Pumpkin has long been a welcome guest on the tables of people of different classes: from the poor to the kings. In some peoples, she was treated with reverence, as a gift from the gods, while others were revered as a nurse and a storehouse of health and longevity. Although more than 7,000 years have passed since the time when this plant was domesticated and massively cultivated, it was able not only to conquer the whole world, but also remain beloved in the culinary culture of many peoples.
Features varieties of large-fruited pumpkin
These representatives of the pumpkin genre become the heroines of newspaper and television news, participate in contests and fall into the Guinness book. Large-fruited giants, which include the confectionery pumpkin variety, can reach huge sizes and weigh more than 100 kg.
Their distinguishing features are:
- thick peel that perfectly transfers transportation even over very long distances;
- juicy pulp, which is successfully used in diet dishes and sweet pastries;
- they are useful not only for people, but many farmers specially grow large-fruited pumpkin varieties for feeding livestock;
- can be stored for a long time;
- high yielding;
- these varieties are unpretentious in care.
It is important to know: the Candy pumpkin, like all its large relatives, needs space, so the area under it should be quite large.
Grade description
This representative of large-fruited pumpkins belongs to the table mid-season varieties and has long been loved by summer residents. As some of them note, this is connected not only with her taste, but also with minimal care for her.
Pumpkin Candy (photos are presented in the article) forms one and a half meter wattle, on which from 5 to 8 fruits ripen weighing up to 3 kg. This variety is characterized by smooth orange skin with no less bright, juicy and sweet flesh.
It is important to know: a distinctive feature of this variety is that the longer the Candy canned pumpkin is stored, the sweeter, softer and tastier it becomes.
Due to the high level of sugar in the pulp (up to 8%), it is added raw to salads, baked, and used to make mashed soups, side dishes, jams and main dishes. Juices are no less popular and useful because of the large amount of carotene and ascorbic acid. This puts it on a par with the best vitamin and diet products that doctors recommend as a special nutrition for various diseases.
Landing site preparation
A properly prepared site is the key to a good harvest. Pumpkin Sweetie, reviews of summer residents confirm this, prefers:
- beds well warmed by the sun;
- light and medium loamy soil;
- organic recharge;
- there is a lot of space, so the distance between the ridges of plants should be at least 90 cm, and the seedlings sit one by one per 1 m 2 .
It is important to know: the Confetka pumpkin, the description of which is given above, refers to large-fruited varieties that impose some requirements on the soil, therefore, in the absence of the required soil composition, more and more summer residents prefer to plant raised beds. This allows you to not depend on the quality of the land, eliminates weeds and allows you to create a layer of the required depth for each variety of vegetables individually.
Before planting this type of pumpkin, you need to dig up and fertilize the mail with manure or rotted compost at the rate of 7 kg per 1 m 2 . If the earth is very poor, then in addition to each well should be poured 2 glasses of ash and 50 g of superphosphate.
Planting Pumpkin Sweet Seed
To plant this variety can be both seeds and seedlings. Preferences vary by region. Where the earth and air warm up faster, you can sow the seeds of Pumpkin Candy, and where spring is late with heat, it is better to grow seedlings in the greenhouse or at home.
Before sowing, you need to select the best seeds. For this:
- A test is carried out for the germination of planting material, for which it is wrapped in a wet cloth or napkin for a day: seeds that have hatched during this time must be planted.
- Even if they were disinfected, additional measures will not interfere. It is enough to put the selected seeds for a day in manure diluted with water or a potassium permanganate solution to provide them with protection.
- Hardening will provide better germination of seeds, so experienced gardeners soak them in warm water, and then put them in the refrigerator for several days, providing a temperature of 0 degrees. During this time, you need to make sure that they do not sprout.
Having performed the necessary manipulations to protect the seed, it can be sown on the prepared site. The sowing pattern is 1 hole per 1.5 m with a depth of at least 8 cm. Each of them is carefully watered immediately before planting and 3-4 seeds are thrown there. If late frosts are frequent in the region, then the holes can exceed 10 cm, which will save crops from death.
When it comes time to thin out the pumpkin sprouts, for this it is necessary not to pull out the weakest of them, but to cut it off. This is due to the fact that all seedlings quickly take root, which are intertwined. Therefore, in order not to pull out strong seedlings together with rejected sprouts, the "weaklings" are plucked out.
Preparation of containers for seedlings
To grow healthy seedlings, you need to fill the selected seeds with water and put in a warm place, but not in the immediate vicinity of the heat source so that they do not cook. As they sprout, pots and earth are prepared.
As a container for seedlings, cut plastic bottles, boxes made of thick cardboard, for example, from dairy products or disposable cups, are suitable.
Since the Pumpkin Candy has a very delicate root system, in order to avoid injury from further transplantation, not only the top, but also the bottom are cut off in the manufacture of containers from plastic bottles. It is enough to make containers without a bottom 7-8 cm high, fill them with soil mixture and place them on pallets, for example, disposable plates. In such containers, plants are easy to transplant without injuring them.
Transplanting plants in open ground
To obtain a soil mixture of the required composition, you need to mix peat with turf soil and humus in a ratio of 1: 1: 2, respectively.
When the seeds have sprouted enough, they are planted in prepared containers to a depth of 5 cm and placed in a well-lit place. After the sprouts grow (after 12-14 days) they need to be carefully laid and lightly sprinkled with earth.
It is important to know: containers with seedlings should be at a sufficient distance from each other so that stronger plants do not cover the sun from weak counterparts.
Before transplanting seedlings in open ground, it must be hardened, for which it is taken out into the open air during the day, and left at night in a cool room, for example, a corridor or a veranda.
Seedlings are planted in the same pattern as seeds, without removing plastic bottomless containers. They will protect plants from pests. Immediately before planting, the wells are filled with warm water.
Plant care
Before the foliage of the pumpkin closes, it is regularly watered and loosened the ground, fertilizing with liquid organic or mineral fertilizers, but not earlier than 10 days after the plants were transplanted into the open ground.
To get a really excellent harvest, you should know what exactly pumpkin loves (grade Candy). Reviews of gardeners claim that she responds well:
- For divorced and infused chicken droppings. To do this, you need to fill it with warm water and maintain until bubbles appear in it, then dilute it with water from a ratio of 1:20. A diluted mullein is also suitable for fertilizing this plant, but it is stirred with water in a ratio of 1:10.
Before feeding the plants, it is necessary to water well, which will not allow fertilizers to burn the delicate roots of the pumpkin.
- From mineral fertilizers, the pumpkin Konfetka prefers ammonium nitrate in the ratio of 1 matchbox of fertilizers to a bucket of water.
Timely watering, weeding, loosening of the earth and top dressing will allow this pumpkin variety to give an excellent harvest of large and strong fruits.
Pumpkin picking and storage
To get large pumpkins, the plant needs to be pinched. On the main stem, it is carried out after the ovary is 3-4 fruits, counting 5 leaves from the last of them. On the lateral shoots, the same pinching is carried out from the fifth sheet, but after the first or second ovary. To obtain additional roots that will feed the lashes with fruits, they are sprinkled with earth.
Harvest of this variety is harvested by the end of autumn before the onset of the first frosts and always in dry weather. The fruits are cut with cuttings and stored in a room where good ventilation and a temperature of at least +7 degrees in winter. In such conditions, they lie without spoiling until spring.