Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 90 Entries. Saturday, June 15 View Page Hi & welcome. Both about 3 ft long. Switching the gordo bushel gourds over to this diary... the tomatoes and general kvetching will be under my "little ketchup" banner. Ya gotta be blossom down to be in this diary. So yes the plan is that the big bushel gourd attempts will be blossom down... Have a good year, folks! Ps you can only see three in this pic but there are actually 7 barrels of grass clippings now, which are raising the temp in the hut by about 20 degrees. There is no heater, the little white heater is broken, its only being used as a fan.   Saturday, June 15 View Page The rain is cold (50's) but am hopeful that if I allow the rain and dampness around the plant it will inspire the worms to do their thing. Six barrels of grass and half a truckload of dairy manure so they've got a lot to eat. I want them to get busy! The rain is cold but so is my well water. Havent got any barrels set up for sun-warmed water yet.   Saturday, June 15 View Page I have noticed a bit of this dark leaf tip thing on the bushel gourds and I wasnt sure if it was normal, but now I see it on the tomato companion plant also. Is this a combo of too much nitrogen plus too much potassium? Any help is appreciated. I'm better at I.D.-ing deficiencies than excesses! I'm guessing excess chloride also, maybe? Contact info for this diary: wsu_brandon @ hotmail.com   Friday, June 21 View Page One of the hotter solstices we've had here in Washington. Solarizing the soil where the plants will go.   Friday, June 28 View Page Gourds looking perfect. Under plastic today easing their way back into fully sunny weather after a cool cloudy day. The real challenge begins now, because so far I've just treated them like pumpkins... I will be in unfamiliar territory soon as I have never grown a bushel gourd.   Sunday, June 30 View Page Looking perfect. The companion AG plant (circled in blue) showing a zinc deficiency though, so I tripled the zinc. Might have to add phosphous as a foliar to give the plants both zinc and phosphorus. Zinc belongs under the plant because its immobile, phosphorus could be foliar fed because its mobile... to avoid chemical conflicts. Thats my understanding of it. There are so many ways I could be wrong about all of this. Maybe Travis knows. Anyhow, looking good. Unsure how to take it to the next level. I think I'll just keep feeding the worms and see how it goes!   Saturday, July 6 View Page Just tracking progress here. They've been slow but I think that will change as soon as I start the new fertilizer regimen. Very warm days cool nights this week. Some minor details I will note: the Brown has had some minor leaf disease, like anthracnose or something, I'm removing any disease as I find it, also removing dead flowers, trying to keep the plant in pristine condition as long as possible. There have been some bug bites on the vines and one secondary got a bit of sun scald, it was heading towards crowding some other vines so I just removed it rather than deal with it. The Brown also wilted slightly today while the Sherwood did not. A bit unfair to judge yet because the Sherwood is closer to the sprinkler and the Brown gets more a.m. sunshine. Last, the females have been reasonably sparse on the secondaries, somewhat abundant on the tertiaries, and of course none on the mains. There is a female that may open this evening so I will probably pollinate it. If nothing else I will fry it up like a zucchini when its grenade sized. There's no other blossoms to get excited about yet. But a late July pollination should be ok, generally good/temperate fall weather here.   Sunday, July 7 View Page Potential keeper on the Sherwood. On a centrally located secondary. I might limit the Sherwood plant to about 150 sq ft. I might let the Brown plant get a bit bigger. The bucket will keep the direct sun off it for now.   Monday, July 8 View Page Learning a lot about bushel gourds! I think what I am learning from the bushel gourds will help me grow a bigger pumpkin!   Monday, July 8 View Page Leaf off the Ciesielski bushel gourd.   Wednesday, July 10 View Page Tried to pollinate Sherwood bg at 5 am. Flowers still open but this may not work. Dew on plants, and flowers damp, but I did find some dry pollen inside the male flowers. If it takes it will be the keeper. Possible keeper on the Brown... might open tonight or tomorrow night.   Thursday, July 11 View Page Its 'girls gone wild' here at midnight. The patch is transitioning from "I dont know what I am doing" to "maybe I can try to grow a state record". I am quite happy with this.   Thursday, July 11 View Page Not something I've ever seen at the grocery store, but I will cook these and see if they are like a zucchini. Supposedly edible and commonly eaten in the tropical areas where they grow. Maybe make "bushel gourd bread" if I missed one? Trying not to miss any. I'll try to cull them when they bloom, because any errant green gourds hiding under dense green leaves could easily get to 10 lbs before I spot them.   