Most of my plants, like me, hate this endless rain and high humidity and many have died or are slowly rotting. Not the pumpkins! They love this weather! The pumpkin vines have become like steam rollers, flattening everything in their paths. This is a Howden vine ready to smash a blueberry bush on the left and mallow tree on the right.
After a long hiatus, they have also finally started to produce female flowers again. We had a few (1 Howden, 2 Cinderella, and 2 kabocha) baby pumpkins that got started in May, but after there was not a blossom to be found for over a month. I go out and check bright and early every morning because we hand pollinate, but the few female buds shrivelled and died before blossoming. However...
The drought is over! The floods are here and the girls are loving it. We get 3 or 4 female flowers a day (from 7 vines). We have 3 Howden vines, 2 Cindrella vines, and 2 kabocha vines. Plus a bunch of extras that got planted a few weeks ago. 
The day after pollination. 
These are our early Cinderellas. Getting bigger and bigger, but the stem isn't getting woody and they don't sound hollow, so I guess they are not ready to pick. One is right side up and the other...
is upside down. I'm a little bit worried they might get stolen as they are far from common in these parts and pretty exposed on the embankment. We will have to rely on our trusty watchdog (who is the biggest coward in the world and is even afraid of our cat) to keep them on the vines until they are ready to harvest.
2 comments:
i'm lucky to get one female flower a day! you're pumpkins look great! love the second one, very orange and pretty.
I think it is just a temporary rush, we had none for a month. And many of them are falling off after pollination. Maybe they realize it is too wet and they will surely rot.
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