Great video! For you next batch of pickles add a little bit of the fermented brine from the previous batch to the next batch and the process will start sooner, like a sourdough starter 🥒
Hay Travis. We are loving your new channel. Would it be possible for you to go over the specs for a drying rack ? And how long you leave squash / onions / potatoes on the rack. Do you just run out and grab whatever when you need it for cooking ??
Sorry about your back, but you two and family are what makes it all work!!!!!! It is not only the garden that grows. Great example for all to see. Thank you !!!!!!!
Hey Trav! Stand each pumpkin upright to get much better shape, no flat side, being VERY CAREFUL not to break the vines. Put a large piece of cardboard under the bottom of each one if you still can. Half-sized pallets are great if you get to it early on, maybe next year!
LOL! Have to disagree with rule #43. In this Grandma's Garden grandma gets the first right Big tomato for a tomato sandwich I will share the tomato sandwich. I guess that's almost in The unofficial Grandma rule number one rule number two was my grandma's rule you can't make fried green tomatoes until after you have plenty of red tomatoes. After that first Red tomato rule everybody can go caveman on any tomato. Love listening to you Travis just had to pull your chain a little
I'm no expert but I've grown Atlantic Giants for years. Some things that help me are; The pumpkins you decide to keep should be at least 10ft away from the base so the vine will not get too tight and pull the plant out of the ground. The vines will drop roots along as it grows so be sure to keep the vines loose near the pumpkin or it can rip itself off the vine. This is also a reason to overhead water the entire plant area to get more nutrients in the plants unless you get enough rain. I keep one pumpkin per vine and usually get 90 - 100 lb pumpkins. If you cut off the tip of a vine, that vine will not grow any longer and put it's energy into the pumpkin. I have a pumpkin carving party before Halloween for family and friends, kids and adults (Giants and regular pumpkins) Great Fun!!
Good pumpkin debriefing. Could you maybe slip a small pallet under those pumpkins before they get too big to lift? At dieback you could use a skid loader with forks or a backhoe with slings to lift that pallet into your pickup for the trip to the scales. A pallet could also keep the giant off the ground for protection. I have a complete and thorough ignorance in growing sweet potatoes, turmeric, ginger, and rhubarb from seed. I'll follow Rule 42 on the caveman technique to dispose of that first beefsteak tomato.
I really enjoyed that episode! It’s too cold up here for ginger and turmeric but we can grow rhubarb! An English style rhubarb crumble with custard is a wonderful dessert! Of course you never eat the poisonous leaves on rhubarb just the stems. Mostly people grow new plants from a division of an established crown, I think seeds would take some time before you have a harvestable crop. In England they seem to grow well in full sun but even here in the Toronto area I grow mine on an east facing wall and a north facing wall to limit too much hot sun. Rhubarb is a heavy feeder and loves organic matter. Three crowns give my wife and I all the rhubarb we would eat in a year. After several years it’s good to divide the crown. You can give the division away, re plant, or use it for forcing a super early crop in spring- that’s a big business in England.
The problem you are going to have is the heat and humidity are going to take out your plants before the pumpkins reach their full potential. I can’t imagine in the south the plants will be healthy 100 days after fruit set. Definitely feed them weekly if not daily. Good luck and have fun
All we can do is just wait and see. It is definitely going to be interesting to see if the plants can "hang-on" when it gets consistently in the 90s every day.
I think Danny from deep south homestead was having issues with his corn (peaches and cream I believe it was) was short. Is this common,? I thinknthats what I have too and it's rather short and silked too.
Sometimes corn will be short because it was fed enough during its growth. Some varieties are just short. I've grown Peaches & Cream once, and from what I remember it was on the shorter end.
Grow the ginger in 3 gallon pots. Don't plant them in the garden. When they go dormant, you will have a hard time remember exactly where you planted them.
Certain plants serve as "indicator" plants that tell you when things are dry. Squash and pumpkins are a great "indicator" plant as the leaves will tend to fall when conditions are too dry. With the dry weather we've been having, I'm watering most plots 2-3 hours every other day.
My understanding from what I read a while back is that the different species cannot pollinate each other. In other words, only pepo types can pollinate another pepo type and maxima to maxima etc.
We grew a couple Carolina giant water melons, and man, they were huge, sweet, and perfect for a bunch of guests to stop by for a good ol' southern dinner after church. I dug a hole, filled it with top soil, made a mound and planted the melon on it.
I’ve grown the Porto rican varieties for a couple years. They’re not a super large potato, but they’re good producers. Really great for growing in containers.
Good to know. We actually prefer the mid-size potatoes as opposed to the massive ones. The smaller ones are much easier to cut into chunks/cubes for roasting, which is the primary way we cook them.
