Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 267 Entries. Tuesday, January 5 View Page 2010. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!!!!!!!! with a deep cold spell causing me less work time and more computer time, i figured why not get a game plan set for spring. 1. put up the greenhouses in mid february over planting spots to help remove frost and frozen ground and begin cooking the soil a bit and help the cover crop grow in those area. the one "Shazzydome" greenhouse with 14' diameter will go over the 901/991 spots and i will put 2 of the 6' x 10' greenhouses side by side over the 1147 planting zone just for soil warming purposes. 2. use the bohemeth deep spader again over the entire patch to bust up subsoil hardpan 16" deep after frost is out. this will be the work of a friend who owes me cash and will be well spent dollars to save my back. the greenhouses will be moved out of the way temporarily in this process. 3. i will immediately water in a heavy amount of Aerify PLUS (a soil loosener with humic acid and kelp). i want this product to get deep into the busted up subsoil cracks and help break down that underlying strata and add some goodies for the roots that make it down that far. 4. mid march to late march window i will till in 15 yards of ted kruegers organimix compost along with the charcoal green biochar and ZeoPro. teds product is black gold and the combo of charcoal carbon caves and volcano ash honeycombs both filled with nutrient goodies will hopefully work in conjunction with the myco and the hyphae to not only add some more structure to the soil, but to produce a nice hermit like crab shell spaces for the living goodies to call home. and also, a heavy dosing of gypsum will be added and then the final tilling will be completed. 5. walking boards then go down with access around each planting spot on both inside and outside the greenhouses for venting and additional tie down if necessary without compacting my soil in doing so. Tuesday, January 5 View Page 6. a mix of molasses and neptunes seaweed and fish will be watered into the soil with watering cans and warm water inside the greenhouses around april 7th to feed the soil a little. the same mix will be applied with the stihl fogger set on heavy droplet and i will spray the remaining soil surface outside of the greenhouses. 7. space heaters will go into the greenhouses on april 7th and run 24 hours set on high at 86 degrees to also warm up the spring soil. 2 space heaters in the shazzy dome and one in a single 6' x 10' greenhouse place directly the planting spots. with the greenhouses sealed tight with insulating dirt covering any gaps at ground level along with the space heaters, i will be able to retain and not lose as much built up soil heat during the cool april nights when the space heaters on high will only keep the air temps inside in the low 40s. 8. start seeds on saturday april 17th. if either or both the 901 or 991 doesn't germinate in 6 days, start another one on april 23. 9. transplant selected 1147s, backup 873 and 752 naylor '09s and the 901 and 991 into patch with myco on the sunday afternoon on april 25th. 10. germinate some of my own seeds as backup plants on the 25th for "just in case". this will work as a basic outline that i can look back on to make sure i am not forgeting anything as the excitement builds from here on out. days are getting longer and it won't be long Georgie Boy, it won't be long at all. Saturday, February 6 View Page forgot the pic of allison and the tomato and pics are not going through right tonight and hopefully i do not see 5 duplicates while i tried. spraying went well i did not see to many affected leaves, maby 6 with slight spotting and one leaf heavier covered that was coated and killed with the quilt fungicide. stared in awe of the 991 main vine tonight while i looked at it leafless from stump to the pumpkin tonight while spraying from behind the plant. monster thick vine going all the way to the stem. nuts thick. never seen anything like it. and the gang of gourds from the last pic is now a gang of specled green and white bowling pin looking swan gourds that are straight up and down and got huge with all the rain. they are damn cool and make me smile the most. the freakiest looking cool things that i have ever grown and will have fun drying some out and giving some with earlier picking to save the nice speckled pattern and luster. i like 'em and am hooked on gourds now for fun. gonna go look at some cool ones to pick out for next year and try new ones every year. Wednesday, February 10 View Page weird morning today and a first for me. i was up early cuz i couldn't sleep