Thursday, July 11 View Page Its looking like I may have set a gourd a day ahead of Steve's monster, and another a day after. I've bookended the greatest gourd ever grown! It does get confusing though because they are pollinated at night so the DAP would reall have to be the NAP night-after-pollination. My plants are not as big as his nor growing as fast as his. Soon I'll know if this matters.   Friday, July 12 View Page The 193 Sherwood plant. I noticed that at 12 ' the plant switched to making gourds on all the secondaries. Before that I was only getting gourds on the tertiaries. I did an uncontrolled pollination on the Brown bushel gourd, i.e. I mixed pollen from both plants. I probably should have done a controlled pollination. Somehow I messed up the fertilizer and both plants are flush with too much potassium and nitrogen. Also, had to switch to non-organic on these. The main roots were getting sketchy so they got soaked in daconil. Last of all, measuring the growth rates, they are growing about 4" per day which is both a nutrient and a cool dry climate issue. Thats haf the pace of Steve's plant. They might enjoy a hoophouse/ being under plastic. I have enough pvc, and a large enough sheet of plastic. I think I'll have to do this. Washington state just isnt tropical Africa, not even during the summer.   Monday, July 15 View Page Might be pollinated. 193 Sherwood. Added a bit of plastic over the plant for shade, humidity, radiant heat loss at night. I think they would do better in a fully enclosed greenhouse.   Wednesday, July 17 View Page The bg's have been kinda slow. I should measure them daily to get some data. I will probably dead end the Sherwood plant prior to where the gourd is. I will probably pull the AG companion plant which is quite large. I might plant something else in its place to give a 2nd opinion about the water and fertilizer levels. I could do a tissue test on it (or on the bg's themselves)... or both. I think I'll stick with using using my own powers of observation for now. But I've gotta admit, my noggin gets 'stumped' more than it gets 'crowned.'   Wednesday, July 17 View Page I'm doing things all wrong. I am being lazy and throwing a lot of fertilizer at the plant and saying to the plant "this should last you a week!"... but the plants response isnt a good one. The plant responds like a person who won the lottery. It ignores its other sources of income (like mycorizae) and parties for one night, and its hung over, fails to show up to work, and is not one bit healthier the next day. I think if I apply the trickle feed method to foliar feeding, aka "trickle foliar feeding", then the plant will be much more responsible with its small fertilizer bonus and put it to good use and not be hung over the next day. Winning the jackpot basically creates all the same problems in plants as it does in people, it ends up being destructive. Whereas a consistent routine of hard work followed by small rewards builds the plant up. As it does people.   Wednesday, July 17 View Page I got the vines set up on the 193 Sherwood to where everything prior to the gourd is dead ended. Everything past the gourd (8 or so secondaries) will be allowed to roam free for the rest of the summer. I kinda took the opposite approach with the Brown bushel gourd... I terminated everything after the gourd and let everything before it keep growing. I thought this would give the gourd a growth spurt but it really hasnt. I tried doing some controlled pollinations this evening (and to have backups just in case) and there's one really weird thing about these which is, the males would need to be brought inside at around 5 pm. I havent noticed any flower foraging insects, but I know with pumpkins, those buzzing polllen bugs get into the flowers as soon as they're open. In theory the same thing could happen with the bg's and it would then be an uncontrolled pollination. The females would have to be bagged or tied shut sometime during the afternoon. Its easy to see why bg x lg crosses have happened, its an easy thing to forget to do.   Friday, July 19 View Page The 193 Sherwood was pollinated at 5 am on the 10th of July. But the flower was open the evening of the 9th. I will calculate the DAP from the 9th. I will measure the gourd this evening. This will be 10 full days since the flower opened. I dont know if its a good size or not. Still learning.   Friday, July 19 View Page DAP 10. 193 Sherwood x open. 11.5 inches circumference. The vine has some rot.   Friday, July 19 View Page Changing things up here... What a beauty! If there were any males, they surely couldn't resist... Alas, there are no pepo males here.   Friday, July 19 View Page And back to the gourds.... One day worth of cullage... needless to say there's about a half hour of other work thats not getting done, every evening. The Brown bushel gourd will have some very petite day 10 numbers to post, soon!   Sunday, July 21 View Page Tonight was DAP 10 for the Brown bushel gourd. It measured 11.0" circ. I'm very pleased that it is keeping pace with the Sherwood gourd. I was certain that it wasn't. The plant is looking better and better. Not sure how much the plants will slow down as the gourds kick into rapid expansion mode and the weather cools. They may end up filling most of their allotted space, maybe 200-250 ft. They are about 150 sq ft right now.   