Rule #22; First pickings must be "sampled" whilst being harvested. Yesterday I picked a colander full of blueberries and ate at least 2 cups before going inside. Love the idea of a Tyty size pumpkin.
Our sweet potatoes are in the window sill getting ready to plant! I got a 4 foot square box 2 feet high to dump grass clippings. The plan is to get some fishing worms and dump them in the clippings, then cover with 4 inches of black dirt and install the slips. I will keep you informed. We use the push mower for close in trim work to collect clippings, but the riding mower has no way to collect them. If I can get about 1200 dollars to buy a lawn vacuum attachment, I can use the whole lawn for something useful and make my own worm filled compost by the cubic yards! It kind of irks me the lawn is useless since we do not have gazing animals and we only have a couple acres to work with. My brother in law just dumped worms after fishing for catfish in a pile of clippings, and the worms took off. No special thing was done, he just kept the clippings a little moist now and then. I hope to get a few starters for next year to increase the yield in more square feet. We plan to eat the greens also, they are highly nutritious, so there is your replacement for greens in the hot summer months.
@@LazyDogFarm Being a lazy dog farmer, the lazy way to fish is with a bobber and some worms, no doubt. I've been so busy I have not gotten my line wet this year even. Shame on me! I gotta get my wife to come along and spend a lazy day fishing. She is a photography buff, so she can bring that along. Lake Blackshear is about 50 miles south of here, and the Flint river is only 25 miles east, the Okmulgee river is only 15 miles west, so I have no excuse! LOL
It takes about a year to grow ginger in the tropics. I would suggest to grow some in a containers that you can bring indoors when the weather gets cooler come fall.
As always, useful information, excellent presentation. I’m 60 years old and I never knew exactly how corn pollinated with the silk to make the kernels. Thank you, keep up the good work.
So the reason competitive giant pumpkin growers do the things they do is that those things maximize the ability of the plant to funnel resources into a single fruit. In the case of the "Christmas tree shape", this is referring to a technique that produces as an end result a wedge shaped plant as viewed from above. The shape arises from growing the main stem in a straight line, training all branches from the main stem to grow directly away from the main stem (at a right angle to it), and pruning all other stems. This has a few effects that are useful: It maximizes the surface area covered by the plant without having overlapping leaves that block the light from one another and reduce air circulation. The consequence of this is that disease pressure is reduced and all the return to the plant from resources invested in leaves and stems is maximized. The wedge shape also makes it fairly easy to get into the "interior" of the vine for pruning of undesirable stems and leaves. The Christmas tree shape isn't so much a goal as a consequence. Because the longest side branches tend to be the oldest, they're near the base of the plant, leading to a wedge shape. You're definitely right that it's too late for you to do that. You have to plan that sort of pruning from the beginning and maintain it over the entire life cycle of the plant.
@@WhatWeDoChannel I don't really qualify as an expert on the subject. I have researched it, though. There's actually a lot more to it than just what I described.
Great video tonight Travis. My sweet corn is starting to tassel. I have been watering very two to three days also. This 90 plus heat has been ruff this week. Some relief this weekend and maybe some rain later part of next week 🙏🏻. I had a zucchini hiding from me a few days, cut it weighed 5.5 pounds. I have some of those tote bags. My brother in law gave me. They get potash in for cattle feed. I use them to store chicken litter and compost in. If you are planning a trip up 75 let me know and I will give you one. They are about 3’ x3’ x 4.5’. They hold about 1800 pounds and have a strap on each Conner. How late can you plant sweet potatoes. My snap beans should be done in a week or so. Thanks
Thanks for the offer on the bag. Hoping I can find a farmer around here that has one if I need it. I’d say you can plant as late as August if you wanted to cut it close.
Welcome to the world of giant pumpkins! I believe the Georgia state record is 1306lbs by a Mr Grizzle. I know you have your priorities but its a fun hobby if you dig deep. #growbig
I just love looking at your garden! So much to learn, too. My sweet corn is about calf high, so it's going to be a little while before it will tassel, but it's good to know how to help it along! BTW - I got my high arch wheel hoe last week - Wow! I hilled six 30 ft rows of sweet corn in about 10 minutes! Next time I throw dirt to them, I'll side dress. Thanks for teaching me so much about it.
Interesting trivia. Americans are the only English speakers that call winter squash "squash". Everyone else calls all of them pumpkins and squash refers to the summer variety like crookneck ,zucchini etc. That's why here we have to differentiate between "summer" and "winter" to avoid confusion :)
In the official book of garden rules, garden rule #43 says, for your first big tomato, you've got to eat it cave man style. Alright, alright, alright, that dog will hunt.
Will the yellow pumpkins you showed turn orange? I grew a white pumpkin last year and an orange one, both about basketball size. I was so happy - first time trying. This year I am growing sugar pie pumpkins. Do they store well? and of course butternut squash. Love those! It is challenging because we only have raised beds and containers.