and was sitting at my computer and at 3:55 a.m. the house started shaking followed by some weird rumbling groans. i thought it could have been a snow plow but then realized it was something different when it continued for about 3 seconds and then stopped. i knew right then it had to be a slight earthquake or a nearby explosion. i googled illinois earthquake but nothing showed up in the search. later on i clicked on the tv and found out it was a 3.9 earthquake that was centered near dekalb. pretty cool. never experienced an earthquake before. glad i had the snow day from work and couldn't sleep to experience probably a once in a life time event here in illinois. Thursday, March 4 View Page welcome to the SHAZZYDOME!!!!!!!!!!! hopefully the last of the heavy snows are done and it was time for me to get out the greenhouses and try something a little new this year. the greenhouses went over the specific planting spots almost 2 months early. with the fall addition of 75 brown bags of maple leaves that were shredded fine, i figured this will help to begin to hasten the breakdown cycle and increase the soil activity with the warmer sunny days coming. i will move the greenhouses and still ammend my soil when things dry out. but if for some reason this spring is cold and wet and tough to get into the patch to till and add compost and ammendments, at least i will have a dry and warm spot in the individual planting spots and can ammend those any time i want because they are protected, and then ammend the rest as mother nature allows. i still have to add additional stakes and ropes and secure the shazzydome for the high winds of spring storms around the corner. this picture is looking out my window this morning georgie boy. 2 men enter, 1 man leaves. Thursday, March 4 View Page here is the shot patch with all the greenhouses. the 2 side by side up front greenhouses are 10 x 6 feet each so together this gives me 120 sq ft to warm around where my 1147 will go. the dome is 14' diameter and will house both the 991 and 901 back to back. i put up the greenhouses while frost is still in the ground to avoid trampling and compacting wet soil. only 2" left of frozen ground this morning to drive stakes through which will all be gone by today. 50 degree temps maybe by sunday will be sweet. spring fever is here! Tuesday, March 16 View Page sunshine and spring fever!!!! it's march madness and the snow is gone, the frost is gone, and the patch is starting to slowly dry out. about another 3 weeks until i put down the 15 yds of ted krueger's organimix compost, corn meal, biochar and zeolite. the azos will not get sprayed until the soil temps are at the desired level. aerify plus, which is a conditioner and activator all in one will go down immediately after the deepspader is brought back in to bust up the hardpan again, which will be done about april 1st in 2 weeks. the soil activation ingredients in aerify plus are concentrated kelp, molasses, and humic acid. here is a pic of the late november cover crop starting to grow again and new sprouts starting to come up and fill things out. this is a pic outside the greenhouses. Tuesday, March 16 View Page and this is the picture of the cover crop after 12 days in the greenhouses. today it is a sauna in there well over 100 degrees zipped up tight with a outside temp of 60 and sunny. the soil is heating up nicely in the greenhouses and i am hoping this early activation in the planting spots helps to get the soil organism food chain eating and crapping in high gear. note to self....hey self...do not forget the gypsum when tilling in the compost and other goodies. and hey self...do not forget to get the tire fixed on the rotatiller this week and fire it up to make sure its running good. Saturday, March 27 View Page soaking my giant tomato seeds this morning and will put them into some 85 degree heated seed starter mix in 2" peat pots. the small germination room is all set up again in the basement with a space heater set at 85 degrees to get the room temp up as well as the propagation mat set at 85 with a probe in a center pot at seed level. you can see the cord in the pic to the left in center. the plastic trays with tall humidity domes sit on rack over the propagation mat. when sprouts emerge, they are removed from the domes and placed in a tray under a different flourescent light 2" above the plants with a small fan indirectly blowing near them. when all have sprouted, the space heater will be turned off and that room will stay about 65 and the fans slowly turned more directly on the sprouts over a coarse of a few days and slightly rotating the pots daily for stockiness. this lower heat will