Friday, July 26 View Page Low of 37.0 last night.   Saturday, July 27 View Page Backup gourd on the 193 Sherwood measures 12" @ DAP 10, I think. Backup on the 243 Brown measures 11" which also should be DAP 10, I think.   Monday, July 29 View Page As I was trying to get one of the gourds to grow blossom down I noticed some healthy roots in the soil, out about 10 feet from the stumps. Some or all may be AG roots. I never pulled the AG, I could but it has been useful. It shows excesses and deficiencies differently than the bushel gourds. Nothing growing blossom down yet other than a tomato.   Thursday, August 1 View Page My gourd is bigger than Steve's! Oh but wait, so is my soda can. Ok, so not on WR pace...   Friday, August 2 View Page Boron? Copper? Manganese? Not the right kind of music? Cindy's state record may be safe now. The Sherwood plant has three new prospects @ 5 dap, 1 dap and 0 dap, but likely getting too late to grow a big one. Maybe its finally time for this year's tissue test.   Saturday, August 3 View Page I have taken a leaf stalk tissue sample at about 5 pm. The plant looks good but need to find out which micronutrients may have been lacking. Still dealing with some disease and insect pressure, not sure if the disease is spreading via water and then attracting saprotrophic insects, or if the insects are spreading the disease as they bite the plant. Maybe both.   Monday, August 5 View Page I know this wont impress you, but I am dumbfounded by this one, its the biggest one I've seen or measured and it hasnt even opened yet. It will be even bigger by the time it opens tomorrow. I have probably culled about 200 females from this plant, and this one is simply the fattest of them all. I will pollinate it and let it get to DAP 10 and then check its numbers against the others.   Tuesday, August 6 View Page Brown gourd weighed 21.5 kg / 47 lbs today using the crane scale. I'll be able to lift it again on day 30 and get the average daily gain for the previous 4 days. Can't say that I'm thrilled with these numbers but I'm still learning new things every day, so that's a win even if the gourd turns out to be small.   Friday, August 9 View Page Amazed how good this test is for the most part. I know the plants have struggled with boron a bit earlier but it seems the exploding gourd issue is perhaps related to phosphorus and copper and high potassium... Ive been foliar feeding bloom booster but I for some reason it doesnt move the needle much it barely notices. I'll try a root drench. The gourd has been a bit slow. According to this test, low phosphorus is the culprit and I don't doubt it. I'm glad I got the test done... Ive actually been doing an excellent job of "guessing" and "suspecting" and dosing everything (except copper) but its exhausting, and its nice to finally know. Even with the copper and phosphorus, the problem wasnt really that I was guessing wrong, it was more that I wasnt applying it to the correct part of the plant. As I suspected, I will have to drench these into the rootzone rather than relying just on foliar spraying.   Saturday, August 10 View Page DAP 30 for the Brown bushel gourd. 70 lbs. Gaining about 6 lbs per day the past four days. I will try to get new numbers on it every 5 days. I pollinated a 4th-round backup on the Sherwood tonight 193 Sherwood x 263.5 Ciesielski. There's also a decent one at 8 DAP but things will cool down and feel like fall next week. It may be a struggle to get either of these to a good size.   Saturday, August 10 View Page Will add this to the queue here. 527 Clayton x Yet To Be Determined. Greenie breeding. The 527 was a cross of two squashkins. Not many viable seeds. Its possible this will end up a pale green, I doubt all the pumpkin genes are out of it. Looking good so far... I like the longer shape, I dont think the round ones have as much size potential.   Sunday, August 11 View Page Gourd patch tour. Its getting a bit dense in some spots. The bigger leaves going over the trellis is a small AG plant. I would cull it but I still think I can get a jack o lantern for the kids out of it. Field kin I direct seeded is to the upper right. Some tomatoes are squished in between everything else.   Sunday, August 11 View Page Platform set up for a small blossom down pumpkin for halloween. Its DAP 9 or 10 or 11? for the keeper on the Sherwood plant. Its measuring 13.5 inches which is really good... especially if its only 9 DAP which is what I thought it was. In any case, its as good or better than the other blossoms have been. Maybe Ive still got a chance. But the forcast is for cool temps.   Sunday, August 11 View Page I think the plastic will help. A bit.   