Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 35 Entries. Monday, February 26 View Page It's 70 degrees F here and naturally I get into the spirit of things as a result. I raked out the debris from last year's garden. I think we're gonna do a little switcheroo and grow the giant pumpkins on the 'used' side of the garden since it's had some nutrtients returned from unharvested fruits. Should be a good pH to start with anyway. Then I'll just put the general garden stuff on the other/newly tilled area since the pH is probably off there and I don't feel like adding sulfer. Vegetables will grow well anyway with miracle grow...lol. I'll get a soil test done here in a couple weeks and see where we are. Last year went really well for my first attempt. The fruit taped at about 800 pounds before the vine probably contracted yellow vine disease and stopped the pumpkin growing. Had that not happened I may have doubled the weight. That was off of a self pollinated 1739 Strickler. Hopefully I can acquire a few of his 2054's when we have our spring meeting. I actually wouldn't mind growing the 1739 again because it did so well up until the yellow vine, but I'll plant about 9 seeds inside with a new grow light and see how it goes. I have a number of seeds from growers around Indiana left from last year, as well as my own 746 seeds. My hope is that we come up with some strategies for combatting the yellow vine problem because just about every big grower in my area had a problem with it last year.   Saturday, March 16 View Page These are the seeds I got from the club and I think this is great set for just having them show up in the mail. The 2054's will be the ones to keep an eye on given its lineage, but the other seeds are likely better than what I've got in my backlog as well. I'll start 12 in the garage, transplant 6, and narrow down to 2. Likely a disadvantage, but I can't set up tents with heaters outdoors this year. I am investing in a better grow light to keep the stems short and hopefully keep them inside just a little longer if possible UNLESS the weather turns out as predicted and is warmer than average. I will be setting up tents for the pumpkins themselves but thats a late June/July problem. Soil test next week!   Thursday, April 11 View Page The new starting rig. We now have a proper grow light and plastic pots. Soil is Promix BX with some worm castings mixed in. I'll sand, soak, and start the seeds tomorrow!   Tuesday, April 16 View Page All the little guys are starting to come up. First was 2054 Strickler which I'm very happy about. The 25% heavy Barker seed came up as well so I'll be trying that as a pollinator. It's not done anything spectacular for anyone else but I guess I'm just playing the numbers. I'm really happy with the light I got as you can tell they aren't trying to reach on me. Today I got half the patch tilled and amended and...well mostly covered. My plastic sheeting isn't quite big enough.   Tuesday, April 16 View Page https://youtu.be/hGSikJn_yZc Doing videos again!   Thursday, April 18 View Page My 746 finally decided to show up today. So I'm 12/12 on germination which is a nice thing to have. A few seeds came up a little janky so I may have some dropping out of the race early, but for the most part it's close! Also, out in the patch I tried mowing over my rye which began to grow rather agressively once it got warmer. Mower deck couldn't handle it and ripped the belt in two. I have another one on the way but I'm going to have to approach that a little at a time I can see. I've seen people like Mike Schmidt actually knock over the rye and spray it to kill it before mowing or tilling it in. Part of me thinks it would be more beneficial to cut it down live before tilling it in, however difficult that's going to be.   Saturday, April 27 View Page These guys are yelling at me to go outside. I won't have time to do it today but maybe tomorrow if I can finish the patch preparations. I still need to amend the other half of the patch and put some neutral zone weed fabric down.   Monday, April 29 View Page Ordinarily this would be a VERY early time to put the plants outside, but the weather is acceptable and the plants are ready and were on the verge of rootbound. So on the right hand side is the battle of the 2054 Stricklers. On the left is 1753 Hodge, 1964 Friermood, and 1935.5 Caspers. Those were the best looking plants I have going so now we see how they do to narrow it down to once on each side. Back to back formation this year. Also it's hard to see, but back in the corner is the prospective pollinator, the 1363 Barker. That pumpkin was 24% heavy and it looks like it hasn't been used for very much according to Pumpkin Fanatic, so I'd like to how it does for me. I'm still not using any hoop houses this year. Temps are not much of a concern right now. We may see down to 45F a couple nights next week but that won't bother them. The only thing to be concerned about is severe weather with high winds and hail. I WILL cover them with something if bad storms pop up.   Tuesday, April 30 View Page Made another video! https://youtu.be/EFFITTyyUiI   Monday, May 6 View Page They are calling for potential severe weather tomorrow so the jank coverage has been rigged up. They're all pretty low to the ground yet so we just need to keep the hail from damaging the plants if there is any. If there's a tornado then...well....nothing I can do about that anyway.   