[Biddy]

I'm new to allotments as we only got ours in February.  I want to grow some pumpkins for the kids for halloween.  I bought the suttons kids pumpkins seeds and of the 9 seeds only 2 came up - 1 is doing great and is rather big now, the other one was doing OK too but this morning some of the bottom leaves have shrivelled up to nothing so I tried to take them off and the whole plant came out in my hand.  It had no roots on it and when I looked in the soil it had 2 little white grubs in it.  What are these grubs and what am I doing wrong?  They are in individual pots in my conservatory.

[shaun]

dont sound very good sounds like a weevil type thingy.its not to late to sow again,where did you get the compost from ??

[Biddy]

I used John Innes No1.  Are they getting too wet do you think?

[Eatyourgreens]

A lot of larvae of Weevils eat the roots of plants so as Shaun mentioned, it could be Weevils, but it could also be a watering issue or even a fungal disease, so many options, but seeing as you saw the larvae it would make them the No1 suspect.


Bob

[shaun]

i would sow pumkins in a general purpose compost innes No1 is just for germinating and dont have enough food/nutrients,
you could try chitting the seed 1st eliminate any dudds

[Biddy]

how do you do that?

[shaun]

put some damp cotton wool or kitchen paper in a butty box put your seeds on that and cover again with another layer of damp kitchen paper.put the lid on and put it somewhere warm and dark.in a couple of days the seeds will have sprouted,carefully pick the seeds out that have sprouted and drop them into 3"-4 " pots with multi compost.
the kids will enjoy it too 

[Biddy]

thanks

[mumofstig]

But it's the continuing theme this year......if they are growing inside how do the bugs get into the compost

[MoreWhisky]

Ive had some dodo compost this yr , i finding the top ended priced ones are better ,typically  .

[Eatyourgreens]

Weevils can travel by walking a decent distance given enough time, I am not sure if they can fly, and I imagine they can smell or somehow navigate to a potential food source for their young.

We often find them walking about in our house, so it should be no problem to get into a greenhouse.


Bob

[savbo]

how big were the grubs? Tiny ones could be sciarid flies... like overwetted compost....

[karooba007]

The sciarid larvae have destroyed some of my squash plants. they are really small and they eat the base of the sqaush plant. do u also have tiny black flies flying about?

[SnooziSuzi]

Hi Biddy,  shame you don't live closer to me; I sowed 12 and all bloomin 12 of them germinated and are strong and healthy!  NOW what am I going to do with 12 pumpkin plants

Seriously; if anyone near to me wants some just say!

[Oliver]

Ive had some dodo compost this yr , i finding the top ended priced ones are better ,typically  .

I bought some J Arthur Bowers Compost - this was all I could get locally at the time (could not find Bulrush  which is what I usually use). It proved to be useless for seeds so I sieved it and found all sorts of amazing things in it - plastic fruit labels, lots of hairy stuff, dessicated cat-poo, newspaper (I could actually read the Sinclair address on the coupon), a small metal flower, lots of 10mm sized twig bits. I have all this stuff in a bucket. My conclusion is that these people have a contact to take the 'garden' waste from the local council and compost it, which they then bag up and sell to us. I have no objection to using composted stuff - and commercial composters get much hotter than domestic ones, so 'kill' more pathogens. But it should be more thoroughly sieved to get rid of all this rubbish. I don't want to buy rubbish.

As I said earlier, I use Bulrush - I have no way to knowing if this is 'council' waste composted, but it has a nice texture and works for me.

As for pumpkins - don't keep the compost too moist, or too warm as the seeds will rot. Sow some more now and they will play catch up. Just buy pumpkin seeds (Jack o'Lantern are nice for Halloween) rather than expensive kits. You could also try atlantic giant for a bigger pumpkin! They can grow HUGH, but need some fiddling around with to achieve this. Just grow then as normal and they will be about 40cms round. Unless someone nicks it, they can be fun.
O