But all is not lost! I have two small, green pumpkins still holding on in my garden. Now, if I can only get them to grow just a bit bigger and ripen to a festive bright orange in time for Thanksgiving.
In the late summer, several young pumpkins were taken out by sudden heat waves. Now, I worry these two pumpkins will be done in by some unusual Fall rain. While one might think rain would be a great thing for a garden, the damp weather unfortunately allowed the powdery mildew to spread all over my pumpkin vines. At this point, there is barely an untouched leaf. Normally, I'd just pull out and throw away all the infected vines, but this year I really want to get some pumpkins, damn it!
Later today, I may try a water and milk solution I heard about online, so I can at least keep the fruit itself from getting infected. To be honest, though, I am worried that my pumpkins may not get enough nutrients to grow any bigger. Their vines have very few leaves. I guess I'll try heavy fertilizing and see what happens. (Let me know if you have any tips for saving these guys.)
On the bright side, I finally broke down and purchased a soaker hose for my upper garden plot back in September, and it's made everything much heartier and happier. My 2-year-old eggplants are big and leafy and making fruit, and, as I mentioned before, the artichokes are back in business.
Soaker hoses or drip are key! The other ingredient in my garden success this year was an inexpensive irrigation timer that I hooked to my soaker hose.
I had the same concern with my pumpkins too (I live in San Diego). I haven't been brave enough yet to check their status post rain storm but I'm sure there's plenty of mold. Let us know how the water and milk solution turns out; I'm curious if it works!
Thats the problem...you babied them. I had fifty decent size orange pumpkins, I threw the seeds in the ground and soaked every day for a month...after that nothing. Don't baby them they are hardy and will grow like mad if you leave them alone.
Don't give up! Good luck! Love your stories about your slacker chickens!!