Pumkin and gourd growing question

[Jim]

Do they need to be on bare earth or can they grow in the grass. I have a great place to grow them if they dont need bare earth.

[lavandulagirl]

There's probably an optimal way to grow them, but I've never had any trouble with my squashes and gourds being on grass. I have a small enough yard (1/2 acre) where they end up sprawling onto the lawn anyway, even if I didn't intend it! Blue grows super huge pumpkins, and I'm sure she can tell you what the optimal bedding for those is. But I say go for it.

[downinmyback]

I raised winter squash this year and put them at the end of my garden and let them spread out into my lawn and had the brst year i can remember. I had no problem with them rotting but as my lawn grew and the vines grew so long and became heavy with fruit they became hard to move and i did have a little bug trouble but nothing serious. I did not lose any squash from letting them sprawl in the grass.

[Jim]

Where I work we have this huge grassy area and a retention pond that has really deep edges. No one even goes back there. I canplant tons of stuff on the ground.....sweet.

[bluelacedredhead]

Jim, I'm assuming that you however, dig holes for planting in?? Work those holes up and add compost and/or well rotted manure to them and you shouldn't have any problems. Unless of course, the grasses grow taller than the squash plants and shield them from the sun? Whenever I've had plants grow into the hayfield or into overgrown weedbeds, I've had some squash to harvest but they are smaller and obviously stressed by the competition from the weeds/lack of sunlight.

But otherwise, it sounds like a fun project.

[Jim]

I think I could buzzcut a few areas and have a decent amount of sun and I could definitly add some bagged compost. I haven;t started composting yet...I know sin sins sin

[Alan]

If you can get some worm compost or cow manure to throw in the planting holes you will be off to a great start!

[Jim]

I don't know any local worm farmers or farmers period. Until I start making my own compost I'm stuck buying it. For this experiment I'll end up using the bagged stuff. I'm not looking for or expecting massive yields.

[flowerpower]

By the end of the season, I always have vines spreading out into the grass.

[bluelacedredhead]

My early attempts at composting were done in green garbage bags. We lived in the city on a postage stamp lot (25'x104' included house and detached garage ), which meant that I really didn't have the space for a large unit. But small amounts in a plastic bag heat quickly and are very easy to turn .

These days I understand that many municipalities give composters, both small kitchen types as well as large yard waste composters to their residents at reduced rates? If you don't already have a small kitchen composter, see if your municipal office has such a program. We sell them at the hardware store for around $6 which includes a $3 charcoal filter. Our municipality doesn't offer anything like this, but then we live in a very poor rural area where recycling means throwing your beer bottles out of the truck window when you finished drinking the beer on your way home from the store.

[Alan]

Yeah, i've even heard of some municipalities in the U.S. who sell worm bins at a discount or even give them out to free to their citizens to reduce on waste. Lot's of bigger cities are even starting up continuous flow reactor worm bins to compost organic trash instead of just throwing it in the land fill and then they either sell or give away the castings to folks that live locally, I think every landfill should be required to try to do something like this at least on a 10% basis in regards to organic waste, it could only help in the recycling of things we all tend to waste to easily.

-Alan

[Jim]

I went back and scoped out my gourd site....it's on as soon as we're past the frost scare. THe cool part is that it's totally inproductive land right now.. I was even considering putting a few mint cuttings back there as a backup stash..mojito madness. I can share with the deer.