Rule #43 noted. Whole new world of great popcorn to look into. I recommend the Amish Country sampler. Better than movie theater at home is so easy. Thanks Got a deluge almost out of nowhere finally.
mushrooms would be a pretty cool project. Kits are on the market. Waiting on Norfolk Feed and Seed to get those sweet potato slips in. They told me a late frost got many of the suppliers slips, so they are going to be late this year.
Get a demolition bag from Lowes they would hold a really big pumpkin and are rated for either 500 or 1000 pounds I think the last one I bought was about $12.
Wow! That info about winter squash was amazing, doing my Halloween 🎃 pumpkin patch this weekend and this video just came so handy. Planting 12 varieties just missing the cashew squash. Thanks
Giant pumpkins would be fun to grow. I got some big pumpkins seeds to grow this year. If any of mine start to get really large/heavy, Im going to put something under them to make it easier to move later.Get then up a little off the ground. Your gardens look great!
If you’re wanting to hit 200 there’s several things you’re going to need to do but you may not want to do it. One would be thinning out/culling some of those plants, even with our seeds that are from known growers from known pumpkins that reach 1,000-2,000 plus pounds we can grow one plant in a 150 sq ft and reach 450 plus pounds. So my experience with growing only one pumpkin per plant with unknown Atlantic Giant seeds with plants crowded like yours I was only able to get -75-100lbs but thinning the plants out giving them lots of space will give you bigger pumpkin. Every plant is taking nutrients and water from each other, less plants more room for the other plants to root and draw in water and nutrients. The more roots the plant has the more uptake of water and nutrients which equals bigger fruit. You also need to add some borax detergent which is boron at least once a week as well as other micronutrients to go with your npk, as far as your n goes now I’d use calcium nitrate, a tad of phosphorus but start building up your potassium until you’re slamming her full every week of potassium. Be careful though cause you can give it to much potassium it’ll explode!! Hope this helps some!! I’ll be doing videos of my growing of the giant pumpkins as well as butternut squash from the world record, giant bushel gourd, long gourd, watermelon, tomatoes and sunflower, shooting for the state records at least if not world records!!
At this point I’m not sure I could get in there and remove entire plants. I definitely planted them too close. Learning a lot from this first experience. Thanks for sharing all those good tips!
I understand that here’s a couple thoughts cause I’d like to see you get a few big enough for the kids to climb in, if you can see the stump/crown of individual plants you can take loppers and cut them there and when they die back pull them out a section at a time. Can you start a couple more plants and put the in one 100-150 sq ft space and grow them there and cull the worse of the two and let that one grow you a 200+ pounder?? A lot of us growing giant pumpkins haven’t even got plants big enough to pollinate a pumpkin yet. Good luck, ever got a question hit me up if I can’t answer it I can find out!!
I might could do that with the loppers. Growing pumpkins in the summer or even fall is tough for us due to the heat. It can be done, but usually takes a pretty disease-resistant hybrid to make it.
If you’re only growing for size and not to eat a lot of giant growers use this stuff called eagle 20 for the powder mildew and other diseases. There’s other stuff they use that’s similar to it and does a great job as well and there’s some other stuff for the pest control but none of it should be put on your edible plants. As far as I know it doesn’t effect your soil so you can plant there the next year with plants you plan to eat.
I'm very interested in the bush type... haven't ever grown them. This year I planted Covington hoping for good things. For once in my life, I think maybe, just maybe my corn is at least a nice as yours... I've worked really really hard on getting enough fertilizer and water in it... man with this dry weather we have been having, I've been just letting that drip run and run and run. Seems to just talk all I can give it.
About 200 lb you can pick up on a tarp. Plants could use a bit of fert, and yes weekly or very little everyday. As your fruit grows, watch your vines cause they can pull right off.
@@LazyDogFarm 20/20/20 feet I put about 1 tablespoon per 2.5 gallons and I feed that weekly. Not sure how that converts to your injector. But since you dont want to nuke your others id stay on the light side and go less. Vine training, pruning and bury every leaf node, but is a major time commitment for sure. Compost teas are great as well for your soil biology
I planted Seminal pumpkins, Cherokee Tan pumpkins and south Ana butternut squash in the same row, 🤔😂. I don’t think I’ll save any seeds from them, lol.
You might want to save a few to see what happens. The South Anna was originally a hybrid. Might end up creating something that’s super disease-resistant.
@@LazyDogFarm I accidentally tilled in some seeds of my pumpkins and winter squash this spring that the chickens ate in the field before I could get them last fall. I have all kinds of mutant squash plants out there this year lol. Maybe it’s worth a try just to see what happens.
