I'm going to harvest this long weekend. The powdery mildew took hold in my patch by early August, but the vines held up longer than I expected. They don't have much left now though, and the fruit all ripened. In the end, I bet I'll do better than I thought, but like I said earlier, it was a challenging year for me. I was disappointed by a "mosaic" type virus which I still believe was introduced by some seed of one variety. Also, I can't get over how bad the darn cucumber beetles were. Aside from all the investation of the leaves and flowers, a percentage of the crop has pitted damage to the fruit, where they were also munching.
I learned a bunch of things this year: I'm going to be much more aggressive with the Sevin next year if the beetles return. I just think it's really tough to grow more than a backyard patch of pumpkins organically. I'm also going to hit them hard with preventive copper fungicides in July, maybe get a few more weeks before the inevitable mildew. I'm toying around with the idea of doing an experiment with a floating row cover on one row, using homemade PVC hoops, etc. It would be cost-prohibitive at any kind of scale, but for the heck of it I'm interested to see how much better the plants would do under there (until vining), completely bug free.
Finally, Barry, you've inspired me. I'm going to seed the whole field in winter rye/hairy vetch. That's another reason I want to get harvested now. Next Spring, I'll till just enough for the strips of hills. I like the idea of taking tines off the ends of the tiller! Between the rows, I'll wait until the rye and vetch get to flower and then just brush hog them down. Hopefully, that'll make for a nice mulch between the rows, with some Nitrogen retention to boot. I think alot less bare soil in a pumpkin field can only be a good thing.
