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Back to Part 2 October 18: Measurements: H1 Tertiary has 15 feet of leafy vine, H1 Quaternary is 11 feet long, remaining H4 secondary has 3 feet of leafy vine, largest leaves on H1 Quaternary are 13 inches wide & 15 inches long It appears that my previous endeavor provided a success. The pollination of that second quaternary female worked. The pumpkin is now the size of a golf ball and is growing slowing every day, but growing nonetheless. The other female on the tertiary remains the same for the time being. The first pollinated quaternary female from the 11th started to turn brown so it was removed. However, I pollinated yet another female on the tertiary yesterday morning using mainly the males from the potted vine. Another small female nearby has several more days to go if it survives, it looks a little yellow. Finally, I watered the roots and leaves close to the pumpkins with Bloom Booster to make sure the fruit sets. Those particular roots took it upon themselves to root into the ground. The buried roots got plain water. High temperatures continue to stay in the 70's and 80's as well. In other news, it was time to trim again. I first removed about two feet of that three foot remainder of H1 Main. It started to turn yellow and mushy and its proximity to the tertiary posed a rot risk to it. Only a deeply rooted one foot section of it remains which I think still provides for the tertiary and quaternary. I removed one of the two secondaries of H4, the one that sort of grew towards the original garden. A three foot vine growing out of a buried section of the tertiary had wilted over the previous few days and as I grabbed it for cutting it easily pulled out of the dirt, yielding a rotting section. I wonder what caused this? A few more small wilting vines were trimmed away, along with some leaves. October 25: Last parts of H4 removed Measurements: H1 Tertiary is 11 feet long (has been trimmed, see below), H1 Quaternary is 13 feet, Quaternary pumpkin is apple size The quaternary pumpkin is still growing noticeably every day. Its vine is slowly growing too back into the older section of the patch. It has a female that will open up tomorrow. The potted vine has a male or two that will hopefully open up at the same time. The tertiary pumpkin is still there but is not growing. The vine continues to slowly grow though and I had to start to turn the end back in the other direction before it reaches the fence. Trimming was in order again. The remnants of H4 were removed as the leaves were mostly brown and its flowering days were long gone. The October 1 female had shriveled and turned brown so I removed it. The last section of H1 Secondary was removed because it had died and dried up along with the first foot of the tertiary. The second foot has a big root going into the ground so the oldest remaining part of H1 now starts there. There is also another root just a little further down. The vine coming out of the furthest dirt mound over the tertiary had rotted so I removed that section. So, the tertiary is no longer connected to its two dirt mounds or other just-mentioned roots. It still has those roots further down that rooted themselves in the ground so hopefully they will continue to support it, which they have been doing entirely these past few days anyways. The mounds and two previous roots still provide for the quaternary though. I also buried and watered a small section of the quaternary where a rooted leaf base and two other promising bases exist. I trimmed away the dead leaves from all vines and removed a few small wilted vines growing from the tertiary. In the process, I discovered that vine borer season is still not over despite what I have read. I had not sprayed because I haven't seen the adults and the vines looked free of the larvae. Today, upon closer inspection I found four points of entry in the tertiary, including one that killed one of those small wilted vines. Since it is now late but not over in the growing season, I decided to experiment with physical removal of the borer. I slit the vine with a small knife starting from the holes to the point where I found them. Sometimes, I had to stop and go in the opposite direction from the hole when I didn't see them the other way. I used the blade to pry the vine open to see the inside. When found, I scraped the borers out and smashed them. They were small but numbered five, some doubling up in the holes. If they had been allowed to grow, the vine surely would have died. I scrapped out what orange mush I could as well. The first leaf, leaf base and root at today's revised beginning of the vine were removed too and a borer extracted, for working on the section while connected to the vine proved too difficult. After the operations, I buried the affected sections, which meant several continuous feet starting from the start of the vine. I watered the mound with Starter Solution and Bloom Booster. One leaf was already wilting when I finished and it may not survive. However, I hope the extractions will finally cause that tertiary pumpkin to start receiving what it needs to grow again. I sprayed the latter with Bloom Spray to help maintain it in the meantime. As for some observations, the Diazinon did not seem to affect the borers at all when sprayed into the holes. It is something therefore that can only kill them before they get into the vine. Also, it may pay to extract borers at night. This way, you might be able to shine a light through the vine and see their shadows, this reducing the need for exploratory cuts to find them. I did not see any borers in the quaternary and I hope none are hiding from sight there. So, I mixed up some Diazinon and applied it to all the vines once again. I remember that methoxychlor or malathion are highly recommended on the Internet sites so they are definitely something to try next year. Finally, I erected another wind barrier with miscellaneous items around the yard because of strong winds that are forecasted to be here soon.