Another great video Travis. I was going to try the mountain vineyard tomato but I forgot to add it on my last order. But I still don’t think it could be as sweet as the sun sugar. I wish you would have planted those to compare. Sweetest cherry tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. My dogs even love them! Have a great weekend, Rob
@@LazyDogFarm have u ever tried the red sweet million cherry tomatoes? Very sweet. Last year I planted tomatoberry’s, they are shaped like strawberries and those were super sweet also. Before I forget, I wanted to tell you how much I liked the kids yelling it’s tater time in a previous video.
Travis, I thoroughly enjoyed the video. I think I may have planted my sweet potatoes too early and not in the best spot in my garden. Curious to see how yours turn out. I love me some tomatoes. Believe it or not, despite the great Texas freeze my onions turned out pretty good. Great job!!!
I'm pitting Dill's Atlantic Giant vs Big Max this year. I decided to set them on pallets to make it easier getting them out of the garden when they're ready to harvest and keeps them up off the ground too. Your rule #43 looks great. My Moskvich and Oregon spring are racing each other for my first ripe tomatoes this year.
My money is on the Big Max, I planted it last year and it never really got the mildew problems I am use to. This year I planted Atlantic Giant which is off to a slow start. Good luck this year with your giant pumpkins.
Turmeric and Ginger would do well in a self-wicking container. A few 55 gal plastic barrels cut in 1/2 and some sand, gravel and some sock pipe or filter cloth and you'd be set. I think Rhubarb grows better as a Cole crop. I've never had any luck with it in the heat. Keep em coming, all right, all right all right 🙂
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Great video! For you next batch of pickles add a little bit of the fermented brine from the previous batch to the next batch and the process will start sooner, like a sourdough starter 🥒
That makes sense. I'll have to try that.
My Vermicompost bin loves undersized pumpkins.
I bet the worms do love that!
Hay Travis. We are loving your new channel.
Would it be possible for you to go over the specs for a drying rack ? And how long you leave squash / onions / potatoes on the rack. Do you just run out and grab whatever when you need it for cooking ??
We leave them on there indefinitely. I’ll try to cover the specs more next time we use it in a video.
Sorry about your back, but you two and family are what makes it all work!!!!!! It is not only the garden that grows. Great example for all to see.
Thank you !!!!!!!
Thanks Willie!
I am growing the atlantic giant pumpkin
Hopefully you get some big ones!
I grew Vardaman and the Bush Puerto Rico last year. Had better luck with the Vardaman.
Thanks for sharing Deborah.
What fertilizer do you put under sweet potatoes? Have every use cottonseed meal? makes sweet...
I’m using the 8-5-5 from Nature Safe as a preplant on mine this year. We’ll see how it goes.
Thanks for the great work!
Thanks Donna!
Travis, look at the TH-cam video by Gary Pilarchik about growing turmeric and ginger. He does give great instructions on his video.
Thanks for the tip! I'll go watch that one.
Hey Trav! Stand each pumpkin upright to get much better shape, no flat side, being VERY CAREFUL not to break the vines. Put a large piece of cardboard under the bottom of each one if you still can. Half-sized pallets are great if you get to it early on, maybe next year!
Might be too late with this patch, but I'm definitely going to do something like that on my next try.
I should be picking better boy tomatoes soon.
I’ve got a feeling we’re going to have a bunch of them soon. We’ve got lots of clusters waiting to ripen.
You can try giving that sickly Tomato plant some fish emulsion and also foilar spraying some aspirin water
Because I have so many plants, I'm more prone to remove it so it doesn't spread to the others.
LOL! Have to disagree with rule #43. In this Grandma's Garden grandma gets the first right Big tomato for a tomato sandwich I will share the tomato sandwich. I guess that's almost in The unofficial Grandma rule number one rule number two was my grandma's rule you can't make fried green tomatoes until after you have plenty of red tomatoes. After that first Red tomato rule everybody can go caveman on any tomato. Love listening to you Travis just had to pull your chain a little
I’ll let you slide this time on bending the rules.
I'm no expert but I've grown Atlantic Giants for years. Some things that help me are; The pumpkins you decide to keep should be at least 10ft away from the base so the vine will not get too tight and pull the plant out of the ground. The vines will drop roots along as it grows so be sure to keep the vines loose near the pumpkin or it can rip itself off the vine. This is also a reason to overhead water the entire plant area to get more nutrients in the plants unless you get enough rain. I keep one pumpkin per vine and usually get 90 - 100 lb pumpkins. If you cut off the tip of a vine, that vine will not grow any longer and put it's energy into the pumpkin. I have a pumpkin carving party before Halloween for family and friends, kids and adults (Giants and regular pumpkins) Great Fun!!
Thanks for the tips Leonard!
