From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Viroqua WI

i till and till and it seems like it takes forever for the plant to take off... tryed plastic around plant ( mice lived if for hiding and dogs loved digging under it to get mice.... tryed hay ( squash bugs took off like crazy) the moment i give up and the weeds start to get ahead of me the plants also seem to take off. any ideas?

1/10/2014 7:32:37 PM

Muddy Waters

You might be tilling the roots of the plant up.If a plant is 4 feet long the roots could be out 5 feet.10 feet there out 12 feet ahead of the plant.If Im not misunderstanding you here.You might need to stop tilling & pull weeds when there little dont let them get big.plastic gets to hot.Try gray weed barrier.Get a cat or set out mouse poison in glass jars so the dog dont eat it.

1/10/2014 7:45:37 PM

Viroqua WI

I have about 60 plants and I have 6 cats, poison works a bit when I have them on display by the shed... i only had a problem with mice when i used plastic or weed barrier....with the weed barrier i noticed the tap roots also could not make contact. I was wondering if any of the preen type products are at all effective

1/10/2014 10:43:48 PM

Minnesota

Hi Jersey girl, do you grow 60 giant pumpkin plants? that's a lot of plants!

1/11/2014 12:40:52 AM

Mnt.pleasant ,tennessee

I have had great results with preen on flower beds was wondering myself if folks might use on AGs.probli be good for compost piles also to kill off seeds

1/11/2014 5:56:22 AM

Muddy Waters

If you have 6 cats .Do they crap in the garden.Just saying.My neighbors cat has been headed for my garden on a daily routine last year.I told Ginny if here cat dont find a new litter box we might have a problem.Cat crap will ruin your soil.If your tilling I bet there digging & filling!lol

1/11/2014 6:54:14 AM

Muddy Waters

I told Ginny"I may not be a smart man but I know what a cat does to a garden"lol

1/11/2014 6:55:38 AM

Mnt.pleasant ,tennessee

Yep handy bout 30 cats used my big max mound as litter box.that was 3 years ago& soil is barren want even grow wild weeds.

1/11/2014 7:25:38 AM

Bethlehem CT

The type of weather that makes the weeds take off is also the kind of weather that makes the pumpkins grow like crazy. Many growers use round up around their plants with good success. I like to hoe the weeds off at the surface and try to keep the soil cultivated very shallowly around the plant. I am sure That it does kill some roots. (especially when it is a wet year you will see more roots near the surface.) I have grown some nice plants on mulch. I like to use a thick layer of hay. You will need to control squash bugs no matter what method you use .
I have never used Preen before, but a very smart grower on here used to advise against it. I believe it was because it affected the pumpkins roots somehow. There is lots of good information on this website and you will have to do some searching into some old chats and look at how people do things in their diaries.

1/11/2014 11:10:45 AM

East Jordan, MI

A quick search of the site for the word preen revealed:

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=96801

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=10&p=428911

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=20&p=115706

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=389999

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=303997

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=14&p=373572

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=20&p=154492

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=440432

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=10&p=117464

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/msgboard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=38900

*and there are more....

1/11/2014 12:02:35 PM

Viroqua WI

No i only grow about 3 giant pumpkin plants but have only been able to get them up to around 500 lbs the rest of my garden in field pumpkins, watermelon, sunflowers and gourds. I live on a dairy farm in WI. I saw that Jung seeds had a new product out that was supose to be safe on gardens and keep weeds out for 3 mounths. though if it dose more damage then good then its probably not worth spending the money on. Ill keep looking around though, thanks

1/11/2014 12:05:25 PM

Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

Preen works ok on grassy weeds, but not so well on broadleaf weeds. I used it once on beans and it did keep the foxtail down but that just cut the competition for the pigweed. Your hay mulches might be keeping the soil too cold. Shielding your plants and spraying glyphosate will take care of most of the weeds. Close to the plant scrape the weeds off with a hoe to avoid disturbing roots.

1/11/2014 12:57:50 PM

Going Green

My wife grows her Big Max by covering the soil with one layer of newspaper and 1/4" to 1/2" sand on top of it. Dig a hole where you want to plant and transplant the plant or the prepared seed. The only weeds in your garden will be directly next to the stump and will pull out easily if you water before you pull the weeds. The vines are strong enough to root if you water the sand as well as near the stump.

1/11/2014 7:37:49 PM

Muddy Waters

Cecil lol

1/11/2014 8:59:56 PM

50 Acres

I USE BOTH A DUTCH HOE AND A STIRUP HOE BOTH ARE VERY SHARP AND I DO NOT CUT DEEP THIS MAY HELP YOU CUT THE WEEDS . jIM

1/11/2014 9:16:35 PM

Deerfield, Michigan

I hit them with a hoe and then if I get lazy I use round up on a non windy day. The trick with weeds is to stay ahead of them and never go on vacation in the summer. lol

1/12/2014 7:23:14 AM

Hanson Ma

My favorite I think just got called a stirrup hoe. When I was growing up my mother called it the hula hoe. And you definitely need to keep ahead of them. One day can set you back.

1/12/2014 7:35:05 AM

Bethlehem CT

Here is what Steve Jepsen had to say about Preen. I particularly like what he had to say in his last sentence.
Preen is Trifluralin 1.875% Granular which is also marketed under another 30+ trade names in various concentrations usually stronger.

It is a denitroanaline (DNA) herbicide. There are other DNA herbicide like Pendamethalin (Prowl, etc) & Benefin (Balan).

These all work by killing the emerging root hair as it exits a germinating seed. Small seeded weeds are generally prone to good control. Large weed seeds are more difficult because the simply contain enough enegy to survive the chemical attack.

All pre-emergent herbicides cause at least some root damage but carefull application & rate selection will minimize this.

Even though I sell these things I don't promote their use for competitive growers. Here's why:

Commercial Farmers who grow cukes & pumpkins do so on a large scale. Pro herbicides increase their crop yields by reducing weed competition.

They cannot afford to pull weeds & any mechanized weeding they might try would destroy roots & vines & reduce the crop yield more than either the weeds or the chemical herbicide alternative.

The same might be true for the backyard competitive growers like us if we use a tiller too late or are too aggressive with a hoe while weeding.

Pull any large weed from the walking boards & look at all the fat white roots we just disturbed.

It's a balancing act. If we're serious about "the big one", then some means of weeding is mandatory. The least damaging means possible is how the records are set & broken.

1/12/2014 9:52:14 AM

Piqua, Ohio

Burn the tops of the weeds with a propane torch

1/12/2014 10:33:42 AM

Wi

Where in WI

1/12/2014 12:35:57 PM

Whitehall Montana

I read somewhere that over tilling can damage the native mycos in the soil and over tilling can bring up weed seed from years ago to germinate.

1/12/2014 1:08:12 PM

Torrance, Ca.

Pingrey and I are both going to try the no till pumpkin growing this coming year,,,,,,

Follow diary to see how it works out :)

1/12/2014 2:15:25 PM

Hinckley MN

how many world recod pumpkins have been grown with No-till?

1/12/2014 2:38:50 PM

Princeville, IL

Have tried no -till on my commercial jack-o-lantern fields and got about 1/2 the production that tilled fields produced. I feel it is more difficult for kins to root at the nodes with no-till. We have a lot of canning pumpkins grown in my area and they tried no-till also on some fields one year. Same results - much lower production. Haven't seen a no-till pumpkin field since.

1/12/2014 2:46:01 PM

Hanson Ma

I think the answer to the original question is only till in the beginning. Don't till if your plants are growing because you may hurt the new growth.

1/12/2014 3:27:13 PM