 55–60 ° C and sparged for 18–24 hours.
How a pumpkin grows: the necessary conditions and features of
In order to grow a sweet, juicy pumpkin on your site, you must adhere to the rules of crop rotation and the requirements of the crop to the conditions in the beds. As a rule, plants from the pumpkin family can return to the previous cultivation time only after 4–5 years. And the best harvest can be obtained by planting seeds after legumes or crucifers.
How to grow a pumpkin at the dacha, what conditions do this culture need? Pumpkins of all varieties, whether zucchini plucked in the greens phase, or late-ripening nutmeg varieties, are very demanding of lighting conditions.
With a lack of sun, the number of ovaries decreases, plants are drawn out, the risk of fungal diseases, rot and attack of pests increases.
At the stage of active growth, that is, from the moment the first sprouts appear to a few true leaves, the plants should be exposed to light from 9 to 10 hours. This mode will allow to bring the formation of female flowers. The optimal day length for an already fruiting pumpkin is 10–12 hours.
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Video about growing pumpkins in the open field tells in detail about the agricultural technology and tricks of cultivation of this valuable vegetable culture. In private plots, where pumpkin is often supposed to be watered in the open field, the crop is cultivated on wide, up to 3 meters beds.
Arrangement of high ridges will help even in adverse weather conditions to get an early harvest and to protect the fruits from rotting in the rainy cold summer.
For climbing pumpkin varieties, fairly large gaps between plants from 150 to 300 cm are needed.
Shrub forms are more compact and do not require large areas to feed the fruits, therefore the distance between pumpkins in this case is reduced to 70-100 cm.
One of the most effective ways to grow sweet, juicy pumpkins on your plot can be considered using seedlings rather than seeds for planting in open ground. If seeds are sown in peat pots or large pills, the root system is not injured when they hit the ground, which means that the harvest can be expected 3–4 weeks earlier:
- Landing in open ground is done when the soil is warm enough. Squashes and most common varieties of pumpkin durum are taken into growth at soil temperatures of 12–14 ° C.
- And for the most thermophilic nutmeg, the soil should be heated to 15–16 ° C.
Taking care of a pumpkin in the open ground
Even short-term frost is destructive for germination when the temperature drops to minus marks on the soil. For normal growth and fruit formation, pumpkins need a temperature in the range 22–28 ° C.If the air is cooler, the plant development slows down, the rate of the appearance of flowers and the ovary decreases.
A film or covering material will help protect young shoots from the manifestations of changeable weather in early summer.
Sowing seeds or planting seedlings is carried out on the surface spread out on the ground, in which cruciate cuts are made. They grow as they grow. As a result, thanks to less evaporation of moisture and more heating of the soil by 4–5 ° C, the pumpkin develops faster and bears fruit more readily. Reduced and labor costs for the care of a pumpkin.
While the plants are small, it is extremely important to maintain the looseness of the soil and not to allow the crust that violates the penetration of moisture and oxygen. As a measure of pumpkin care, mulching the space between plants on the ridges of sawdust, sand, if the soil is clay, or straw is useful. During the second loosening, carried out 30 days after the emergence of shoots, weed vegetation is removed and sprouting whips are laid out.
Loosening and weeding is convenient to carry out simultaneously with irrigation, while cultivating the soil should not be deeper than 5-7 cm, so as not to damage the surface roots.
How often to water the pumpkin in the open field?
The pumpkin root system is designed in such a way that even during dry periods it can provide the plant with the required amount of moisture. The well-marked hard pile covering young stems, cuttings, leafy plates and even partly corollas of flowers helps to avoid drying out the green part.
Read also: Cultivation and storage of squash
Still, the culture needs a lot of moisture, and the schedule of rare but abundant watering should be consistent with the development of the plant and the maintenance of pumpkin plantings. Before the first loosening and hilling, depending on the weather, pumpkins are watered abundantly once or twice. And then for 2-3 weeks they take a break to stimulate active formation and growth of roots.
As soon as the female flowers appear on the plants, and the formation of fruits begins, it is necessary to water the pumpkin more often, for example, in 7–10 days.
This mode is retained, while pumpkins are poured and added in size. In August, watering pumpkins are less common. This measure is designed to make the fruits accumulate sugar and form a strong crust, which is to withstand winter storage. Observing how the pumpkin grows, for 20-25 days before harvesting, watering is stopped altogether.
As a result, during the growing season, pumpkins are watered 5 to 10 times. Top dressing combined with irrigation, carried out at the time of the first hilling, during the flowering of plants and at the beginning of the mass formation of the ovary.
Mineral fertilizers are used limited, alternating with organic matter. A good reaction, especially in areas with poor soils, plants show feeding with ashes, infusions of herbs and regular pumpkin care.
Why does a pumpkin rot in the garden?
Pumpkin bloom begins 50–55 days after emergence. The first on the plants revealed male flowers, which in climbing varieties make up 90% of the total, and in the bush pumpkins about 50-60%.If you observe how pumpkins grow, female flowers, after pollination of which the ovary is formed, can be seen only 7–10 days later than male ones.
As pumpkins are pollinated by various groups of insects, then under adverse conditions, for example, in cold, rainy or windy weather, the probability of pollen transfer from a living flower only one day to another flower drops sharply. As a result, pollination does not occur at all, or a weakened ovary dies along with the corolla of the flower.
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In some cases, this is the reason why pumpkins are rotting and the yield drops in the garden beds. You can correct the situation by conducting artificial pollination. To do this, gently remove the petals from the plucked male flower and transfer the pollen to the female flower with soft movements. To carry out such a procedure is better in the early morning, protecting pollen from moisture.
Experienced gardeners note that the timely removal of wilted flowers and an unformed ovary helps to protect plants from pest attack and the development of putrefactive bacteria that can affect even ripening fruits.
Pumpkins do not tolerate overwetting. Therefore, the health of plants and fruits depends on how often water the pumpkin in the open field. Especially dangerous if on a cold, saturated with moisture land on rainy days are already gaining weight fruits. Under such pumpkins should be placed in advance durable, moisture-proof stand, not traumatic bark.
Pinching a pumpkin in the open ground
The reason why pumpkins are rotting on the beds may be excessive planting density, and on bush varieties - an abundance of ovary, which prevents each other from developing.
In order to destroy pumpkins, to provide better air and light penetration to all parts of plants, as well as to stimulate the ripening of already formed fruits, the culture is necessarily subjected to shaping. Shrub varieties form is not required. In this case, only remove the excess ovary, leaving 3-4 fruits on the plant, and watch that the withered flowers do not cause rotting of the cuttings, stem and fruits.
In the open field, pinching of pumpkins of climbing varieties is carried out in July, when 1–2 ovaries of 10 cm diameter are present on the lashes. The scourge is shortened after 4-6 leaves behind the last of the fruits. The maximum load on the bush is calculated based on the characteristics of the variety and the weight of mature pumpkins. Usually, the larger the fruit, the less it should remain after pinching the plant in the open ground.
All idle, empty shoots are cut, and from the side leaves only a couple of the strongest, shortening them to 50 cm.
To increase pumpkins in size, they get additional support, together with pinching several interstices of spreading out lashes sprinkled with soil and moistened. Already after 8–10 days, strong roots form under the soil, feeding the whip. This measure in the open will save the plant from the wind, and whips and fruits from damage.
Growing and Pinching Pumpkins - Video