help make them more stocky in the small sprout development stage as far as i have read. they will receive a light seaweed mix feeding while growing intially in the 2" pots and i will wet down and carefully remove the peat pots and transplant them into 5' peat pots with patch soil as soon as the root systems call for it. these will stay downstairs for a couple weeks after trasnplanting into 5" pots under flourescent before shifting into the shazzydome greenhouse in the patch for acclimation before going into the ground after the last frost or freeze about 5-15. all seeds came from treetop for the gtg and i will hopefully grow 2 of the 5.58 x self plants, one brutus maximas, one gordan graham, and one big zac f2. the strongest will be mine and the rest go to friends and we are having a Bobby's Tap Giant Tomato Contest. its mostly just for bar bragging rights, but i am sure wagering of some sort will ensue. my largest tomato will hopefully coincide with a weigh off, but otherwise, i will bring it to my geotechnical lab and weigh it on a certified scale. Saturday, March 27 View Page the deepspader is now being put to work by my friend stevo's nephew. this 80 pound 16" long forked tool cuts like butter and is rocked back and forth and lifted to break up any remaining hard pan not broken up by last falls deepspading. it is back breaking work...that is why i pay to have it done. lol. the entire patch will be completely deepspaded by next week. the cover crop will get tilled in next week prior to adding ammendments and compost placement. Saturday, March 27 View Page this may be a repeat post. not sure if the last one made it in. but opened up the shazzydome for the first time in a while to find 9" tall rye, about 6" long snow peas along with hairy vetch and clover all in the mix. it is very lush compared to outside cover crop at this point and the roots run deep already. i turned over a shovel and found many new friends eating the chopped leaf litter added last fall. Saturday, March 27 View Page 42 degrees outside this morning and a toasty warm 75 inside the shazzydome. here a few of my new friends i found while turning over one shovel full of dirt to see how far the cover crop roots have penetrated. these guys are taking advantage of the early warmed soil just like the cover crop. Wednesday, March 31 View Page 77 degrees today. nice. deep spading of the entire patch is finished, ammendments have been placed and a full 6 wheeled dump truck with 15 yards of priemo ted kruegers organimix compost will be delivered tomorrow for my buddy Ray to spread on the patch. Ray is out of work, and I worked most all winter without needing unemploynent, so he will break his back and make some scratch and everyone wins. lol. especially me. out of 72 small 2" peat pots with 3 giant tomato seeds per pot, only 5 pots have showed no signs of life yet. i was surprised how fast they sprouted. a 6 hour soak, 85 degree heat, and boom....3 days half showed signs of life. today after 5 days, only 5 pots have yet to show signs of life. and those were on the outside edges of the mat and didn't get as much heat. they will probably be up tomorrow or the next day. very successful germination run and i am happy to have everything down going into the big show soon to start. Wednesday, April 7 View Page nice deep soaking rains are helping to incorporate and mix my ammendments along with the added 4" of ted's black gold organimix compost. the final 3 yards of the 15 delivered still need to be placed in 2 corners, but the majority of the patch is done and was finished last weekend. i will till it in when it dries up on sunday and be done with it. the greenhouses will go back over their planting spots on sunday and remain in place until removal around june 1st. i had moved the greenhouses to the corners temporarily while the addition of the compost and ammendments. this worked out nice with these deep soaking rains. now those corner areas under the greenhouses are still dry for the last 3 yards and that soil can be worked in easily this weekend. here is a pic of the giant tomato sprouts at 11 days since soaking and planting. they all popped by 6 days, and here are the keepers after the culling process of each 2" pot. survival of the fittest. got one brutus maximus sprout resembling its fierce sounding name. first true leaves starting to show on the first ones that sprouted. light doses of neptunes for a week and they will be culled further down to the best 30 and tranplanted in 5" pots with my patch soil next week. the remaining 2" pots with weaker plants will be given away for eaters to my friends and neighbors. Friday, April 16 View Page transplanted 