Monday, August 12 View Page The Sherwood gourd measured 15.5". I thought this was 10 DAP. Not sure, that would be significantly more than the others were at 10 DAP. Just a note for future reference. Temps are dropping into the 70's, overnight mid 50's. Edit: Looking at August 2nd I wrote clearly that there were two pollinations. The one I referred to as 0 DAP was pollinated on the 2nd and thats the one measuring 15.5". I will push it hard with a balanced non-chemical fertilizer. I've been using a lot of chemical fertilizer and I dont think the plants are totally thrilled with this. A heavy watering is probably needed, also.   Tuesday, August 13 View Page Referring to my last post, there's such a difference in volume between a sphere that measures 15.5" vs one that measures 11". Its almost 3x larger volume. So could the Sherwood grow a 3x heavier gourd than the Brown? The only problem is some verticulum/fusarium/phytophthora. Its been a bad year for verticulum.   Thursday, August 15 View Page Have a drink. Yet another Sherwood gourd opens wide...   Thursday, August 15 View Page Vine easily as big as an Atlantic giant. Some healthy roots not a huge number, it was low on phosphorus plus I didnt bury the vines, but a few roots came out.   Thursday, August 15 View Page The Brown bushel gourd weighed 45 kilos today @ dap 35, which is 100 lbs. 5 day gain of 30 lbs. So, remaining steady at 6 pounds per day. Btw, the entire Sherwood plant fit in a 55 gallon drum (with a lot of jumping on it). If I had to guess Id say that the entire plant weighed around 180 lbs. I think it was about 250 sq feet of plant.   Sunday, August 18 View Page Bushel gourd. Plant is about 200 sq ft. Day 37 @ 50.5 kilos. Sorry for the units, thats what my Chinese scale reads. 112 lbs.   Sunday, August 18 View Page Another perspective. Its been a learning curve for sure. The main thing has been the problem with the splitting gourds. Maybe the plants need mutiple fruit on them during that critical day 10-20 period when they want to explode. Or maybe its just an issue of needing more micronutrients. Ive done a good job of keeping the other females and the vines controlled. But that's about the only thing I can pat myself on the back about. There have been some nutrient deficiencies. If I was to try it again I'd make the soil a bit more potent or at least address the deficiencies... and probably not grow multiple plants. I'd also probably want to control the water temp and be able to drip or flood irrigate at least around the stump but not get the stump wet.   Sunday, August 18 View Page The gourd that was remarkably large (Aug 5th post) is barely growing. Probably has to do with the 6lb per day of nutrients going into the large gourd near it. Or it didnt appreciate the 5 am pollination... I had no choice because I was out of town that evening but I think for future Lagenaria pollinations I'll go with "the earlier the better".   Tuesday, August 20 View Page The bar just got raised. I was checking the stats and I see that Annie New grew a bigger one than Cindy. So, I'm not trying to take away Cindy's record after all. Will have the numbers for DAP 40 this evening. It won't be easy to surpass either of these excellent growers, but I'll try. It looks like I should at least clear 200 lbs, which would not be too bad.   Tuesday, August 20 View Page DAP 40 55.5 kg/ 122.5 lbs Not sure if I did this right... was I supposed to weigh it tomorrow? Or, has its age and/or the cloudy days finally caught up to it... but either way... the numbers must come down eventually. Was hoping for the 6 lb days to never end. I'll check again in five more days. Everything looks good but we're in for more cold, cloudy and wet weather.   Sunday, August 25 View Page Its been cold and cloudy and yesterday was extra gloomy. August is usually a good month. I dont think I've ever seen growth completely stall in August but I think yesterday was a zero growth day for everything.   Sunday, August 25 View Page DAP 45. 63.5 kg/ 140 lbs. 3.6 lb/ day past 5 days, the higher end of my low expectations.   Tuesday, August 27 View Page Ceiseilski plant is only around 40 sq ft this gourd has slowed the plant down to self termination because the gourd-to-plant ratio has been exceeded. The L was carved by a s-L-ug. That was part of this year's learning curve for me.   Tuesday, August 27 View Page This is the new set on Ashton's 1912 Stelts x 1109 Jutras. Massive vines, male flowers, and leaves... The vine in the picture coming off the pumpkin is a tertiary or quaternary (the plant has been dead ended multiple times) its very young yet its already as thick as a mature main vine. There is a mineral or two missing still, the plant isnt as keen to grow the fruit as it is to grow the green parts, but oh well. I might be able to get this one to grow blossom down but the rediculously thick (and relatively short) stem will need to bend a fair bit more...   Tuesday, August 27 View Page Another cold evening. Two sheets of plastic tonight.   Wednesday, August 28 View Page 38 degrees this morning. Arctic air blew in yesterday... in August?! Almost had a frost last night. But now we're in for another maybe record breaking heatwave. It's sure been a mix. I'll leave the plastic over the gourd until it warms up, otherwise who could blame it if it sat out there and did nothing all day.   