Pumpkin protects the soil

Man has always had a weakness to a huge. It strikes the imagination. Dinosaurs, Mammoth Trees, mammoths. In the seas - the whales. And pumpkins fed special respect (a sort of mammoth, a and Keith). According to his whim, these have reached a size unlikely. And weight. Once grew a pumpkin in a hundred pounds and called quintal. The textbooks written figure twice as much - two hundred pounds! But who, where and how managed to achieve this record, remained unclear.

Too big pumpkin than once summed farmers. Trying to pick up his treasure, his owner suddenly clutched his heart and got to the hospital. There have been other consequences, which at one time told a pioneer pumpkin affairs D. Gregory. He conceived of these creatures do not grow in the garden, and with a flourish on the field as cabbage or potatoes. He knew that he likes pumpkin fertile soil, and chose the prairie with a black, oily soil. Plowed it, as expected, and planted.
What a handsome plants grew on the meadow. Their leaves have reached the width of the kitchen trays, "and ends strong lashes thousands raised at the meter from the ground and their tops were bent like a winged serpent running vperegonki.

When Gregory arrived at the field to remove the crop, he did not recognize him. It seemed that the field had just freed itself from the great glacier, which left behind large boulders. These were giant melon, studded field. Only the color of their owner seemed unnaturally pale. However, he did not attach much importance, and soon forgotten.
There was a question more important. Gregory has not taken an assistant and now he did not know whether to load a swinger on the wagon. Contrary to the expectation of the fruits were not as difficult as talking about their size. It is quite easy loaded wagon and hurried home. Alas, the pumpkin turned out to be watery, loose and totally tasteless. And then he remembered a story that happened to his friend several years ago.
He also developed a pumpkin a few hectares of drained meadows. Pumpkins in those years has planted a little, and nobody really knew what the ground beneath them to take. Gardener felt that grassland soil is too fat, too clayey. And he began to dilute it with sand.
The entire area of ​​the sand is not enough. Therefore, part of the pumpkins grown in soil with sand, and another part on that, without the sand. Pumpkin came too different. On sandy soil - the usual value. On other sites - twice as large.
Part of the crop sold to traders gardener for a few pieces of pigs. Arriving for the pumpkins, the trader did not find any home owner. His son invited the trader to take those melon that smaller. So punish the father. Merchant indignantly refused. He stated that drove the biggest pigs and should get the same goods in return. He selected the largest specimens. Later discovered that the large fruit first began to deteriorate. Almost half of the merchant had to be thrown out.


However, there is still not clear. Sometimes it is a pumpkin and a loose and watery, and is not bad for a long time. Looking, of course, where the. In a dry house is that they lie at, and even two. Those that come from Mexico, are better than those from South America. Where I came from pumpkin, not so difficult to learn. In the Mexican rough skin, strong as plywood. If you want to cut, the knife does not help. Sawing the saw-saw. When Tambov gardeners take them to Moscow to sell pumpkins, each prihvatyvaet with him hacksaw. Without it, the goods do not sell.
In the old days in a large melon in barrels for salted cucumbers. Served as a cover part of the fruit, cut down by a sharp ax. Cucumbers out these tasty, that the markets they were selling much more expensive than ordinary ones.
All giant melon belong to another species of this genus - a big pumpkin from South America. Peel them more tender and kept worse. But, again, not all. Listed Class Keith though, and gave enormous benefits, but kept perfectly. Usually these were gray hulks with bright orange flesh.
Modern cultivar Volga Grey is very similar to China and also tasty. Its fruit is almost spherical, only slightly flattened top and bottom.
Since ancient times, pumpkin loved for what it is unpretentious. And for something else that is not fully enjoyed the attention of thieves. Therefore, they sowed it for household needs at those places that were empty or not are fit anywhere: on the roadside ditches on the landfill. If planted in a field, then choose the one that was far away and is left unattended and without care. Knew that to protect itself.
And, indeed, especially the pumpkin did not spoil the attention of insect pests. And the weeds she dismissed the very large due to its leaves. Seeing this feature, tried to continue to grow a pumpkin at the weedy fields. She coped with the ineradicable even wild oats, and after it can be safely sown wheat.
If, however, next to the pumpkin and kept some kind fine grass, it was not harmful, but for the benefit of its powerful neighbor. His shaggy hair from pumpkin leaves clinging to a fine grass, and then no wind could not pull the whip from the ground. If the grass was not there, the winds are disposed of with a whip, as they wanted. Plants immediately inhibited growth, and we had to avoid trouble pin them to the ground near the leaf wooden hooks.
Only one period of the weeds could beat the pumpkin, which emerged from the seeds sprout. Some seeds are soaked so that they germinate quickly, but it turned out worse. Slightly nedoglyadish seeds too izrastali, and had them thrown out.


