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Entry Date
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Location
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Tuesday, May 05, 2026
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TowneFamilyVT
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Vermont
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Entry 37 of 37 |
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Got my post-amendment soil test back and the results are encouraging, but they also confirm what most growers find out the hard way - building a world-class pumpkin patch takes years, not weeks.
The good news: organic matter jumped dramatically after all the work I put in this spring. Texture reclassified, pH came down to a nice 6.7, potassium moved from Low to High, and the overall biological environment is measurably better than the raw lawn I started with. A lot of hard work went into that and it shows.
The reality: calcium is lagging below the target threshold, boron is on the low side, and there are a few other numbers I'll be chasing for the next season or two as I continue dialing in the patch. That's just the nature of building soil from scratch.
The good news is I feel I have a well-designed drip program to compensate for a lot of what the soil isn't yet providing on its own. Calcium nitrate goes in every morning, and the Plant Marvel 12-5-19 HiCaMg formula delivers additional calcium per afternoon feed - so the plant is getting hit from both directions twice a day. RAW Amino Acids go into every feed alongside the calcium - the L-glycine and L-glutamic acid activate calcium ion channels in the root cell membranes, making the calcium significantly more bioavailable than the raw numbers alone would suggest. Fulvic acid in every feed increases membrane permeability further. Boron is being delivered continuously through the Plant Marvel formula itself at levels the soil currently can't supply on its own.
Year one is about learning what your soil needs. Year two is when you actually fix it. I feel like I took a giant leap in the right direction, and in the meantime the plant doesn't seem to know the difference. 14 inches of main vine growth in the last 27 hours.
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