44 of the best tomato sprouts into 5" peat pots tonight after work. they got a little true sun tonight during the transplanting process in my sunroom off the backside of my house. this area on top of the bar will be their temporary new home as i slowly acclimate them to full sun. there are pull shades over this area so the plants get a lot of sun, but not direct sun yet. this will work out nice for the next 2 or 3 days. tomorrow i will set them out there before going to work. it is going down to about 40 tonight so they will be brought inside to keep the soil warmer still and then put back out on the bar in the sunroom before going to work tomorrow. it will heat up to at least 80 inside the sunroom with the door open for a slight breeze tomorrow when it is forecast only in the upper 50s for a high. they will be brought back inside each night for at least 2 more days. then i will transfer them to full sun in the small pumpkin greenhouse for a half a day and back to the partly shaded sunroom for 2 days and inside the house at night. then by thursday of next week they will stay outside in the greenhouse all day and night with a couple space heaters on at night to keep the temps at about 60 at night and 80 or warmer during the day with a couple vents open during the day to avoid over heating on a sunny day. they are all looking good with some looking better with real strong vigor which will most likely be my keepers. the rest will go to the guys at bobby's tap which they will have a draft selection process with each guy getting a pick at the plants they want one at a time with the luck of the dice to see what order the draft goes in. the remaining go to my parents and some guys at work. none will be wasted which is cool. this is not the best pic with a flash at twilight, but it shows the little ones in their new temporay 5" pot homes. Sunday, April 18 View Page go time! the seeds have been filed and are soaking. after filing, the seeds got wrapped in a paper towel and dropped into their cup of luke warm water. at 3 pm this afternoon, after a 6 jour soak, they go into the 5" peat pots with the starter mix already warmed to 85 degrees. i will get the mix ready in this 6 hour window of time using warm water with the hoffman's seed starter mix. the pots have been soaking for 24 hours. they will get filled with the moistened mix and go into the humidity domes over the germination mat with the temp. probe sensor in one of the center pots and thermostat set for 85 degrees. i will monitor the actual pot mix temps with a calibrated digital thermometer i use at work. then it is mother hen time and checking on temps every hour today to make sure all is well. i will also set my alarm for 2 pm and go and get a check in the middle of the night to make sure i do not cook 'em or let temps drop to low. i feel like a kid in science class all over again. science was always my favorite subject and while filing my seeds this morning, i could not help to think of the potential and what the possible final outcome will be. if the 991 or 901 do not sprout, their back ups will get tried later this week. i got 5 1147s going to pick the best 2, and 2 of each of tyson naylors 873 and 752s and the best of each will be the backups plants side by side to the 991 and 901. Sunday, April 18 View Page after a light dusting of captan, the seeds went into the 5" pots with pre-heated seed starter mix along with pumpkin pro mych fungi incorporated in. fingers crossed now on the 901 and 991 to sprout. if they do not, no biggie and the back up 901 and 991 will then get their chance. i found the quart size freezer bags fit nice and snug on the 5" pots after removing the plastic zip closer and stretching out the corners a bit. the combinmation of plastic bags over the pots as well as the 7" tall humidity domes have been very successful for the past 6 years, so no sense changing things now. the only thing different this year is 5" pots instead of 4" that i used to use. you can see the thermometer in the one pot up front in the left tray. it is at seed level so i can adjust the thermostat accordingly and tweak it a bit as needed and correlate it to the calibrated thermometer. now its gonna be a nervous few days of the waiting game. lol. i love this time of year!!!! Wednesday, April 21 View Page first seed to push dirt this morning at 5 am was the 901 Hunt. that is in less than 3 days from the initial soaking time on sunday. sweet. hopefully it is a good sign of the muscle and vigor of Phil and Janes' super seed. Wednesday, April 21 View Page 9 out of 11 pushed dirt by the time i got home from work. the 901 is half way out of the seed starter mix