Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 74 Entries. Friday, February 2 View Page People often ask me, "how many people are on BigPumpkins.com?". This is a chart that show the number of registered users that logged on each day since the beginning of auction season. The traffic always spikes this time of year!   Friday, February 2 View Page Happy Groundhog Day! AI image generated by Google's bot. Thanks Scott, it is fun!   Saturday, March 9 View Page Starting to get my garden ready.   Wednesday, March 13 View Page The Edit button has arrived on Grower Diary entries. There is a Delete button inside too.   Monday, March 18 View Page Chad New from the RMGVG has been doing some great interviews with the some of the best giant growers in the world! This week tune in on Tuesday night at 6:00pm MST (8:00pm EST). Chad will be talking with Andy Wolf! Please be sure and review Chad's interview playlist and take some time to listen to them all!! YouTube   Friday, April 19 View Page For the April 2024 update to the website, this new User Profile page is coming. Is this kind of what you had in mind Andy W?   Monday, April 22 View Page The User Settings form has been updated so you can customize your User Profile page. Go ahead, try it. Let me know if you run into any issues.   Monday, April 22 View Page The Grower Diary Edit form was also updated. Go to the diary entry of your choice and set "Use this entry on my Profile page" to Yes. You can select an entry from any year you had a diary for.   Wednesday, May 1 View Page For the May 2024 update we are testing a new version of the BigPumpkins iPhone app! This diary entry was created with it. And updated with the app. Special thanks to my friend Rick for working on the app and dealing with Apple.   Wednesday, May 1 View Page Testing horizontally taken photo too.   Thursday, May 2 View Page Got my first long beard with a shotgun! Thanks to Gary Vincent for the calling. Thanks to John C. for the permission to hunt.   Tuesday, May 7 View Page Now available in the Apple AppStore. If you are using an iPhone or iPad for your Grower Diary, this is the easiest/best way to do it!! Search bigpumpkins in the AppStore. The app is free.   Tuesday, May 7 View Page Wow! I tried a late afternoon hunt on Tuesday. Had two nice gobblers come into my decoys. No gobbles or strutting but they went right to my Jake decoy! Boom!   Saturday, May 18 View Page My tomatoes are almost ready to go outside. Thanks to John Young for the seeds.   Saturday, June 1 View Page Got my tomatoes in the ground last night. Three 5.94 Young plants followed by three 7.95 Young plants. I just have to get some stakes for them. To the left are my peppers and eating tomatoes. I am trying the weed fabric this year.   Saturday, June 1 View Page My potatoes are looking good this year! Two rows about 40 feet long.   Saturday, June 8 View Page Time to feed my tomatoes! I am using this Fox Farm non-organic fertilizer. Let me know if I should switch it up.   Saturday, June 8 View Page I spent the early morning hilling my potatoes again. There are blossoms forming all over them.   Sunday, June 9 View Page They have arrived. Picked off the first Colorado Potato Beetle this morning. It was on one of my purple potato plants.   Sunday, June 9 View Page Saw this eastern milk snake when out deer scouting last weekend. A very cool looking creature.   Wednesday, June 12 View Page For the June 2024 update to the website, I have added the ability for Premium Members to opt into email notifications when someone adds a comment on their Grower Diary or someone replies to a message board thread they created. To activate this feature, select "Change User Settings" from the Main Menu of the website. Then select "Yes" on the field "Send E-mail Notifications on Comments and Replies?", then click the Update Settings button. This feature will only work for Premium Members. If your not a Premium Member, what are you waiting for?   Friday, June 14 View Page Is this a mega? Looks like a big single to my untrained eyes.   Friday, June 14 View Page Have not seen many potato beetles yet. But there are a few lady bugs on guard duty.   Saturday, June 15 View Page The flowers on my potatoes are starting to open.   Saturday, June 15 View Page Here is another variety.   Saturday, June 22 View Page Mega bloom coming on a 5.94 Young plant!   Saturday, June 22 View Page And another!   Saturday, June 22 View Page My Jimmy Nardello peppers are looking pretty happy!   Saturday, June 22 View Page My Shishito peppers are a bit smaller but they are producing lots of pods too.   Thursday, July 4 View Page Happy Independence Day my fellow patriotic Americans! Time to pick some blueberries.   Thursday, July 4 View Page My potatoes have taken a beating in the recent thunderstorms. Hopefully they are bulking up those tubers.   Thursday, July 4 View Page Seems after all these years, I still learn the hard way on most things. Today’s project: put up a support for the tomato plants since my initial megas did not set.   Thursday, July 4 View Page That should hold a couple 5 pounders? About seven feet tall.   Thursday, July 4 View Page The bees are trying to help me out with my lack luster pollination skills! This is on a 7.95 Young.   Sunday, July 7 View Page This weekend gave me the time to test the soil temperature under my fabric to see if it is heating my roots too much. This is not very scientific, but here goes. Temperature in the garden was about 95 degrees.   Sunday, July 7 View Page Temperature under the fabric at a depth of 2 to 3 inches.   Sunday, July 7 View Page Temperature under bare soil at a depth of 2 to 3 inches.   Friday, July 12 View Page Had a doe come into my yard the other night and seemed to be heading for my garden! She opted for the easy meal though and stayed out of my fenced in garden.   Saturday, July 13 View Page For the July 2024 update to the website, I have added the ability to re-sort the list of Grower Diaries by UserName, Location or Date.   