Pumpkins

There's Ah Peng .... our CG Pumpkin Grower .... these three varieties were all grown from seeds. All were hidden in the lush surroundings of the wintermelon vines until he pointed them out to me.

Pumpkin Harvest

Finally one of the pumpkin vines produced a couple of fruits. The size of the pumpkin was just slightly larger than my fist. When I cut it open I was surprised that the centre was hollow without seeds. On a closer look, still couldn't find any viable seeds. I baked the pumpkin and tried eating the flesh ... it was bland, no sweetness at all ... so unlike those that I buy from the supermarket.

Fruiting pumpkin ...gone!

Finally after trimming the vines I managed to get a couple of beginning pumpkin babies ... but, but they all rotted away or self aborted! Haiz! The vines were also getting a sickly yellow and so I finally decided not to wait any longer and pulled out the two vines in the planter to make way for growing vege.

I know the fiesty elderly lady is also growing pumpkin in the fruit garden. I shall do my observation there instead :-)

Flowers Not In Sync!

I was at the CG in the morning about 9 am when I saw at the corner of my eyes a couple of big yellow botches on a planting trellis. I realised that it was the pumpkin flowers. I quickly ran over to check and saw a couple more male flowers bloomed. Then I looked for the female flowers with the familiar buldge .... but alas! I only saw a single solitary one and it hasn't bloomed yet.
So not in sync .... how to produce baby pumpkins ah?

Pumpkin Vines

I love to look at the lush vines of the pumpkin in the CG and it has new shoots climbing up my MG trellis. Sooner or later it's gonna over run the small trellis and the life of the MG may be suffocated. My original intention was to just let the vines grow on the ground and make the vines go round the planter bed. Looks like the vines have a 'mind' of their own LOL.

About the female flowers .... they did appear but for a short while and they don't bloom cos' most of them somehow self abort. How now? I see the many male flowers blooming away again at this time of the year. The vines always turn more lush after adding new compost to the planter bed.
Female pumpkin flowers .... where are you?

Phoenix Pumpkin update

The two plants seem to be growing stronger by the day, though their growth had been delayed by a month cos' I left them too long at home without sufficient light to grow well. Let's hope that they will continue to grow even stronger and bear fruit.

Update 14/04/09

The vines are growing more and more leaves each day and they are filling up this part of the planter bed. The pumpkin vine will be allowed to crawl on the planter bed till the fruits are formed.

I saw a couple of flowers when I visited the garden in the evening. Let's see what happens from now onwards.

Phoenix Pumpkin

I was given these pumpkin seeds by Wisteria, a GCS member through SASE and out of the five I sowed only three germinated. After about a month of growing in my house, I planted them in the CG and two survived. At the moment they seem to be doing OK ... no insect attack nor downy mildew attack. I'm keeping my fingers cross and have gotten ready some organic insect repellent and organic fungicide too.

Here are the two pumpkin plants laying side by side. Later on I will need to build a trellis for them. Hopefully they can grow till this stage. Sending good vibes to the pumpkins to grow, grow and grow :-)