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What is "mill" material? What are the options for something under the fruit?

7/1/2008 9:29:52 PM

somewhere down in Texas

yes please! i have the same question. i need to put something under my pumpkins, but i don't have and can't find any styrofoam. Can I use some black material i have for weed preventer that goes under mulch? it's got holes in it, very thin. i want to protect my babies, but I don't know if this black sheeting stuff will burn the punkins. Thank you!

7/2/2008 10:20:40 AM

Elmira, N,Y,

its my first year but I have heard of useing sand

7/2/2008 11:15:27 AM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

If you search the message boards, people have some on occasion to sell. It's 'pulp mill belting material' I'm told, and it's a stiff funny fiber stuff, shiny slick on one side. It will let moisture through, but keeps bugs and that from coming up underneath, and I'm told it's also vole and mice resistant. I have bought some, it's not horrendously expensive... and a WARNING... when putting it UNDER your pumpkin, the skin on a young'un is so fragile you can make it weep by touching it with a fingernail. GET A HELPER to get it under there. Touch your pumpkin with the edge of the cloth and it'll weep. Best installation is to dig and put down a few inches of sand, then the cloth then let the pumpkin grow on that. It will last for many a season, retrieve and wash off and store for next time. It's usually sold in about 5x5 to 6x6 chunks, or pallet sized, big enough to grow a huge one.

Build your shelter, lay your sandpit, put down the mill cloth and use ground staples to make it stay smooth at the edges (I put in a few so it stays put, you can with patience put a hole in at the edge, and put one leg in the fabric and one out) Then finish tarp covering the shelter.

Landscape fabric won't quite do it... some use just sand and some put styrofoam underneath WHILE the pumpkin is landing (some flowers insist on sticking straight up at the start) I have rampant pillbugs so I invested in the fabric (and pillbug killer)

7/2/2008 11:26:32 AM

Rhode Island

we used to use a 4ft x 4ft piece of plywood covered with blue tarping under the fruit. once the fruit grew to the edges we used sand with moth balls around the edges to help keep mice away.
the plywood piece also comes in handy when moving the pumpkin.

7/3/2008 5:47:19 AM

Upstate S.C.

I am really really new HOWEVER, I have put a big bed of pine needles from over in the neighboors yard under my pumkin. Its has worked really well

7/6/2008 10:05:33 PM