I’m glad it was helpful, Koshy. Thanks for commenting 🙂

8cm, wow, that sounds amazing 🙂 Thanks for commenting, Jennifer!

You’re welcome, Raymond, and thanks for commenting.

Hi Dana, I’ve lived near Toowoomba on a couple of occasions and have fond memories of it; what a beautiful area.

I’m not sure what could be causing your flowers to not produce after having been pollinated unless it is because of rain after pollination in which case hopefully the rain hat will help. (I’m guessing you are already making sure some pollen from the male flower gets onto each part of the stigma in the female flower.)

Powdery mildew can be a problem for us, too, in our very moist climate. It affects zucchinis, cucumbers, and melons and makes them quite difficult for us to grow.

But our pumpkin vines seem immune to it and I wonder if that’s because they’re essentially feral — they come up all over the place from both pig manure in our animal areas, and from missed pumpkins that have spilled their seeds in our garden areas. I never plant pumpkins on purpose; I always welcome them and make space for them where-ever they volunteer to grow. So I wonder if they’re self-selecting towards being able to thrive in our specific conditions? I don’t know if that idea might be helpful for you to play with?

They seem to come up in different areas over time, too, which probably helps.

I’ve found that for us, starting from seed and then transplanting them isn’t a good idea; it always seems to result in weak plants that don’t really get going. I know frosts can be heavy in your area; I wonder if starting seeds in the soil under frost protection might help to give them a head-start without having to start them indoors and then transplant them…

I also know, as I am sure you do too, that they’re very heavy feeders. Maybe they need to find a home in a compost pile or manure pile, to enable them to get going more vigorously so that when the mildew hits, the vines are already strong?

And finally the last thought that occurs to me has to do with diversity… our gardens are a mess, full of all sorts of “weeds” and odd jumbles of grasses and other plants as well as our food plants. I don’t know if this would help specifically with powdery mildew–probably not–but it would help with general vigor which i think is probably the key to our success. It’s certainly not diligent management that’s doing the trick!

Any way, Good luck! and I would love to hear back if you figure out the solution and feel like sharing 🙂

All the best
Kate