Pumpkin Candy: a description of the variety and reviews

Pumpkin has long been a welcome guest on the tables of people of different classes: from the poor to the kings. Some people treated it with reverence, as a gift of the gods, others were revered as a wet nurse and a well of health and longevity. Although more than 7000 years have passed since this plant was domesticated and began to cultivate, it could not only conquer the whole world, but could also remain a favorite in the culinary culture of many peoples.

Features of varieties of large-fruited pumpkin

These representatives of the genus Pumpkin become heroines of newspaper and television news, participate in contests and fall into the Guinness Book. Large-fruited giants, to which the Sweet Pumpkin variety belongs, can reach huge sizes and weigh more than 100 kg.

Their distinctive features are:

• A thick peel that perfectly tolerates transportation even for 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 especially grow large-fruited varieties of pumpkins for feeding livestock;
• Can be stored for a long time;
• High-yielding;
• These varieties are unpretentious in care.

It is important to know: pumpkin Sweetie, like all its big relatives, needs space, so the area under it must be large enough.

Variety description

This representative of large-fruited pumpkins refers to table medium-sized varieties and has long enjoyed the love of summer residents. As some of them note, this is due not only to its taste qualities, but also to minimal care for it.

Pumpkin Candy (photo is presented in the article) forms a half-meter fence, on which ripens from 5 to 8 fruits weighing up to 3 kg. This brand is distinguished by a smooth skin of orange color with no less bright, juicy and sweetish flesh.

It is important to know: the distinctive feature of this variety is that the longer the pumpkin is stored, the sweeter, softer and tastier it becomes.

Thanks to the high level of sugar in the pulp (up to 8%), it is added raw in salads, baked, used to make soup-mashed potatoes, side dishes, jams and second courses. No less popular and useful are juices, thanks to the large amount of carotene and ascorbic acid. This puts it on a par with the best vitamin and dietary products that doctors recommend as a special food for various diseases.

Preparation of the site for planting

A properly prepared plot is the guarantee of a good harvest. Pumpkin Candy, reviews of summer residents confirm this, prefers:

• Beds well warmed by the sun;
• Light and medium loamy soil;
• Organic feeding;
• A lot of space, so the distance between the rows of plants should be at least 90 cm, and the seedling sits one at a time per 1 m ² .

It is important to know: pumpkin The candy described above is related to large-fruited varieties that show some requirements to the soil, so, in the absence of the required soil composition, more and more gardeners prefer to plant raised beds. This allows you not to depend on the quality of the land, eliminates weeds and allows you to create a layer of the necessary depth for each variety of vegetables individually.

Before planting this variety pumpkin mail should be dug up and fertilized with manure or rotted compost at a rate of 7 kg per 1 m ² . If the land is very poor, then additionally in each hole should be poured on 2 cups of ash and 50 g of superphosphate.

Planting Pumpkin Candy Seed

Plant this variety can be both seeds and seedlings. Preferences depend on the region. Where the earth and the air warm up faster, you can sow the pumpkin seeds Candy, and where the spring is late with heat, it is better to grow seedlings in the house or at home.

Before sowing, you need to select the best seeds. For this:

• A test is carried out for the germination of the planting material, for which it is wrapped in a wet cloth or napkin for a day: the seeds that have passed through during this time are to be planted.
• Even if they were subjected to decontamination, additional measures will not interfere. It is enough to put the selected seeds for a day in water-diluted manure or a solution of potassium permanganate to provide them with protection.
• Hardening will ensure a better seed germination, so experienced farmers garden them soaked in warm water, and then put it for several days in the refrigerator, providing a temperature of 0 degrees. During this time, you need to make sure that they do not sprout.

After carrying out the necessary manipulations for the protection of the seed, it can be sown on a prepared plot. The sowing scheme is 1 hole for 1.5 m with a depth of at least 8 cm. Each of them is thoroughly watered before planting and 3-4 seeds are thrown there. If the region is often late frosts, the holes may exceed 10 cm, which will save crops from death.

When it comes time to thin the pumpkin sprouts, then for this it is necessary not to pull out the weakest of them, but to cut them off. This is due to the fact that all the seedlings quickly take root, which are intertwined with each other. Therefore, in order not to pull together with the rejected sprouts strong seedlings, the "weaklings" are plucked out.

Preparation of containers for seedlings

To grow healthy seedlings, you need to pour selected seeds with water and put in a warm place, but not in the immediate vicinity of the heat source, so they do not weld. While they will sprout, pots and earth are prepared.

As containers for seedlings, trimmed plastic bottles, boxes of dense cardboard, for example from dairy products or disposable cups, are suitable.

Since the pumpkin Sweetie has a very delicate root system, to avoid injury during further transplantation, not only the top but also the bottom are cut off when making containers from plastic bottles. It is enough to make containers without a bottom 7-8 cm high, fill them with soil mixture and put them on pallets, for example, disposable plates. In such a container, plants can easily be transplanted without injuring them.

Plant transplant into open ground

To obtain a soil mixture of the required composition, it is necessary to mix peat with turf ground and humus in a ratio of 1: 1: 2, respectively.

When the seeds are sufficiently sprouted, they are planted in prepared containers to a depth of 5 cm and put in a well-lit place. After the sprouts grow up (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 brethren.

Before transplanting seedlings in the open ground, it must be hardened, for which it is carried out in the daytime to open air, and at night leave in a cool room, for example, a corridor or veranda.

Seedlings are planted according to the same scheme as the seeds, not removing the plastic bottomless containers. They protect plants from pests. Immediately before planting, the wells are poured with warm water.

Care of the plant

Before the pumpkin leaves, it is regularly watered and loosened by fertilizing liquid organic or mineral fertilizers, but not earlier than 10 days after the plants were transplanted into the open ground.

To get really good harvest, you should know what exactly likes a pumpkin (sort of Candy). Responses of farmers say that it responds well:

• On a divorced and infested chicken manure. To do this, it needs to be poured with warm water and withstand until the bubbles appear in it, then dilute it with water from a ratio of 1:20. The diluted mullein is also similar to fertilizing this plant, but stir it with water at a ratio of 1:10.

Before fertilizing the plant should be well watered, which will not allow fertilizers to burn the tender roots of pumpkin.

• From mineral fertilizers pumpkin Candy prefers ammonium nitrate in the ratio of 1 matchbox of fertilizers to a bucket of water.

Timely watering, weeding, loosening of the ground and feeding will allow this pumpkin variety to give an excellent harvest of large and strong fruits.

Collection and storage of pumpkin

To get large pumpkins, the plant needs pinches. On the main stem it is carried after the ovary 3-4 fruits, counting from the last of them 5 leaves. On the lateral shoots the same pinching is made from the fifth leaf, but after the first-second ovary. To obtain additional roots that will feed the whips with fruits, they are sprinkled with earth.

The harvest of this variety is collected by the end of autumn until the first frosts occur and necessarily in dry weather. Fruits are cut with cuttings and stored in a room where there is good ventilation and a temperature of at least +7 degrees in winter. In such conditions, they lie, not spoiling, until spring.