Thursday, August 29 View Page A Tale of Two Leaves. Most of the leaves on the bushel gourd are smaller, narrower, and a bit puckered (like leaf #2). I believe this is due to a lack of water, amongst other things... but some other leaves along the main are very different (leaf #1), appearing to be more flush with potassium and other nutrients. These nutrients are 1) either limited in the rootzone, or 2) circulating poorly within the plant. I get the feeling that the gourd itself is caught in a sub-optimal nutrient tug-of-war within the plant. It seems like under optimal conditions all the leaves would be more like leaf #1.   Thursday, August 29 View Page Will have the DAP 50 numbers tomorrow.   Friday, August 30 View Page Held steady at 3.5 lbs per day for the last 5 days. DAP 40-50 it gained 35 lbs or so. It now weighs... more than me. The weather was not gourd growing weather so this is not bad.   Friday, August 30 View Page The point of taking measurements is to learn something. I would say the inflection point (the point where it was growing fastest) was right around day 30). This point may depend on nutrients, weather, and age, and plant size. So I can't say that it would always be day 30. But... I can say that this does line up exactly with a pumpkin I measured a few years ago. Not much else to learn, yet.   Wednesday, September 4 View Page Day 55 for Bert= 77.5 kg / 170.5 lbs a gain of 2.2 lbs per day for the past 5 days. This is the competition. Wont be breaking a record with these numbers, but it was a good attempt.   Tuesday, September 10 View Page Didnt have anything cool to post so just a pic of me. Day 60 for Bert the Bushel Gourd... 183 lbs solid past 5 days at 2.5 lbs per day. The weather was very good during those 5 days, and the forcast is not. The plant and gourd are definitely losing their youthfulness, so this may be near the end for Bert. I doubt that much more gain is possible. Sadly, lost Ernie awhile ago. Planted buckwheat/ mustard cover combo in the spot of his demise. It is doing very well. I guess thats a pic you might rather see...   Tuesday, September 10 View Page Very hard to see the buckwheat but its in there. Both growing at about the same speed. Mustard tends to smother anything slow. Buckwheat is notoriously fast and even it is barely able to top the mustard minions.   Friday, September 13 View Page Its possible this graph would be even smoother if I hadn't measured in the middle of the day for one of the data points. The other data points were measured late in the evening. Steve's WR gourd was still growing at day 70, but slowly. I think my growth curve probably matches his, although his was determined using OTT and mine is has been measured by a scale. And of course mine is a miniature/scaled down version of his gourd but the conclusion is probably going to be the same, which is they will grow for about 80 days.   Friday, September 13 View Page I added Steve's gourd using a few data points from his 2020 diary as well as extrapolating from Bert's growth curve. I came up with a formula for guessing a pumpkin's final weight, it is: Highest daily gain x 40 = final weight. I thought maybe I could come up with a formula for bushel gourds. So far it looks like: [ Highest daily gain x 30 = final weight. ] This formula might be off by plus or minus ~10% but it looks like it might be a good fit. If the formula is accurate, then reverse extrapolating from the formula, Steve's gourd did a stretch of 14 lb days, and it may have done a near 16 lb day. Mine did a stretch of 6 lb days, with maybe one seven pound day, which should give a final weight guess of 210 lbs. [ 7 x 30 = 210 lbs ]   Saturday, September 14 View Page Just some pics. Top: everything about the 1912 x 1109 pumpkin/squash hybrid is huge, leaves stems, vines... its all huge. Its the kind of plant I'd like to grow a big pumpkin on! Bottom: I pollinated lots of gourds and allowed dozens of females on the smaller 2nd round gourd plants, just to see what would happen. These plants are just 25-50 sq ft. What happened is, they completely self terminated and they self-culled all their extra gourds, and each put its energy into just one gourd. This was probably the optimal outcome, I just wasnt sure if they would do this.   Saturday, September 14 View Page Reference material. So, all of the original 5 plants are alive except the Sherwood. The 234.5 Warner is light pale green color and very round just like its momma was in the pic on the seed packet. (Lower right in the previous photo.) The 170 Vial was a little odd, the female flowers were very small, not sure if it has the right stuff, but it grew a bright green gourd with a standard nose. (Lower left in the previous photo.) Finally the 263.5 Ciesielski probably had the best all around potential, it is a dark green gourd, but the plant is on its way out due to vine rot at a pruning wound. No pic today but I'll take a final picture of the gourds at harvest. So I'm glad I left all the plants (I was very tempted to cull at least one of them) because it was interesting to see the different shapes, sizes, and colors. The Sherwood, had it remained, would have been a big round one, although perhaps a bit more egg shaped than the Warner. Not sure if the Brown or Sherwood gourds could become as dark a green as the Ciesielski gourd, they both seem to be a forest green type. Six types of green I might use to describe the gourds: pale green, light green, bright green, emerald green, forest green, dark green. They can change color as they grow and age, and I didnt notice any differences at pollination. Perhaps there were differences I didnt see, but I think they were basically all just light green at pollination. Probably tmi about gourds. But thats what I wanted this year... I wanted my gourd knowledge to catch up to my pumpkin knowledge. In a way, it has. But I do still feel new to gourds.   