Pumpkin is one of those vegetables without which I consider the gardening season incomplete. Usually, I try to sow a variety with shellless seeds, which my whole family eats after drying.
Last year I sowed'Big Max' pumpkinwith huge red-orange fruits for trial. And it is good. The season was cool and rainy - only one of the four seeds germinated. At the end of the summer it turned out that the fruit, although good, was not as numerous as it should be. The quantity has therefore been compensated for by the quantity.
The harvest was enough for my home needs, but I'm afraid that another variety might not work well in this unusual season. Now I know that due to the vagaries of our climate, it is better to grow a pumpkin from seedlings than to sow it into the ground.
Pumpkin grows quickly and its large and dense leaves take up a large part of the garden. So I cut the tips of shoots longer than half a meter, thus forcing the plant to branch out. I do not limit the number of fruit buds. I know that the more there are, the smaller the pumpkins will be. I don't mindand I even prefer them. They are easier to prepare afterwards. I mark the place where the stem of the bush disappears into the ground with a stick. I do this in order to find a suitable point for watering the plant in the thicket of leaves.
Jadwiga Antonowicz-Osiecka