Good pumpkin debriefing. Could you maybe slip a small pallet under those pumpkins before they get too big to lift? At dieback you could use a skid loader with forks or a backhoe with slings to lift that pallet into your pickup for the trip to the scales. A pallet could also keep the giant off the ground for protection. I have a complete and thorough ignorance in growing sweet potatoes, turmeric, ginger, and rhubarb from seed. I'll follow Rule 42 on the caveman technique to dispose of that first beefsteak tomato.
Don’t know that I could get a pallet in there now, but the soil might be soft enough to just slide the forks underneath them.
I really enjoyed that episode! It’s too cold up here for ginger and turmeric but we can grow rhubarb! An English style rhubarb crumble with custard is a wonderful dessert! Of course you never eat the poisonous leaves on rhubarb just the stems. Mostly people grow new plants from a division of an established crown, I think seeds would take some time before you have a harvestable crop. In England they seem to grow well in full sun but even here in the Toronto area I grow mine on an east facing wall and a north facing wall to limit too much hot sun. Rhubarb is a heavy feeder and loves organic matter. Three crowns give my wife and I all the rhubarb we would eat in a year. After several years it’s good to divide the crown. You can give the division away, re plant, or use it for forcing a super early crop in spring- that’s a big business in England.
Thanks for sharing about the rhubarb!
The problem you are going to have is the heat and humidity are going to take out your plants before the pumpkins reach their full potential. I can’t imagine in the south the plants will be healthy 100 days after fruit set. Definitely feed them weekly if not daily. Good luck and have fun
All we can do is just wait and see. It is definitely going to be interesting to see if the plants can "hang-on" when it gets consistently in the 90s every day.
Pumpkins like Sand in the soil that might help
This plot has a thick layer of compost, so it's very fine. Hopefully that does help.
I think Danny from deep south homestead was having issues with his corn (peaches and cream I believe it was) was short. Is this common,? I thinknthats what I have too and it's rather short and silked too.
Sometimes corn will be short because it was fed enough during its growth. Some varieties are just short. I've grown Peaches & Cream once, and from what I remember it was on the shorter end.
Grow the ginger in 3 gallon pots. Don't plant them in the garden. When they go dormant, you will have a hard time remember exactly where you planted them.
Thanks for the tip. Might need to get me one of those watering-trough style raised beds just for the ginger.
How do you know how much do you have to water plants?
Certain plants serve as "indicator" plants that tell you when things are dry. Squash and pumpkins are a great "indicator" plant as the leaves will tend to fall when conditions are too dry. With the dry weather we've been having, I'm watering most plots 2-3 hours every other day.
My understanding from what I read a while back is that the different species cannot pollinate each other. In other words, only pepo types can pollinate another pepo type and maxima to maxima etc.
That is correct. So the only possible cross-pollination that could occur in our plot would be between the giant pumpkin and the kabocha squash.
We grew a couple Carolina giant water melons, and man, they were huge, sweet, and perfect for a bunch of guests to stop by for a good ol' southern dinner after church. I dug a hole, filled it with top soil, made a mound and planted the melon on it.
Can't wait to see how big ours get. We've got a few on the vine now that are about 4-5" long.
You need to give us more garden rules.
👍
Travis try setting the pumpkins your growing out on pallets now when their small to make them easier to move when their full size. John S.
That would have made much more sense. I should have also given them their own plot.
Can’t wait to see your kids reaction to the giant pumpkins.
The the rhubarb I raise in Iowa needs the cold winter. I hope you can get it going.
Yeah probably going to wait until fall to plant it.
I’ve grown the Porto rican varieties for a couple years. They’re not a super large potato, but they’re good producers. Really great for growing in containers.
Good to know. We actually prefer the mid-size potatoes as opposed to the massive ones. The smaller ones are much easier to cut into chunks/cubes for roasting, which is the primary way we cook them.
Ok, please tell everyone in a TH-cam video! Why you are not associated with Hoss anymore. I am extremely curious.
Maybe one day ...
Natural human curiosity makes me wonder also but I do know that working with family can be a minefield. However, it's actually none of my business.
Rule #22; First pickings must be "sampled" whilst being harvested. Yesterday I picked a colander full of blueberries and ate at least 2 cups before going inside.
Love the idea of a Tyty size pumpkin.
Hoping for some blueberries soon on our two backyard bushes.
Our sweet potatoes are in the window sill getting ready to plant! I got a 4 foot square box 2 feet high to dump grass clippings. The plan is to get some fishing worms and dump them in the clippings, then cover with 4 inches of black dirt and install the slips. I will keep you informed. We use the push mower for close in trim work to collect clippings, but the riding mower has no way to collect them. If I can get about 1200 dollars to buy a lawn vacuum attachment, I can use the whole lawn for something useful and make my own worm filled compost by the cubic yards! It kind of irks me the lawn is useless since we do not have gazing animals and we only have a couple acres to work with. My brother in law just dumped worms after fishing for catfish in a pile of clippings, and the worms took off. No special thing was done, he just kept the clippings a little moist now and then. I hope to get a few starters for next year to increase the yield in more square feet. We plan to eat the greens also, they are highly nutritious, so there is your replacement for greens in the hot summer months.
