Adventures of a Green Gardener

Last year I made the fortunate mistake of putting an entire pumpkin in the compost bin. It was a jack o lantern pumpkin we never carved. I watched the thing decompose all winter and become wonderful soil for my spring plants.

I forgot about the seeds.

In March, I happily spread compost in my garden beds, and in April, I had 30 pumpkin plants. Muttering under my breath, I began to dig up those pretty little seedlings, but my young daughter refused to let me throw them away. She grabbed the leftover plant cups in the garden shed and filled each one with dirt. Admiring her concern for the baby plants, I put a seedling in each cup. We had been reading Charlotte’s Web the week before and I couldn’t help but see a resemblance. The cups lined our sidewalk in the backyard.

We gave a few of them away, planted one in a bucket at home, and, sadly, some did not survive transplant. We still had many, many more. I was very tempted to take them to the farmer’s market and sell them there, but my Saturdays get very busy. I’m glad I didn’t do that because some of those ‘pumpkin’ plants turned out to be cucumbers instead. I really should lay off throwing stray vegetables into the compost bin.

I ended up renting four in-ground plots at the community garden and planted our pumpkins there. At first, they were pretty scraggly and slow-growing. We lost a few due to high winds. They were easy to replace because more and more kept popping up in my flower beds. And then, as summer waxed hot and dry, they really started to take off! I had to get trellises for the, ahem, cucumbers so they weren’t choked out by their half-siblings.

Pumpkins take up serious space. They vine outwards along the ground, and sometimes upwards if there’s something for them to hold onto. Their leaves become huge and a deep dark shade of green if they’re healthy. They are very fun to grow and watch.

Aside from battling squash bugs with duct tape and spray, another problem cropped up in late August. Powdery Mildew. I’ve faced this issue before with cucumbers. Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that looks like white blotches on the plant’s leaves. An infection can kill a plant within two weeks if not treated.

These are my best tactics so far for combating powdery mildew:

•Keep foliage dry. Do not water from above and, if possible, water evenly where the roots grow.

•Remove the infected leaves. Do not compost them. The disease can spread through compost to other plants. I actually had this happen last year when I used infected compost for my cucumber seedlings. I almost lost them immediately! I also keep a separate pair of gardening gloves when handling infected leaves and clean my shears with alcohol.

•Spray with fungicide. Personally, I use Safer brand Garden Fungicide. I like the product, but the spray bottle doesn’t always work well. Plus, the stuff stinks. It’s effective though. There are other fungicides and ones you can mix up at home with vinegar. I have not used those methods, but they’re worth a try!

•Don’t fertilize during treatment. Powdery mildew favors new growth and baby leaves.

Powdery mildew is sometimes hard to keep up with - especially if it’s taken over your plant. If you see it, act quickly and decisively. I’ve lost two plants, one cucumber and one pumpkin this year to powdery mildew and I’m still fighting for the others. They seem to be recovering well.

Now my spring surprise covers my garden plots and instead of pumpkin seedlings lining my sidewalk, I have pumpkins lining my porch! We have harvested twelve pumpkins so far, with eleven more on the vine. They resemble their predecessor - a large round jack-o-lantern perfect for carving. Who knew a mistake could be so bountiful?

If you’re thinking about renting a space from the community garden, there are plenty available! There are in-ground plots, and raised beds at various sizes. The 4x8 raised beds are equipped with square-foot gardening water systems that make it really easy to water each plant in 1 or 2 minutes! Contact Grant County Extension Office at 620-356-1721 to pick out your plot from the map.