Monday, July 15 View Page Don't forget to register for the all-of-New-England clubs joint picnic happening next month in New Hampshire! Saturday August 10th in Merrimack, NH. Hosted by the NHGPGA. Use the link below to download the registration form and other details. NHGPGA Summer Picnic Registration 2024   Wednesday, July 24 View Page Updated Grower Diary sorting options (again).   Saturday, July 27 View Page This tomato on the 5.94 Young #1 plant is measuring 18” in circumference. What would that be weight wise?   Sunday, July 28 View Page Doing some pruning on my tomatoes and came across this guy.   Sunday, July 28 View Page These are culls of my 7.95 Young plants. The one in the middle measured 17.5” in circumference and weighs 1.883 pounds. My bad for leaving them on to long. I did say I was not good at this right? My keeper is over 21 inches today.   Monday, August 5 View Page I was worried that this tomato was going to split open, so I picked it and got it on the scale. It measures 19” in circumference. This tomato is off one of my 5.94 Young plants.   Monday, August 5 View Page Here is the bottom view.   Sunday, August 11 View Page Had to cut my tomatoes this evening. This is off the 7.95 Young. It measures 21” in circumference.   Sunday, August 11 View Page Here is the bottom of the 3.23.   Sunday, August 11 View Page My new PB is over 4 pounds with this one also off a 7.95 Young. Measured 23.25” in circumference.   Sunday, August 11 View Page Here is the bottom of my new PB.   Sunday, August 11 View Page Had some damaged ones too. Here are all the tomatoes I picked today.   Monday, August 12 View Page I get pictures and stuff sent to me from all over! One of my neighbors is traveling to see their daughter and sent me this photo. Congratulations on first place Doc!   Tuesday, September 3 View Page I feel terrible for my friend Gary Vincent as his season has been nothing but bad luck. He lost six out of seven plants to various problems. He had a really nice orange pumpkin going on his last plant. He was going to take it to a fair this week. Then this happened……   Tuesday, September 17 View Page Even Donald Trump is into giant pumpkins this year!! YouTube Thanks Mike!   Tuesday, September 24 View Page Congratulations to Ray Leonzi on his Durham Fair winning pumpkin! This is a new PB for Ray and a Durham Fair record! 2014.5 pounds grown on the 2560 Gienger and crossed with the 2344 Wallace.   Thursday, September 26 View Page Here is another angle of Ray’s 2014.5. Great to see another pumpkin over 2K from CT!   Thursday, September 26 View Page Lots of new PB’s at Durham this year! Wendy Gardiner jumped from the 900’s to 1670.5!!! Congratulations Wendy!   Saturday, September 28 View Page Jim Hazeltine from Delevan, NY brought a BIG one to the Saratoga weigh-off! Good luck at the scale Jim!   Thursday, October 3 View Page Early voting is now open. Not that. For the Grower Diary of the Year! You can change your votes up until 10/31/24.   Friday, October 4 View Page We are getting setup at the Topsfield Fair and the heavy hitters are pulling in!   Thursday, October 10 View Page Crazy northern lights tonight!!   Friday, October 11 View Page Grower Diary of the Year voting is very close among the top three! There are currently 23 different growers that have received at least one vote. Time to start campaigning! Get those votes in.   Saturday, October 12 View Page At the SNGPG weigh-off at Frerichs Farm today!   Saturday, October 12 View Page I have the BP blind all setup and ready to go!   Tuesday, October 15 View Page If you have seen the message in this screen shot, please try again. I have updated the rules for voting to allow any active user with at least 5 grower diary entries in the past 20 years to vote! Two weeks left to get those votes in!   Tuesday, October 15 View Page Congratulations to Carol and Dave Stelts on their awesome season!! They grew their 2731.5 on the 2144 Barron seed. These seeds are in the GDOTY contest prize packs! Thanks Don.   Thursday, October 17 View Page Grower Diary of the Year voting is still very close among the top three! There are currently 30 different growers that have received at least one vote. The rules for who can vote have been opened up to include any active BP user with at least 5 grower diary entries in the past 20 years!   Tuesday, October 22 View Page Congratulations to Earl Thompson on his 2670 and a great season and diary! Earl’s 2670 was grown on the 2465.5 Sperry. The top three Grower Diary of the Year winners will each get the pictured seeds from Steve Sperry. There are two 2465.5 seeds in those packs!   Tuesday, October 22 View Page Grower Diary of the Year voting is still very close among the top three! There has even been some back in forth in who is leading! There are currently 32 different growers that have received at least one vote. Just over a week to go. Get those votes in!!   Tuesday, October 29 View Page Only two days to go!! The GDOTY voting is the closest is has ever been between first and second. There has even been some back and forth in who is leading. Fourth place has just over half the votes of third place but is certainly not out of it. There are currently 35 different growers that have received at least one vote. I am hearing rumors of some campaigning going on too! Get those last minute votes in!!   Wednesday, October 30 View Page This is it, the last few hours to vote. First and second place a single vote apart! I think we will be within the margin for an automatic hand count situation! Voting ends at midnight tonight EST. Get those last minute votes in!!   Friday, November 1 View Page Wow! The GDOTY contest ended with a tie for first and second! I will publish the results on my lunch break later today.   Friday, November 1 View Page Here it is the, final results!! A tie for first and second place between IanP and Matt D! Vineman takes the third place spot! Congrats to all the growers who participated! Email me to arrange for prize package delivery!   Friday, November 1 View Page Hunting tomorrow! I just hope this bear isn’t around!