Makes sense. I'd like to start a worm bed so that I always have fishing bait.
@@LazyDogFarm Being a lazy dog farmer, the lazy way to fish is with a bobber and some worms, no doubt. I've been so busy I have not gotten my line wet this year even. Shame on me! I gotta get my wife to come along and spend a lazy day fishing. She is a photography buff, so she can bring that along. Lake Blackshear is about 50 miles south of here, and the Flint river is only 25 miles east, the Okmulgee river is only 15 miles west, so I have no excuse! LOL
It takes about a year to grow ginger in the tropics. I would suggest to grow some in a containers that you can bring indoors when the weather gets cooler come fall.
Here in Florida when I plant ginger in May/June there is plenty to harvest in Sept/Oct. Been doing this for years.
👍
Love an open minded hippy hiding under a southern accent. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and journey. Your family is so adorable and sweet.
Thanks Charli!
New here. Are you the guy from Hoss Tools?
Formerly, yes.
@@LazyDogFarm Just making sure I wasn’t crazy. LOL
Caveman style, LOL. I'm going to have to try that this year. :) I'm really enjoying you and your family on this new channel!
Thanks Heather! Glad you're enjoying the new channel.
I have had my sweet potato slips in for about 4 weeks here in North Louisiana 8a, hope it wasn’t too early. They are green and healthy looking so far.
Should be just fine.
As always, useful information, excellent presentation. I’m 60 years old and I never knew exactly how corn pollinated with the silk to make the kernels. Thank you, keep up the good work.
Glad it was helpful!
So the reason competitive giant pumpkin growers do the things they do is that those things maximize the ability of the plant to funnel resources into a single fruit. In the case of the "Christmas tree shape", this is referring to a technique that produces as an end result a wedge shaped plant as viewed from above. The shape arises from growing the main stem in a straight line, training all branches from the main stem to grow directly away from the main stem (at a right angle to it), and pruning all other stems. This has a few effects that are useful: It maximizes the surface area covered by the plant without having overlapping leaves that block the light from one another and reduce air circulation. The consequence of this is that disease pressure is reduced and all the return to the plant from resources invested in leaves and stems is maximized. The wedge shape also makes it fairly easy to get into the "interior" of the vine for pruning of undesirable stems and leaves.
The Christmas tree shape isn't so much a goal as a consequence. Because the longest side branches tend to be the oldest, they're near the base of the plant, leading to a wedge shape. You're definitely right that it's too late for you to do that. You have to plan that sort of pruning from the beginning and maintain it over the entire life cycle of the plant.
Good to know. Thanks for explaining that.
It’s nice to hear expert advice like that. I don’t have space to grow giant pumpkins but now I reckon I could if I did!
@@WhatWeDoChannel I don't really qualify as an expert on the subject. I have researched it, though. There's actually a lot more to it than just what I described.
Great video tonight Travis. My sweet corn is starting to tassel. I have been watering very two to three days also. This 90 plus heat has been ruff this week. Some relief this weekend and maybe some rain later part of next week 🙏🏻. I had a zucchini hiding from me a few days, cut it weighed 5.5 pounds. I have some of those tote bags. My brother in law gave me. They get potash in for cattle feed. I use them to store chicken litter and compost in. If you are planning a trip up 75 let me know and I will give you one. They are about 3’ x3’ x 4.5’. They hold about 1800 pounds and have a strap on each Conner. How late can you plant sweet potatoes. My snap beans should be done in a week or so. Thanks
Thanks for the offer on the bag. Hoping I can find a farmer around here that has one if I need it. I’d say you can plant as late as August if you wanted to cut it close.
Welcome to the world of giant pumpkins! I believe the Georgia state record is 1306lbs by a Mr Grizzle. I know you have your priorities but its a fun hobby if you dig deep. #growbig
Definitely going to learn a lot from this first experience this year.
Good luck with the giant pumpkin!! It will be fun to watch how they grow!!🎃
For sure!
I just love looking at your garden! So much to learn, too. My sweet corn is about calf high, so it's going to be a little while before it will tassel, but it's good to know how to help it along! BTW - I got my high arch wheel hoe last week - Wow! I hilled six 30 ft rows of sweet corn in about 10 minutes! Next time I throw dirt to them, I'll side dress. Thanks for teaching me so much about it.
Sure does make it fast!
👍Travis you must have the same garden rule book I got. LOL 🤣
Yep. We don’t always follow every rule, but we do our best to abide.