October 26:
That female opened up this morning. No males on the potted vine bloomed today, only two - one on the tertiary and one on the quaternary - were to be found. However, they had some decent pollen for once so I used them.

October 29:
Well, it is that time of year for which many or most of us grow pumpkins. Today, I carved the H2 and H3 pumpkins, which kept well for over these past two months. I was wondering if H3 was big enough (at cantaloupe size) to carve. It was and it yielded a nice little jack-o-lantern. Both had the familiar insides of a pumpkin but the walls smell and are colored much like cantaloupe instead of pumpkin. H2 has walls over an inch thick and H3 has about 5/8" thick walls. I have to use tea candles because of their smaller size. The light shines through the light-colored skin to illuminate the whole of the pumpkin in an orange glow, especially the smaller one. The candles also make them warm to the touch. I saved the seeds from H2 but most of H3's looked slightly immature to keep. Half of H2's were that way too, leaving about 250 from my quick count of the remaining. I washed them in mild soapy water, rinsed, and placed them on wax paper to dry for the next three weeks like I read on the Pumpkin Nook website. H2 is a nicely shaped pumpkin so hopefully these seeds will yield the same. However, the H1 pumpkin did not last well - especially from my previous descriptions of it. Most every cut I made in it yielded a blue color so I did not even want to open it up. I threw it away. Also, I still bought a pumpkin at the store. They were all large this year and the one I bought was 22 pounds with very thick walls. Because of the moderate weather this year (here and I think in many other places too), the pumpkins seem heavier and thicker.

November 2:
Measurements: H1 Tertiary is 12 feet long, H1 Quaternary is 14 � feet long, Quaternary pumpkin #2 is apricot size
The October 26 pollination was successful. It (quaternary pumpkin #2) is now growing larger every day. As the flower was rotting off of it though, I discovered many small maggot-like insects in the petals and mush. It might be some sort of larvae. So, I removed the flower and all the creatures in question. I had the same experience with the last pollination as well. That latter pumpkin, however, has not grown since my last mention of it. The tertiary female that was pollinated the same day of October 14 finally started to turn brown after not growing so it was removed. Two more females bloomed this morning. There were several males on the quaternary and one on the tertiary but the pollen was scarce. I used all them despite this to hopefully compensate. There were no males blooming on the potted vine. I applied the pollen-less ones to the quaternary female first just in case there were traces I could not see. The male with some pollen unfortunately was already half eaten by some green caterpillars (probably Tomato) but I took a picture of them. There was enough left to use though. I then took a male that possibly opened yesterday but had lots of pollen and used it. Finally, I sprayed that female with Tomato Spray. The other female is on the tertiary and is smaller than the quaternary one. I was hoping it would open up tomorrow when more males would be available. It did not open up completely and it only had three sections to its stamen rather than the usual six. It therefore only received the assistance of two male stamens with trace amounts of pollen. I sprayed it too. On one more note, the leaves on the second half of the tertiary are not opening up like they should as the vine grows. Is this due to age, root structures, or what? Finally, I trimmed some more browning leaves away. I removed all the wilting males from previous days so I could keep track of new ones. The potted vine now only has three large beat-up leaves with a few more tiny ones on its tips, which are only about an inch across. Its males are much smaller too. I did not spray the vines with Diazinon today as scheduled, thinking that it may have stunted the first quaternary pumpkin. I remember it doing the same to another earlier in the season when directly applied so it might be soaking into the vine and doing the same now. Let's see if the second pumpkin outgrows the first because of this experiment. The tertiary tip has now been turned around so it would grow away from the fence back into yard again. The quaternary vine is growing rapidly as well and the two might meet at some point. It also has yet another female about two feet down that will open in a few days.