Sunday, September 15 View Page Bert DAP 65 is 87.5 kg / 192.5 lbs. A little under 2 lbs per day. Cant expect anything better at this point. As with pumpkins, these late gains do add up... Getting close to 200!   Wednesday, September 18 View Page DAP 68 the gourd skin lost its elasticity a few days ago, so its switched growth modes it thinks it's a canteloupe. But its still alive and growing.   Wednesday, September 18 View Page I weighed the bushel gourd again because I needed to lift it to check a soft spot... The soft spot seemed firm and dry, I cleaned a few days ago and I've had a fan on it. The gourd is chugging along at a good pace, having gained 2 lbs per day over the last three days. I'm not sure why the gains are not slowing (according to the scale the gains increased over the past few days!) The weather was mild with a bit of sunshine. I guess I like how well the gourd is doing even at these lower temps (not much above 70) lately. I have been covering it at night with two sheets of plastic. The only other thing that could be helping the weight gains is that I added a fan. I'm not sure how that would increase the gains. Hopefully its not gaining more because its rotting?!?! Anyhow, the growth curve seems pretty good for this many DAP.   Thursday, September 19 View Page I got the days slightly off... I think tonight will be DAP 70. Not that it really matters much to be off by one day. I have a tomato that will be DAP 67 today. I plan to pick it at DAP 69...? If the rats dont eat it first. Maybe I should pick it now and not risk it. They already nibbled the one next to it.   Thursday, September 19 View Page This mass of growth is all from a tertiary that I allowed to grow out from the vine past the gourd and I reversed it to grow up over the oldest part of the plant. I dead ended everything else. Since all the energy here had to flow past the gourd, I dont see how this would have slowed the gourd down too much. I think its good to have a relief valve like this and I think all this young growth is helping with the late gains... The rest of the plant still looks decent but neveetheless I think this new growth is like the cup of coffee that wakes the plant up every day and maybe keeps it awake at night, too.   Tuesday, September 24 View Page This is some old bushel gourd data but it includes Steve's WR... You can see what an outlier it is. The Sjordin marrow and Baggs field pumpkin are approximately similar in how far removed they are from the rest of the pack. If the same thing happened in the AG world, (and it could) it would be like: bam, a 3,333 lb AG comes out of nowhere. And speaking of outliers, Dan's 17 lb tomato is the most extreme of them all. I wanted to learn something from this data but there's not much to learn other than to visualize that there must be very unique circumstances that go in to creating these outliers. I'm curious what those are. There may be commonalities between how these outliers arise. Its weird to think about the difference between "what do I need to do to get very good results" vs "what do I need to do to get an extreme outlier".   Tuesday, September 24 View Page I dont know if this counts as learning anything, but in hindsight I'd say I chose an average gourd to pollinate. And I would judge that my soil and climate were probably average as well. The only thing that could push my results this year into slightly "above average" would be the amount of time on the vine. I think I can see how the data supports these conclusions. But again, not much to learn.   Tuesday, September 24 View Page Gains have dropped to less than a pound per day. I wasnt going to measure anymore but a couple more measurements will help plot the last bit of the growth curve.   Sunday, September 29 View Page Bert the Bushel has gotten rain and sun. His plant is still pushing new growth, evidence sufficient of energy and health that he could be growing more, but at almost 80 days old, it appears Bert is just too old... Still gaining, but less than a half pound per day. Its getting hard to measure because the vine is attached, it adds some weight depending how high I lift the gourd. But I do think thats reasonably accurate. I'd be curious to know if anyone has gotten significant gains past day 70 on a bushel gourd.   Monday, September 30 View Page 32.3 degrees F last night... The forecast low was 40. Nowadays the weather models so good that theyre often spot on. I just wish for once they'd get the overnight low correct. Its like they're using the farmers almanac for that part of the forcast.   