Tuesday, May 21 View Page All the plants here...except the 1363 Barker/Boulder which is doing just fine. I'm feeding every other day for the iron deficiency similar to what Matt D did last year. The thing now is, if you can see it , the younger leaves have a consistency closer to a geranium leaf than a pumpkin leaf; very thick and fuzzy. I'm thinking the nitrogen heavy MG I used may not have been necessary with the young plants. Either way, the vines themselves are growing at a rapid rate now. I'm getting to closer to pulling the plug on the others but I'm gonna wait and see how this wierdness with the leaves shakes out. Also you can see on the left the 2054 Stricklers decided to grow in the opposite direction I had intended probably due to the wind, so I'm getting those turned around. Right now the nearest one has had the biggest gains. So it's looking like that one on that side, and then the 1935 Caspsers on the right side is the current leader. Interesting to note that neither of those plants looked like they would be the leaders three weeks ago.   Thursday, May 30 View Page General updates here and I'll post the pics. We've gotten past the iron deficiency or whatever it was, and the leaves seem to be developing normally. If it hadn't been for all the rain we've gotten I would probably be watering with extra nitrogen right now. Pictured here is the 1363 Barker which I am/was using as a pollinator plant. I can confirm that it is not sterile....haha. Neither are the others but this one really mattered. It also happens to be my best plant at the moment....SO.....to reward it I am allowing a fruit to grow on it as well to see how heavy it goes. You can't see it but there is a female on the third node from the tip that will probably be ready to pollinate in a week or so. Perhaps less if it picks up speed. I will dead head the main a little ways after that to preserve room in the patch. I'm allowing three secondaries on the far side to grow out which you can probably see those in the pic. So it won't be a huge plant and may even qualify for the 150sq ft challenge if I bother to measure the space.   Thursday, May 30 View Page 2054 Strickler here. The vine seems shorter than it is because I looped it around from growing the other direction. In the future I should probably be more careful about preventing the wind from blowing the vines a certain way. I know the general rule of thumb is it grows in the opposite direction of the first true leaf, however that did not work out in this case. Anyway the secondaries are coming on nicely now and I'm just waiting on the female.   Thursday, May 30 View Page 1935.5 Caspers here. This plant was not the front runner until it started taking off, so I appreciate its aggressive nature. Again, just waiting on the female here. You can tell there's a lack of strong secondaries on this one yet because it was hit pretty bad with the deficiency and the spray drift from the field. Nevertheless it outgrew the others on this side. I know a couple other well known growers are doing this one as well so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.   Wednesday, June 5 View Page The pic is from yesterday on 1363 Barker. So today it opened and I got it pollinated. Looked like a really good symmetrical five lober.   Wednesday, June 5 View Page This is the first female on the 2054 Strickler. Given that the plants have all begun to speed up their growth it's hard to say exactly where this will end up but probably around ten feet.   Wednesday, June 5 View Page I have decided that Saturdays are going to be my general weed pulling days, although I usually get the hoop hoe out every day and run it over some spots. But the weeds in the veggie garden keep popping up anyway. Eventually I will beat them into submission. I won't end up with the jungle that I had least year!   Thursday, June 6 View Page I too make Youtube videos! https://youtu.be/biFxOIDvjcQ   Wednesday, June 12 View Page 1363 Barker at DAP 7. If memory serves, these things don't really kick it into gear until around DAP 10 where I would expect about softball size or better. I also need to take into account that this plant is considerably smaller than what is typically grown. I haven't chopped the main yet but I'm pretty close to doing it.   Wednesday, June 12 View Page 1363 Barker; three secondaries and the main on the right. Growing to see how heavy it goes.   Wednesday, June 12 View Page 2054 Strickler; pollinating tomorrow!   Wednesday, June 12 View Page 1935.5 Caspers; Pollinating in a few days I think. There is also another one a few nodes down that I will also get in before we go on our trip. That one would have over 20 secondaries behind unlike the 2054 Strickler. I won't be able to wait on another female on the 2054 because I'll be gone when it's ready. The timing on the Caspers is just about right.   Friday, June 14 View Page Welp....... Got a lot of rain last night and that crack was already seeping yesterday. So much for the Barker...... Also the female on the Caspers decided to open this morning....well.....a couple of the petals did anyway. So I pollinated it. I'm not sure that one will be the keeper on that plant anyway. Rough day in the patch.   Monday, June 17 View Page https://youtu.be/UOaE8pj7QFU I have made another video update. Those plants are growing super fast now!   Tuesday, June 18 View Page 2054 Strickler - DAP 5   Tuesday, June 18 View Page 1935.5 Caspers - DAP 4 & Pollinating tomorrow....Haven't curved the vine yet because I'd rather keep the one that's opening tomorrow.   