Pumpkin to Talk About - Gardening Simplified

Rick Vuyst, host of Gardening Simplified, stopped by to preview this week's show - all about pumpkins!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is West Michigan's morning News. Do you Kelly Bretton,
Keita Lawrence Smith? Guess who's back our friend Ritt Weist
of Gardening Simplified, Gardening Simplified on air dot com. Is
it cucurbita maxima? Am I right on the genus and file?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hm there, Wow, I'm impressed, Steve. You you caught me off.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Gourg Oh look out, y'all. It's that season though, despite
the weather outside.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well exactly, And that's what we're going to talk about
this weekend on the Gardening Simplified Show. We're going to
talk about gorge, squash, pumpkins, the difference between winter squash
summer squash, all things gorgs and squash and pumpkins. And
it's a great subject. People very interested in it. Of course,
we live in the Orange Belt in the United States.

(00:51):
Illinois is the number one state for producing pumpkins by far.
It's Illinois. Indiana comes in second, Pennsylvania third, California fourth,
Michigan comes in fifth. And boy, it's been an interesting season.
You think about the fact that pumpkins are like ninety
percent water, and when you have drought, that can create

(01:15):
some problems and some undersized pumpkins. I found it really
interesting this summer when we had that goalie washer storm
in Wisconsin and in the Milwaukee area, there were farmers
there who had pumpkins floating in the field. An amazing things. So,

(01:36):
you know, I guess every growing season is different and unique,
but this is the time of year that we celebrate
pumpkins and squash.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Hey, Rick, can we get an update on how the
pumpkins are doing. I know last week we were talking
about the drought becoming a major issue for farmers, So
where does it stand after some rain.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I think we've had a great growing season this year,
personally myself, because one of the things that you struggle
with as it relates to q kurbets, as Steve had mentioned,
is that they get downy mildew, powdery mildew when it's wet, humid,
that sort of thing. We've had a pretty hot, dry summer.

(02:15):
That said, the lack of water, if they're not irrigated,
can create undersized pumpkins. So I think we'll have great pumpkins,
just maybe some of them may be a little smaller
than what we're accustomed to.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Any thing about their guts, I hate pumpkin guts. My
kids had a thin Sandy's really artsy, so she was
good at that stuff. I usually just stood by and watched.
I don't like the smell, I don't like the texture.
I'm against the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh, the guts are very important, Steve, Let's lay this
pumpkin to roast. Okay, the guts are important. I was
reading about a teacher in Minnesota who produced the world
record pumpkin. I think it was something like two thousand,
eight hundred pounds or something like that. I don't know. Anyhow,

(03:06):
The point is these seeds are in high demand, and
this guy to get this pumpkin to world record status
ended up spending fifteen thousand dollars to get to that point.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
What fertilizer and grug.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Watering to day?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Holy smokes. You will hear the whole program tomorrow. It
starts at nine o'clock here on what Radio. Find out
more gardeningsimplified on air dot com. Rickweist always great stuff,
thank you, not the gord Times rule