And here is one of the Don Cossacks had done such an experience. He was not going to engage in scientific researches. Simply he began to rot in the spring of pumpkin kept in smoking, and he threw them to the margins. This site was abandoned and not weeded. He was soon overgrown with weeds, they hid under an abandoned pumpkin.
What a surprise it was a Cossack, when some time later he saw the whip pumpkin creep away from the place where he threw rotten fruit. It turned out that the seeds have sprouted and gave shoots. They were surrounded by like a magical aura. None of the weed has not appeared within an invisible circle. Apparently, some substances which were isolated seed, did not allow them to grow.
Another case occurred in our time with gardeners I. Galkovsky from the Volgograd region. In the spring, as usual, planted pumpkins. Shoots appeared unusually early. Two weeks earlier than usual schedule. They have grown up respectable plantlets when turned green new shoots. And a new batch of pumpkins set off to catch up first.
Because such cases, none of the neighbors and the landlord did not watch, he began going over in memory the events that have occurred over the past year. Stopped at one. In autumn last year, he brought a fresh manure for fertilizer. Swine. It came across pumpkin seeds. Pigs, greedily gulping their favorite food, no time to chew all the seeds, and some of them passed through the intestine without being disturbed. These same seeds that wintered in the field, do not freeze and two weeks earlier gave shoots.
Galkovsky decided not to sow in spring and autumn. He took the most good, dried seeds and scattered them Bahce. And waited for the early germination. Alas, never got any. Pumpkin did not appear. Dried seeds for fall crops were unfit. They went further in the autumn, and all were killed. Until the spring is not survived no plant.
Of course, you noticed that Galkovsky lives in Volgograd region, where the constant drought. Pumpkin is growing. When everything is burned from the heat, stay green oases of the pumpkin. At this time it not only the lives but also supplies the nectar of bees. Flowers have a huge pumpkin, like glasses. They're orange and attract not one bee, but a few. To qualitatively pollinate the flower, you need to bother him at five medosborschits.
Indians who are very fond of squash, too, doubted that the bees so needed for pollination. They defended the pumpkin flowers mosquito nets. The result: only one flower out of ten gave the fruit. The rest wasted.


In India, as we have too many dry places, and keep bees in the difficult times of drought - an important duty of the pumpkin. True, in these difficult days of the harvest pumpkins decreases, but the sweetness increases to such an extent that sometimes the flesh is like sugar beet. Now, however, breeders have brought class, which contains fifteen per cent of sugar, as beet.
But in Cuba to rescue a pumpkin from the excess moisture. The Cubans hung the whip tent, and the fruits ripen on the weight. Then their blows skvoznyachok, and they do not rot. Fruits are very large do not grow because of them not particularly care. How to grow, so, okay. Yields are not great, and the pumpkin is very cheap. Cubans believe that it is profitable.
Often they are allowed to grow pumpkins among corn. Once so did the Indians. They even added beans. Maize gave the backup for the beans. Beans, obvivaya neighbor, protects it from pests and weeds from the pumpkin.
Pumpkin-corn plantation - a privilege not only to Cuba. A lot of them in European countries. It seems most in Romania. There are so many gather pumpkins, that seed oil is squeezed out by commercial methods. It is replacing sunflower and is available in every home.
Before we say goodbye to this plant, try to imagine the future of the pumpkin. Prof. Kartsov at the beginning of the century set himself the same task. He toured the southern plantations, walked on foot all the suburbs of St. Petersburg. In every yard of St. Petersburg, he found a familiar beast. And in the south, each family was taking the fall for two or three carts of colorful fruit: green, orange, white and striped. But somehow, dear gardener concluded that pumpkin - a plant without a future.
Our contemporary academician P. Zhukovsky believed that the pumpkin has a great future. And how different. Yields are enormous. Love almost everything. In Uzbekistan, pumpkin substitute potatoes. Enzyme that is contained in the fruit, like gastric pepsin. If the pumpkin stuffed with meat, it is especially gentle and mild. And soldered a lot faster. Besides the pumpkin a lot of vitamin E, saving from early age.