My sweet corn is knee high but it looks like I have aphids inside the stalk and the tops. What can I do? I am in Zone 9b central Florida.
Aphids are usually pretty easy to kill. Spinosad will take care of them as well.
Interesting trivia. Americans are the only English speakers that call winter squash "squash". Everyone else calls all of them pumpkins and squash refers to the summer variety like crookneck ,zucchini etc. That's why here we have to differentiate between "summer" and "winter" to avoid confusion :)
Makes sense. Thanks for sharing that neat tidbit.
In the official book of garden rules, garden rule #43 says, for your first big tomato, you've got to eat it cave man style. Alright, alright, alright, that dog will hunt.
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Will the yellow pumpkins you showed turn orange? I grew a white pumpkin last year and an orange one, both about basketball size. I was so happy - first time trying. This year I am growing sugar pie pumpkins. Do they store well? and of course butternut squash. Love those! It is challenging because we only have raised beds and containers.
First time growing this variety, but it appears they start yellow and mature to an orange color.
Rule #43 noted. Whole new world of great popcorn to look into. I recommend the Amish Country sampler. Better than movie theater at home is so easy. Thanks
Got a deluge almost out of nowhere finally.
Definitely interested in trying some different popcorn varieties in the next few years.
Always give great advice.
Just planted my second round of summer squash. Sweet potatoes next week!
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mushrooms would be a pretty cool project. Kits are on the market. Waiting on Norfolk Feed and Seed to get those sweet potato slips in. They told me a late frost got many of the suppliers slips, so they are going to be late this year.
Mushrooms would be cool.
Get a demolition bag from Lowes they would hold a really big pumpkin and are rated for either 500 or 1000 pounds I think the last one I bought was about $12.
Thanks for the tip Hondo!
Wow! That info about winter squash was amazing, doing my Halloween 🎃 pumpkin patch this weekend and this video just came so handy. Planting 12 varieties just missing the cashew squash. Thanks
Definitely add a few cushaw squash if you’ve got room. They make good decorations for fall, but are also delicious!
Giant pumpkins would be fun to grow. I got some big pumpkins seeds to grow this year. If any of mine start to get really large/heavy, Im going to put something under them to make it easier to move later.Get then up a little off the ground. Your gardens look great!
Yeah I should have done that but it was a jungle before I realized I should have done that.
Try a battery powered lawn blower to move the corn tassels around. Might work, who knows?
Never thought of that. Wonder if it might blow them too far though.
If you’re wanting to hit 200 there’s several things you’re going to need to do but you may not want to do it. One would be thinning out/culling some of those plants, even with our seeds that are from known growers from known pumpkins that reach 1,000-2,000 plus pounds we can grow one plant in a 150 sq ft and reach 450 plus pounds. So my experience with growing only one pumpkin per plant with unknown Atlantic Giant seeds with plants crowded like yours I was only able to get -75-100lbs but thinning the plants out giving them lots of space will give you bigger pumpkin. Every plant is taking nutrients and water from each other, less plants more room for the other plants to root and draw in water and nutrients. The more roots the plant has the more uptake of water and nutrients which equals bigger fruit. You also need to add some borax detergent which is boron at least once a week as well as other micronutrients to go with your npk, as far as your n goes now I’d use calcium nitrate, a tad of phosphorus but start building up your potassium until you’re slamming her full every week of potassium. Be careful though cause you can give it to much potassium it’ll explode!! Hope this helps some!! I’ll be doing videos of my growing of the giant pumpkins as well as butternut squash from the world record, giant bushel gourd, long gourd, watermelon, tomatoes and sunflower, shooting for the state records at least if not world records!!
At this point I’m not sure I could get in there and remove entire plants. I definitely planted them too close. Learning a lot from this first experience. Thanks for sharing all those good tips!
I understand that here’s a couple thoughts cause I’d like to see you get a few big enough for the kids to climb in, if you can see the stump/crown of individual plants you can take loppers and cut them there and when they die back pull them out a section at a time. Can you start a couple more plants and put the in one 100-150 sq ft space and grow them there and cull the worse of the two and let that one grow you a 200+ pounder?? A lot of us growing giant pumpkins haven’t even got plants big enough to pollinate a pumpkin yet. Good luck, ever got a question hit me up if I can’t answer it I can find out!!
I might could do that with the loppers. Growing pumpkins in the summer or even fall is tough for us due to the heat. It can be done, but usually takes a pretty disease-resistant hybrid to make it.
If you’re only growing for size and not to eat a lot of giant growers use this stuff called eagle 20 for the powder mildew and other diseases. There’s other stuff they use that’s similar to it and does a great job as well and there’s some other stuff for the pest control but none of it should be put on your edible plants. As far as I know it doesn’t effect your soil so you can plant there the next year with plants you plan to eat.
