Hello Hive.
I miss working on pumpkin farm with my mum. She taught me alot about pumpkin, most especially the proper way to harvest the leaves. If you are not an expert in this I promise you that after a first harvest the only thing you will meet in the farm on your next visit are dead plant and leaves.
For instance the one in this picture cannot be harvested yet, it has only one or two branches but the next one below is ready for harvest.
Can you see how it has spread so well on the ground and with more than 3 branches. The main root of the pumpkin leaves is a thicker one underneath from where all these other ones have germinated from.
To harvest this you pick either of these marked areas, (those are the branch's coming from the main root) and cut them off.
Remember that you cannot cut out too many branches from the same pumpkin plant especially the ones we have planted in this method.
For instance if I cut off all the 4 branches I have seen from the one above, the entire plant will die
There is another method of planting pumpkin where we guide the leaves to grow above the ground.
That one is usually for household use where we use very small space to grow pumpkin.
Pumpkin grown in this method is usually for commercial purpose
And you can see the large space in which these have been planted.
Today I was invited to help out with some pumpkin harvest since the farm owner is aware of my experience in such work, but on getting to the farm we had to delay harvest because there were not much of the branches yet and taking this to the market wouldn't bring in the amount of financial output desired.
I have advised the farm owner to give it two more weeks let's observe some more growth.
Moving on I went ahead to pull of some of the grasses bothering the plants.
Alot of people grow pumpkin for commercial purpose here, it is one of the most expensive vegetables here because of its nutrient values, and blood boosting ability.
To get enough quantity for your meals you sometimes spend $0.5 cents.
I miss having a pumpkin farm of my own due to numerous engagements but am glad that I could still help other pumpkin farmers to both harvest and take care of their fields. And I believe that you can see why they need an expert to harvest their pumpkin unless they want to risk losing the whole farm.