November 10:
Measurement: Quaternary pumpkin #2 is orange size
Some of the infant pumpkins had to be removed in the past few days. The October 14 quaternary pumpkin had stopped growing at around orange size and started turning brown. The November 2 ones turned brown too after an apparent failure in pollination. However, another female bloomed on the 5th and I used all available males. The pollen was scarce on the stamens that day but then the following day three males full of pollen opened, which has been the case ever since. The potted vine though definitely has stopped producing males with only a few tiny immature stagnant ones available. Today the infant of the 5th is only slightly larger but it is hanging on. Also, the October 26 pumpkin is still there at orange size. It has stopped growing too recently but it has also been cloudy and cold with temperatures staying in the 50s with winds feeling even colder. Even the vines have stopped. However, it is warmer today in the 70s so I added some phosphorus fertilizer (I added potassium last week and it didn't seem to do much - like in some earlier cases too). Finally, one of the two roots of the potted vine was removed due to wilting and some more leaves have been trimmed away.

November 14:
Measurements: Tertiary is 13 feet long with 10 feet of leafy vine, Quaternary is 18 feet long with 12 leafy feet, October 26 pumpkin still orange size, November 5 pumpkin is golf ball size
The patch is getting much smaller. The potted vine started to wilt and was discarded. The vine connecting the two large dirt mounds that recently were feeding the quaternary was wilting so the further mound was removed. The quaternary now only has the mound by the tree and the smaller buried section on the other side supporting it. Wilting leaves were also trimmed. The garden fence was moved further back. Only the tertiary and quaternary vines exist now. Yet, I pollinated a marble-size female on the quaternary today as well. There is one interesting thing that I measured. With both the tertiary and quaternary, it seems that healthy leaves and flowers grow up to 38 feet from the original base roots. Beyond that, the leaves and flowers fail to mature and open completely. I have growth up to 44 feet from the base (which no longer exists) and you can see this in the last six feet. One may want to keep this in mind and terminate the growth as appropriate in future seasons.

November 21:
This is definitely just a science experiment now to see how far I can take the growth. Any more pumpkins are next to nil in possibility. I am still fertilizing with alternate ingredients but the October 26 pumpkin is stagnant and November 5 is growing very slowly at apricot size. The November 14 pollination was a failure. Wilting leaves are frequently being removed while the rest are getting holes, turning white and browning at the edges. A windy day recently broke a few as well. Recently, the temperature hit 40 degrees with 30's in the very near future. I just want to see what happens to a pumpkin vine when it freezes. However, the thought did occur to me that I could have planted another crop in August, cleared the May plantings out after harvest and would have had more pumpkins by now. Two rounds may be something to explore next year with the long growing season in this area of the country.

November 26:
We recently had the first freeze of the season with a low of 30 degrees. However, it remained below freezing for only an hour and the vines survived. The preceding windstorm was actually the greater danger as a few leaf stems were broken. There are hardly any good leaves now on either vine. Today I buried the end of the quaternary in a pot and fertilized it with Miracle-Gro Quick Start and Bloom Booster to see what happens.

December 10:
There have been a few more light freezes with one lasting five hours. The vines and leaves look slightly browned but are still holding on. The pumpkins are the same size as last time with a few blemishes on them. The new potted vine was thinned just above the soil line as if something ate it so I trimmed and reburied it. I found no roots forming as I did this. The quaternary vine shriveled between the remaining two mounds so the older one was removed. The vine has only one mound and the pot to live off of now.

December 26:
Removal of the remaining vines.
The light freezes kept coming and the vines turned a little browner each time. The two little pumpkins were not growing and had surpassed the age of the successful pumpkins that I carved for Halloween. The quaternary would not root in the pot, rotting where it went into the soil on the two occasions I buried it. No leaves existed anymore on the vines with one exception. A small vine (about 18 inches) growing from the tertiary mound had small leaves and an open male flower, which even stayed open last night. The flower had some good pollen too. Yet, it was obvious that the vines would not produce mature pumpkins or simply grow. Therefore, I removed them today.

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