Allotments 4 All

supersprout are you sure that's a marina di chioggia? Mine look different to that and I thought what I had was marina di chioggia. Here's a photo:



Your blue hubbard looks great, I want to grow them next year, what are they like for eating? :)

Might that be Padana (another Italian pumpkin)? http://www.seedsofitaly.com/product/224

Thank you, Dan, for whatever wonderful wizardry you did yesterday in getting the site back to normal. I really missed my morning fix of pumpkin up-date! I'm very impressed by all the photos - some glorious specimens - but am delighted to announce that I am now the proud parent of a golf ball. And cheer up those of you who are bringing up the rear with me. Remember the hare and the tortoise........? ;)

Golf Ball, mine are the size of small marbles :'( :'(

I had to cut one of my pumpkin fruits because it was misshapen. I have 2 Vif Rouge d'Etampes doing well and 2 Marina di Choggia (or Berretina Piacentina, not sure yet about the ID!), all about grape fruit size.

ahhhh yes it could be Dandelion, I did buy those too, I had forgotten, oops :-[ ;D :-* thanks :) I have got some Marina di chioggia's somewhere, I wonder where they got to!

Going to look in the undergrowth tomorrow to see if I can find one bigger than a tennis ball, so I can measure it!  Sorry for veering off again but had to show EJ, this baby melon.  It is a forgotten plant in a pot at the back of our greenhouse, as the rest were planted out in the lottie greenhouse, but think OH forgot about this one, and bless it, it must be so stressed out, it has produced a little fruit. Ah!!  :D busy_lizzie

Here's how my pumpkins are doing  :D

Quote from: dandelion on July 20, 2006, 12:47:40
I had to cut one of my pumpkin fruits because it was misshapen. I have 2 Vif Rouge d'Etampes doing well and 2 Marina di Choggia (or Berretina Piacentina, not sure yet about the ID!), all about grape fruit size.

Hi dandelion, Marina has a double bottom a bit like a Turks Turban, Berettina doesn't - does that help?

Well I said the other day I was starting to let the first pumpkin grow so I covered it from the sun and carefully checked for others secretly sneaking up. Picked off about 30 more.
Today I was watering and alas! One HAS sneaked up on me. 35" round 21lb in weight.

As the vine was squashed under it and a scar on the skin meant it wouldn`t be a woppa, I cut it off!

Letting my original choice continue......

I can`t believe I missed this one. Will try get piccy. The original choice is a golfball.
Hope I did the right thing?

Back home from a long weekend away and I quickly dashed down to the veg plot to check on progress. I can only assume that we had some rain as nothing was dead and there appeared to have been a second flush of growth..

Blimpkin #1, 46" and still not much darker than when I'd thought it was going to stop.
Blimpkin #2, 49" and doing quite nicelythankyouverymuch!

My #2 fruit seems to have self repaired a fingernail gouge from clumsy handling. it's not going to win any beauty prizes.

I'd kicked off a blimpkin #3 fruit on a third vine about 10 days ago and that's now a vivid yellow and puffed up to about 10" round.. it's all very exciting!

So, my mind turns to... the rate of growth.. it's impressive to see the fruit put on such girth but I think I'd like to work out a ballpark volume... this'll give me an idea just how much actual growth performance I'm seeing over time..

I need to calculate the radius from the circumference
Radius = Circumference * (2 * pi)

And if  volume is calculated as...
4/3 * pi * radius ^ 3


So, for my champine fruit so far... the circumference is approx 124 cm, volume 32 litres and surface area... a whopping 5M2

All fun stuff. I'll double check my numbers and share a spreadsheet for doing similar daft sums with your own monster pumpkins

At last I can claim to have left the starting post, as I have pumpkins forming on my plants. The largest are only about 6 inches in diameter at the moment, but they will swell quickly, if I can make that sound like a fearsome claim !!!  :D

There's a method for estimating pumpkin weight here
http://www.backyardgardener.com/weight.html

 Firstly my 8 year old son's "ghost" pumpkin. Only one on his plant so far. Followed by my 3 year old daughter's "jack 'o' lantern".  Haven't measured them yet,will do that next time . Then my "atlantic giant"   Ho hum!!  :D

Just for interest, heres a pic of two "crown prince" plants growing upwards and a pic of the pumpkin patch as it looked yesterday.

Love your 'Atlantictinymorelike' fruit, they remind me of mine !!!

You should hear my son rubbing it in!  :D   Might forget to water his if he's not careful  :P 

Love those pics of your pumpkin patch heldi, and the idea of son spending hours hiding in there with the pumpkinettes ;)

Picture this Sarah...once my son gets to the allotment he rushes in to get Harriet the chick..."Harriet" incase she is a "Harry", then he zooms up the garden with the chick to checkout his pumpkin! He then shouts out who is winning so far and laughs his socks of at my efforts  :D I tell him mine is just biding its time and then it'll be massive! Wishful thinking!

Does anyone think I should nip the smaller two pimpkins from my plant off now? It seems the bigger one is getting away atlast. Was worried it might rot and fall off.

I think there is another one forming on a different vine/branch..you know what I mean! So wondered if that would be a better one to coax into reserve?