Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 8 Entries. Monday, April 7 View Page Hello everyone! This year I’m actually hoping to have a proper diary, although I have a later start this year I think Il be able to push through to a new pb. I am currently planting a 2650, and thinking about my second plant. Looking at a 1707 which I have, but I would like to acquire a 1727 Jocobus or a 2554 Andrew’s as my second seed. (If any of yall have one and are willing to trade please lmk) I got my soil sample and shipped it off to western today. Il be doing a lot of things differently this year.   Friday, April 11 View Page Well, seems like I have a few entries I gotta catch up on, will get 'em all outa of the way right now! I got my soil test back a few days after the sample was sent out, and most of the numbers were fine except the magnesium! What the hell is that, with it being so low, I need to add like 500 pounds of epsom salt!   Friday, April 11 View Page So, here comes the Langley. This year, I’m switching things up a bit—focusing less on ratios and more on the actual PPM values I’m aiming for. After going through the soil tests and comparing them to the goal PPMs of the best growers in the world, like the Patons, I realized most of the ratios were totally out of whack.Not only that, but I also realized that due to the margin of error in soil testing—and the different rates at which nutrients leach out of the soil or get absorbed—it’s almost impossible to actually "balance" your soil. It never truly stays balanced anyway. As for what I’m adding: the main thing is a whole bunch of Epsom salt to bring the magnesium level up. I’ll be putting about three-quarters of it on the ground and keeping the rest to water in later, since I don’t want it all to leach out right away.   Tuesday, April 15 View Page I soaked the seeds in hydrogen peroxide and then set them on the grow mat at 90°F. They’ll sit like that for about 12–14 hours. I forgot to file the sides of my seeds this year, so germination might be a little slower than usual.   Tuesday, April 15 View Page I also laid down a couple of tarps to kill the weeds and hopefully warm up the soil a bit. Not totally sure how well it’ll work, but I’m a little hopeful. Either way, it probably won’t matter too much since everything's getting tilled in anyway. This year, I’m just going to use Roundup because I’m way too lazy to weed everything by hand. I’ll still weed around and inside the plant itself, but for the rest—Roundup or some other weed killer is the move.   Wednesday, April 16 View Page I totally forgot we gave away our space heaters, and I needed a last-minute way to warm up the soil since the heat mats weren’t cutting it. So I just threw on some hand warmers—desperate times, right?   Friday, April 18 View Page Got another 62 cubic feet of perlite, and it was somehow the same price as in 23, so that's just great! Gonna spread it out.   Sunday, April 20 View Page After about 4 years of starting giant pumpkin seeds, somehow this year got me the most nervous. Even though I’m using about the same amount of nutrients in my seedling mix as I did in ‘23 and ‘24, it just feels like a lot. Most of it is biologicals and seaweed, but still. I just hope the mix isn’t too hot. That said, from my experience, pumpkin seedlings are pretty resilient. I mean, I once hit a test batch with 80 ppm of boron and they still kept chugging along. Anyway, these are the seedlings 5 days after soak (or 5DAS, as some are calling it). They feel like they’re going a little slower than they should. What do you guys think? Maybe it's because I didn’t sand the edges this year…