I'm very interested in the bush type... haven't ever grown them. This year I planted Covington hoping for good things. For once in my life, I think maybe, just maybe my corn is at least a nice as yours... I've worked really really hard on getting enough fertilizer and water in it... man with this dry weather we have been having, I've been just letting that drip run and run and run. Seems to just talk all I can give it.
It can take it all. My soil will be dry again a day after letting it run all night.
About 200 lb you can pick up on a tarp. Plants could use a bit of fert, and yes weekly or very little everyday. As your fruit grows, watch your vines cause they can pull right off.
Thanks for the tip. Might need to give them more juice.
@@LazyDogFarm 20/20/20 feet I put about 1 tablespoon per 2.5 gallons and I feed that weekly. Not sure how that converts to your injector. But since you dont want to nuke your others id stay on the light side and go less. Vine training, pruning and bury every leaf node, but is a major time commitment for sure. Compost teas are great as well for your soil biology
I planted Seminal pumpkins, Cherokee Tan pumpkins and south Ana butternut squash in the same row, 🤔😂. I don’t think I’ll save any seeds from them, lol.
You might want to save a few to see what happens. The South Anna was originally a hybrid. Might end up creating something that’s super disease-resistant.
@@LazyDogFarm I accidentally tilled in some seeds of my pumpkins and winter squash this spring that the chickens ate in the field before I could get them last fall. I have all kinds of mutant squash plants out there this year lol. Maybe it’s worth a try just to see what happens.
Man I'm so ready for my tomatoes to ripen...thanks for another great video!
Thanks for watching!
Another great video. JOHN S.
Thanks John!
Another great video! Thank you for all the information
Thanks! We appreciate it!
Another great video Travis. I was going to try the mountain vineyard tomato but I forgot to add it on my last order. But I still don’t think it could be as sweet as the sun sugar. I wish you would have planted those to compare. Sweetest cherry tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. My dogs even love them!
Have a great weekend,
Rob
Red grape or cherry tomatoes will never be as sweet as the orange ones. Depends on whether you prefer the acidity or the sweetness.
@@LazyDogFarm have u ever tried the red sweet million cherry tomatoes? Very sweet. Last year I planted tomatoberry’s, they are shaped like strawberries and those were super sweet also.
Before I forget, I wanted to tell you how much I liked the kids yelling it’s tater time in a previous video.
Haven’t tried those, but will make a mental note of that variety. 😀
You also should take the new blooms off so they don't put energy into the flowering and more into the pumpkins
Noted. Thanks for the tip.
Vardaman!Got some coming. Thanks for giving a try!
Definitely let us know how they do for you.
There looking good good luck with the contest
Thanks!
Momma says red rhubarb only. Just what momma wants.
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Heard that upper NY and other areas are having freeze and frost issues this weekend.
Crazy stuff!
Travis, I thoroughly enjoyed the video. I think I may have planted my sweet potatoes too early and not in the best spot in my garden. Curious to see how yours turn out. I love me some tomatoes. Believe it or not, despite the great Texas freeze my onions turned out pretty good. Great job!!!
Sweet potatoes like the heat and full sun. They’ll probably do fine planting them early, just might be a little slow at first.
Haven't got my tomatoes in yet. 39 tonight. But you eating that tomatoe on screen was just plain mean! I can't wait!
39 don’t sound too bad after dealing with high 90s all week.
I'm pitting Dill's Atlantic Giant vs Big Max this year. I decided to set them on pallets to make it easier getting them out of the garden when they're ready to harvest and keeps them up off the ground too. Your rule #43 looks great. My Moskvich and Oregon spring are racing each other for my first ripe tomatoes this year.
That’s a good idea putting them on pallets.
My money is on the Big Max, I planted it last year and it never really got the mildew problems I am use to. This year I planted Atlantic Giant which is off to a slow start. Good luck this year with your giant pumpkins.
Look's great Travis 🧡Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for watching Kelly!
How do you not have squash bugs on those!?
I saw some eggs on my summer squash plants the other day. They usually don’t start appearing until it gets really hot.
The wife asked if you've ever grown ground cherries?
I’ve got some tomatillos growing now for the first time ever. Does that count?
@@LazyDogFarm lol not really.
Can't wait fir the sweet potato video. Got my slips for the first time this year. Need to know how to plant them!
Video coming Monday on that hopefully.
Turmeric and Ginger would do well in a self-wicking container. A few 55 gal plastic barrels cut in 1/2 and some sand, gravel and some sock pipe or filter cloth and you'd be set. I think Rhubarb grows better as a Cole crop. I've never had any luck with it in the heat. Keep em coming, all right, all right all right 🙂
Thanks for the tips Jeffery. Always new stuff to learn.
Rhubarb indeed doesn't do well in the heat, however I grow it as an annual in the cool seasons here in Florida.