2014 Pumpkin Patch Thread

I have not posted in a while but here's my update:
This wacky weather has caused some good things and some bad. My JBL seem to be completely unaffected, but my JoL think it's spring again and I have been pollenating females like crazy!. I had only 5 JoL left on my 8 plants, then this crazy weather hit. My existing pumpkins are turning orange and the vines are stretching out even faster and creating more and more little babies! I am overjoyed but I wonder how many of them are going to get big enough by Halloween. Right now, honestly, we have only 2 pumpkins big enough to carve. When the lower temps hit, the JoL thought it was time to stop growing and start turning
Old pumpkins:


Biggest pumpkin with new babies:

Old small pumpkin with new pumpkin:

3 new babies next to each other:

Just pollenated this morning!

Even more babies!


My JBLs:



Continued ...

Rest of my biggest JBL:





Here's a couple shots of the front garden. This is about 75% of it:



I am so glad that I have plenty of JBL to give to my daughter's class!

killerhaunts said:

HELP!! What should I do? I found mildew on a ton of leaves today!

Click to expand...

Well, you have several choices. All of these choices can help to slow down the spread, but once you have it, it's pretty impossible to get rid of. You can buy neem oil and spray the leaves down...it leaves a coating on the good, unaffected leaves to help block the powdery mildew from sticking and spreading. This is probably the best choice. Second, you can go the cheaper route, like I usually do, and fill up a spray bottle with water, a pinch of baking soda and a couple teaspoons or so of milk...shake it up and spray the leaves with that. It doesn't work as well as neem oil, but it helps a little for some people. With the neem oil or milk water spray, do this about once a week in the morning. Last resort, and least helpful, is to grab your hose, put it on a good strong spray and, in the morning, not night, give all the leaves a good spray down every so often to help knock off any spores. I do the milk spray and the water hose spray every week...obviously dont spray the leaves RIGHT after you sprayed them with neem or milk, though, as that would wash it all off.
Also, I found, in the early stages, that removing the severely infected leaves and throwing them away in the garbage will help slow the spreading, too. (Don't throw infected leaves into compost or anywhere that it can still spread to other plants...put them in the garbage.)
At this point in the season, I usually just let it go and do it's thing because my pumpkins are mostly grown and near harvest ready...but if you stil have young pumpkins growing, I'd ty to fight the PM as much as you can until they are closer to harvest.