and i can see some green. the only 2 not to push dirt was one 1147 and one 752 naylor. i scratched some of the mix away from the surface around those 2 and saw split shell sides and the seed is just getting ready to push dirt. they were covered back up carefully. that makes 11 out of 11 and i have a big smile after a shitty day at work. tomorrow morning i will be helping the 901 and some of the others remove their seed coats if necessary. the tomatoes got their first day of true sun and wind all day today as i put the trays in the patch instead of in the solarium. the are hardening off nicely with only some minor burned leaves on a few of the plants from 2 days ago when it got real toasty in the solarium while i was at work and the plants got more direct sun than i anticipated cuz i had to work late. all in all, i am a happy camper. Saturday, April 24 View Page a nice cloudy day for the plants to get acclimated to the sun. i had the space heater going in the solarium to get it up to 75 degrees today on this cool cloudy day. i also had a fan blowing on these babies to help strengthen them up a bit. here is a pic after i watered in some very light 10-10-10 and warm water. tomorrow they go into the ground. you can see the 901 hunt is the go getter of the bunch. the 1147s are looking identical and strong with some curled cot tips from me working late thursday and not being able to help them remove their seed coats til later that night. those curled areas were white still when i removed the coats and the rest of the little leaves were green already. pretty much same thing for the 873 naylors. no worries though. the 991 was one of the last to sprout and is catching up nicely. not shocking since it is an older seed. it had one white spot on one of the cots that disintegrated with more growth and has a small hole in that area but that is of no concern and is not unusual. last year i brought out my dung beetle carving i carved when i was 23 years old in my Grateful Dead following days. the carving is title "It is a world of shit, so eat up". i used in my pic last year as a voodoo blessing to beat Georgie Boy, so i figured it will now become a yearly ritual to hopefully give the plants some good luck. hell, it is a dung beetle on top of a dung ball, so what better blessing to give the sprouts who are going into a patch that has some of the best shit in the world in it thanks to ted krueger and his black gold organimix compost. bring it georgie boy...bring it on!!!!!!!!!!! Saturday, April 24 View Page here is a pic of the tomatoes and the pumpkin sprouts sitting on top of some old cushions to keep the flats off the cooler tile floor. the tomatoes are big zac f2 hybrids, 5.58 timm x self, gordon grahams, and brutus maximus that were all given to me from treetop for the gtg. they are doing good and will go into the shazzydome greenhouse tomorrow after transplanting the pumpkin sprouts where they will stay until i pick the best 5 for me and the rest go to everyone mentioned in a previous post. i got 2 space heaters in the shazzydome to set for 57 at night and 78 during the day. one space heater will go into the small greenhouse. i have 2 more of the pelonis space heaters available and may add another to each greenhouse to see how well i can hold these temps. i got the mych fungi ready and the plants were watered tonight on purpose because it will be easier to carefully remove the moistened pots tomorrow on the pumpkin sprouts when transplanting. the best 873 will go next to the 991, the other 873 will go next to the 901, and the 2 1147s will go side by side. the 901 has altered my planting spot design and has moved into the number one honey hole of the patch based on its vigor. the 991 goes into the number 2 spot and the 1147s go into the number three spot. there is very little difference between the number 2 and 3 spot. the number one spot has proven the most successful over the years and gets a little more sun, (an extra half hour) based on tree shadows and my house shadows that affecet the 2 and 3 spots early in the am and late in the pm. looks like tomorrow will be cloudy all day which is fine by me for acclimation to the transplanting. Monday, April 26 View Page full patch shot today from a ladder to get a better view. i had a dry n.e. wind with full sun today that was dry enough to curl the one thin walking board in this picture. the newly transplanted plants got their full taste of bright sun and a dry wind. they didn't care for it much. nothing severe but they definately showed a little flagging of the cots. eventhough they were acclimated to sun for 2 days before going into the patch yesterday, those days were cloudy. luckily i had only half day from work and was home by 11:45 a.m. to take some action. i only opened the top vents this morning at 6 am thinking it was gonna be partly cloudy and left the doors to the greenhouses open also. so i immediately opened all vents and that dropped the temp from 85 inside the greenhouses to 79. 