I was outside yesterday and my daughter and I were admiring the pumpkin plants. They seemed to have put on about 12-16 inches of growth in the last couple days! Nice little flower buds on them too...
I went out today and every leaf was wilted and drooping! Emergency water patrol....a couple hours later and everyone is back in shape. Just one hot day, doggone it. They're a lot more sensitive than the other stuff I have growing atm, which seemed to handle the last 24 hours just fine.
Chris
When I grew pumpkins I used gallon milk jugs to keep them watered. Washed out the milk jug, punched a few holes on the bottom edge and buried in pairs about 12" apart with just the neck above ground. I planted each pumpkin between two jugs. Once the pumpkins where established I just used the hose to fill the jugs. It puts a lot of water, as you found out they are thirsty plants during peak growth, right to the roots. It also encourages the roots to grow deeper and stay down where the water is but keeps the ground dry around the pumpkin...no rot. It also makes it easy to heavily feed the pumpkins vines.
Val
I knew some folks that did the same only they used milk.
Bill
Thanks for posting that tip! I'll add it to my tip jar.
My butternut squashes, which are very closely related to pumpkins, will wilt on every hot sunny day absolutely no matter how much water they have. I can have flooded them the night before and also give them an inch of water four times during the day and it will not matter -- if it is hot and sunny, the leaves will go limp during the hottest part of the day, then will firm up immediately again as soon as the sun starts to get low.
I've sort of concluded that winter squash just doesn't like hot sun, and this is its way of reducing the amount of leaf area that is being irradiated on a hot day. The stems always stay firm, it is just the leaves that go limp, kind of like a half-closed picnic umbrella.
Utopia in Decay
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