Monday, September 30 View Page Ive posted a lot already, and this is going to be a really long post. But there's no way around it. Here it goes. Earlier this year, I anticipated a possible fall frost prior to the weigh offs. I knew that the pumpkin crosses I was playing around with were planted so late they would barely have viable seeds. So my goal was to dodge at least one frost because I figured this might extend the season by a week or two and give them the time they would need to mature. Also, I figured the bushel gourd might benefit from being covered. Steve covered his WR bushel gourd in September and his climate is probably warmer than mine so I figured that covering the gourd plant might be part of my plan. Last of all, I am trying to learn what I need to learn to be able to grow a large & special pumpkin sometime in the future. I want the knowledge of what works and what doesnt as far as getting the most pounds possible. I know that August and early September can be an easy do-nothing period where the weather and temps are basically perfect for adding pounds but then the weather often gets a bit sketchy around mid September. So last night was the first frost and it was a somewhat hard frost. But I had two ideas that I tried. One was to cover the plants with the heavy greenhouse plastic I use for solarizing and making the grow huts. The other was to steal from the orchardists playbook and simply burn the cold air away (whats the term for this?). Orchardists will literally light fires around the perimeter of their orchard to protect their trees from damaging frosts (at least in the old days, maybe now they use irrigation and windmills now). So I had this idea in my mind and last night I finally got to try it. I stayed up for a few hours from about 1:30 am to 5:00 am and burned a large pile of brush I had accumulated. I had other brush piles placed strategically around the patch as well but the main brush pile kept me busy enough (I think its not really wise or even legal to burn multiple piles at once.) So was it worth the effort? The greenhouse plastic worked 90% ish. It broke a few leaves dragging it into place and a lot of leaves got frostbitten where the were touching the frozen plastic. The fire wasnt perfectly aligned for the smoke to drift over the east side of the patches so it was maybe 50% effective. Both the smoke and the uptake of the coldest air at ground level is what protects the crop. I think the fire was a partial success, even if it only raised the temps by half a degree, then it did help. But it wasnt as effective as it could have been. I think more, smaller fires would be both more manageable and more effective than one large fire. They could still be lit one at a time, each one might burn for 15 minutes. Probably, lighting 3 small fires per hour would have some protective effect. In conclusion, there was some frost damage, but it was mitigable with these methods. Cont'd next page -->   Monday, September 30 View Page ...If I hadnt done anything, the plants would be 75% dead right now. Instead, they are 95% alive. The idea that I could gain an extra week of growing season seems to be exactly what will happen... I'll leave it at that. Oh but... barrels of compost and/or hoop structures are good for helping get the heavy plastic onto the plants without bulldozing the leaves down. A thinner plastic or some other lightweight material would be preferable, but I wanted to see if the thick plastic I already have would work. It can. Granted, a double layer of very thin plastic would be the goldilocks solution! (The fall nights with hard frost never have any wind.) Ugh... I knew it would be a long post!!!   Monday, September 30 View Page Its time for a joke... This is why the gpc doesnt want us to cross marrows with field kins and bushel gourds with long gourds. It might create a big problem, lol.   Thursday, October 3 View Page An even harder frost. I did what I could but I think the damage will be nearly total. If the temperature would dip down below freezing at 5 am then a couple hours below freezing wouldn't be so bad but it was below freezing for 6 hours or so. For example, most of the barrels of warm compost lost any extra heat they had. And once they lose their heat they also stop generating any heat so its a double whammy. So in summary, it wasnt the intensity of the cold, it was the duration. It doesn't really matter because I was going to pick some items tomorrow anyhow. But for future frost prevention I will want to upgrade to a good sprinkler on a timer and/or a double layer of protective plastic/floating fabric. There was no way the orchardist tricks of smudge pots or large fans would have worked last night. Yes they would help, but they wouldnt be totally sufficient. https://www.goodfruit.com/frost-protection-strategies/   Friday, October 4 View Page Extraction day for Bert. The plant got damaged, most by frost. I took one final weight using the crane scale. I dont know if anyone has done a whole season worth of weight measurements using a crane scale (inline scale?) before. But it worked. I'm glad I did it. Lifting it with the ratchet (the lifting straps remained in place all season) wasnt much more difficult than doing the ott with a tape measure. Bert made a nice little push at the end. Under 1 lb per day but it was definitely gaining between DAP 79 and 83. The cantelouping/ old appearance began around DAY 60 but that didnt mean it was done growing. It put on a relatively steady ~1 lb per day from day 60 to day 83. An extra 10-15% weight gain by leaving it on the vine a few more weeks.   