Grpwing pumpkins

[Harpua]

I just recently planted BIG MAX pumpkins on the side of my house. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on feeding, and keeping the bugs and mold away. I'm planning on planting sugar pumpkins for cooking later in the season.

Who else grows pumpkins? I know there are some of you out there who look forward to it every year.

[redace1960]

for cooking i grow the variety 'Sugar Baby'. for showing off i grow 'Cinderella' aka 'French Market', and around here lots of the farmers grow 'Dills Atlantic Giant' which is big enough for Peter Punkin'eaters wife, kids, dogs and in-laws to live in. they carve them with chainsaws... truly a huge, misshapen goliath of a vegetable and just about totally inedible. even cows wait until the first freeze turns them into mush before they'll touch them.

pumpkins are heavy feeders, so i grow them in composted kitchen waste mixed with dirt. they also like their water, but to avoid a killing case of powdery mildew water them around the roots under the leaves, not ON the leaves.

its the nature of punkies to get kind of buggy and moth-eaten towards the end of the season, and since they're an annual i don't much pay attention. if the end of a particular vine molds i'll cut the damage away; same with leaves. otherwise i just let them be.

some folks get carried away and make special raised beds for them out of drip-irrigated bark mulch and have box fans running on 'low' day and night to keep the mold away...AND water them with skim milk. all this love is supposed to produce a superior fruit...

[chrose]

http://www.backyardgardener.com/wcgp/index.html