Sunday, June 23 View Page Today we leave for our week long trip visiting with my family down on the gulf coast. We got some good rain this morning so I was able to put the sprinklers on delay. It would seem the heatwave has subsided which is good because some younger leaves on the 2054 Strickler were getting cooked, and the 1935.5 Caspers seems to not tolerate the heat as well so it was getting a little extra water. Sorry I don't have any pics to share at the moment, but 2054 is on DAP 10 and seems rather large. I almost wonder if I'm off by a day and it's actually DAP 11....either way it's pretty big compared to the one I grew last year. Capsers is still hanging in there at DAP 9 and 4. Beacuse the plant isn't as strong right now I'm not certain which one is going to be the keeper for sure. They say taking a vacation in the middle of the season is the kiss of death, but we have a housesitter keeping an eye on things and she will send me any pics if something goes awry. I prepared everything well enough to last the week in terms of weeding and vine covering. I may even be able to get some pics for the entries from the housesitter while we're gone!   Thursday, June 27 View Page This was taken today by our housesitter. It is the 2054 Strickler at DAP 14. She seems to be growing fairly quickly at this stage. Unfortunately, the two I tried to pollinate on 1935.5 Caspers did not take. I'll be having to go with a late pollination on that plant. More than likely the heat screwed them up and I didn't take proper precautions. Having the 2054 do so well kind of makes up for it though.   Monday, July 1 View Page Well I'm not sure how to begin this.... I returned from vacation to find that Caspers probably has YVD. It did not grow at all and it's all turning yellow. Very bad. I'll be ripping that plant out. Contrastly, the 2054 plant grew ferociously. It very much looks like the plant Strickler grew his state record on. However, the fruit I had set on it was rotting on the bottom, probably aborted due to the heat we had awhile back. I'll be checking and pruning that plant today to see if it got YVD as well and prune off whatever looks effected. There appear to be two fruits that our housesitter graciously pollinated for me while we were gone. I'll keep an eye on those and see if they set. If we don't get a fruit set from those I'm probably packin it in for the season.   Monday, July 1 View Page RIP 1935.5 Caspers. Definitely yellow vine disease. I sprayed on the regular but it is possible I wasn't use the proper dosage.   Monday, July 1 View Page 2054 Strickler is all pruned up and nodes covered. Also did a root drench insecticide for good measure. I saw an SVB out there today but neither plant was infested anywhere that I can see. We are definitely in survival mode with this plant. Have to get a fruit set soon or I'm gonna be stuck growing salad....   Saturday, July 6 View Page No picture, but I have a handful of fruits on the 2054, but I am concerned that it may also be infected. I lopped off several vines that showed signs of yellowing and just generally weren't growing. I'm not certain any of the fruits are going to set and keep growing. One of the bigger ones split overnight same as the Barker did. There are two more biggish ones, and both of them have a stem split. The bugs are very aggressive here and I probably need to double down on the sprays. Very disappointing as a second year grower who put a lot of planning into this season. Of course I know even the pros run into problems and I can't imagine how bad that must feel. That being said, it's not COMPLETELY over yet.....but I do have mustard grass in my amazon cart....:D   Monday, July 15 View Page 2054 Strickler also developed YVD, or what I can assume is YVD since I don't have a tissue test to prove it. I was going to pull the entire plant, but these three vines had not yet been visually effected. Since I'm still fairly inexperienced I've decided to take this opportunity to see how this disease progresses. By removing all the infected vines I may able to tell whether or not the plant can still support fruit, or if the disease infects the vines long before they start to appear yellow. Any fruits I had on the other vines went rotten in a hurry. These two haven't aborted yet. Also you can see I missed a tertiary in my pruning. We'll just let that grow now..haha. Apologize for the weeds/crabgrass. It's been hot/rainy and I'm probably just going to spray the majority of that stuff.   Monday, July 15 View Page Here's a look at the main vine I cut off. It's pretty yellow, but the main had streaks of yellow from the beginning so I'm not sure how to judge that.   Tuesday, July 16 View Page Both fruits on the 2054 have aborted now. So I'm officially done for the season. Boy this is humbling hobby...haha. I may be fielding opinions on whether to do a Terraclean/peroxide drench on my patch since both plants went down. I'll be doing mustard grass on those spots in any case. For next year I definitely need to rework my sprinkler system so I don't have do anything manually. I also need to put in some kind of hardwood border around the patch because the crabgrass that develops on the edges begins to encroach into the patch area. With a border I'll be able to just use the trimmer against it on the outside and just pull whatever grows on the inside. No, I'm still abstaining from putting up a wind fence...lol. Also, I think putting out six plants to compete for the final two was probably overkill. Next year I will try to just select two plants (or three depending on what I do with the rest of the garden) from whatever I have inside and have either a couple hoop houses or one big one. That will prevent the wind from damaging the young plants before they have a chance to dig in. It may also help with the pests. Obviously we'll double down on the insecticide. John Pritchard spoke at our club meeting last Spring. I mentioned that we were going to be going on a vacation for a week in late June. His response was 'good luck with that'.....lol....unforunately wishing me luck was not enough.