Sunday, October 6 View Page Bert weighed 203 officially. My scale was adding 3-6 lbs because of the vines? Anyhow, it fell well short of the state record, but it was a reasonably good attempt. The graph on the right compares it to the world record.   Sunday, October 6 View Page If I had to do it again, I'd probably want more water and more disease control. I'd probably want to lay drip lines under that fancy two-sided garden fabric. I would elevate the vine where I wanted the fruit to set. I dont think I would bury vines but I might try to get some secondary rooting or just go with a diamond vine pattern to make the best use of the roots at the stump. I think the hardest part about gourds is that the plants dont show signs of distress clearly except to change their growth rate, and eventually the leaves become less vibrant in appearance.... They dont wilt or have pronounced nutrient deficiency symptoms other than to stop growing. I did see a bit of phosphorus deficiency with some brown spotting on the leaves. They're a little bit susceptible to disease and insects, but its also possible that with good plant care and gardening methods, I should not expect any major issues. Im not sure a full size hoop house would be necessary. The weather didnt affect the gains or growth rates too badly. They can handle high temps and high humidities verh well, but it seems they can also do ok at lower temps and lower humidities, they're not all that different than Atlantic giants. A floating cover at night might be helpful though.   Friday, October 25 View Page These were grown simultaneously on the plant that grew my other two. Total production was 8 pumpkins = 300 lbs. Not bad for a field kin direct seeded in June, but none were bigger than 60 lbs.   Friday, October 25 View Page I added about 200 ft to the main patch. It should be the correct size to grow something big now. I think the nutrient levels are adequate but I think the nematodes, and maybe fusarium, are high. I could expend a lot of effort here and be disappointed.   Saturday, October 26 View Page I have used hay in the past to help boost the soil but I was also thinking about using wood chips this year. I think I will do hay and rye and then wood chips. My nitrogen is high so I'm not worried about creating any severe deficiency and I could easily correct a moderate deficiency. The purpose of the wood chips would not be to feed the plant growth, it would be to feed the soil fungi and the pumpkin growth in late summer. I chopped the mustard down with the lawn mower. It was very large and healthy but the mower handled it well. The buckwheat got very weak and sickly either because of soil bugs or some cold nights. I spread the chopped mustard and the rain will water it in. I will plant some rye today.   Saturday, October 26 View Page Bushel gourd roots were huge and extended to the patch boundary. Because of this "full use" of the available rootzone, I think growing only one plant would be appropriate. I still dont know why some of the small gourds exploded but the internal turgor obviously exceeded the cell strength/ growth rate. Excess nitrate/ potassium relative to the other minerals, perhaps.   Saturday, October 26 View Page Getting there. I have no clue what the plan is for next year but I think rather than get super ambitious I will refrain from any big changes or bigger goals. If you cant fix it then dont break it!   Sunday, October 27 View Page https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Se9mMhxfqDQ&pp=ygUrV2hhdCBpcyBlbGV2dGljYWwgdm9uZHVjdGl2aXR5IHNvaWwgc2NpZW5jZQ%3D%3D Barley vs green beans: Different soil salinity for different crops. Its tempting to be a "more-on" and just keep dumping more on. But the simple fact of it is, there's an optimal amount of salts in the soil, and going beyond this is just shooting the plants in their feet. I probably did this to my gourd plants this year. They looked kinda miserable like the fertilizer salts were too high. This is probably what caused the excess turgor that exploded a few of my baby gourds. I was a more-on with some potent cow manure. It probably had a lot of pee in it because otherwise the salts would not have been extremely high. I know the salt was high because it created a couple dead spots where the mustard cover crop would not grow, plus the farmer I got it from warned me about it.   Wednesday, October 30 View Page A huge amount of guts... I dont think gourd carving will catch on.   Wednesday, October 30 View Page The Ciesielski gourd had a core meltdown...