85 ain't nothing to normally be concerned with, but 85 along with a bright sun and a dry n.e. wind is tough on established plants let alone new transplants that just pushed above the dirt 5 days ago. at 63 degrees outside and 79 inside with all vents open, i can expect and increase of temps of 16 degrees. that means 75 at the end of the week will put it to 91 degrees. therefore at 75 or warmer outside, i will also unzip the screens for unobstructed air flow. i will also use 2 fans to expel air through the bottom vent openings when the screens are unzipped. any thing warmer than that, the plants will get misted also on a timer basis. you can see a light green color in the soil areas. the rain and sun has popped the weeds. that is good. the inside of the greenhouses were hoed yesterday before transplant. the rest of the patch will get a shallow till and then a hit of round up and a windless day following that when more weeds pop again later on. Monday, April 26 View Page i quickly put up small pieces of 30% aluminet shade cloth over the sprouts in both greenhouses at noon. i used rebar and tie wire and tightly stretched the shade cloth down low so it covers all sprouts at every angle of the sun. this lowered the temp another 2 degrees at sprout level to 77 degrees and will help them acclimate better to this bright sunshine. i also got a 5 gallon bucket of moist rain soaked cool patch soil closest to the house and put a thin layer around and under the cots of each sprout. the evaporated cooling effect of this moist cool soil helped immediately to take the slight stress off the cots. i didn't need or want to water them since they were just watered 2 days ago before transplanting yesterday and the soil they were put into was also nice and moist. i want the roots to go searching into the soil to look for water and get nutrients at the same time and i would rather not mist yet until the plants get established some and the temps in the greenhouses gets over 90. i am setting up the misting system tonight to have the option at the end of the week if we get a freaky hot day. 75 is the highest temp i see predicted for the next 10 days. and on may 5th, the 10 day forecast still shows a night temp going down to 33. it will be a delicate balance of heating to about 57 at night and trying to keep the temps at 85 or less during the day. cooler night temps about 57 will help to avoid the sprouts from legging out at night time. i have 2 space heaters in each greenhouse for at night, and those same 2 extension cords to each greenhouse will be also used to plug in 2 small exhaust fans for each greenhouse during the warmer days. a lot of work, but i love it. i have been waiting for this all winter long and do not mind doing what ever it takes to try to get the babies off to a good start. Monday, April 26 View Page and here are the giant tomato plants enjoying the warmth and sun. they are already established at this point and well acclimated to the sun and seem to love their new home and the bright sunshine today. all have been accounted for now except 4 of them. the 2 at the far end are the runts of the bunch and will go to anyone who wants them later for eater plants. the rest seem to be growing nicely and the trash talking at bobby's tap is already in full swing. it will be interesting to see what all my knuclehead friends can do at their first taste of giant vegetable growing. tommy t. the bartender is going to grow a couple and is gonna put up a betting sheet with odds. i haven't really seriously tried the giant tomatoes, but i bought the how to book from tom p. and let everyone read it. he said i will be going off at a 1-5 odds from my pumpkin experience and amped up patch soil, but i told him anyone who puts in the effort will have just as good a chance as the next knucklehead. let the games begin!!!!!! Wednesday, April 28 View Page so far so good on the shazzydome and the small greenhouse for temps. last night it got to 29 degrees, a new record low in joliet for that day. when i opened up the small greenhouse this morning the temp was at 58 degrees as set on the 2 space heaters. the shazzydome is much bigger and the 2 space heaters set on 58 had the temp this morning holding at 54 degrees. nice!!!!! that should be the coldest it gets this spring and i feel good about the system set up in both greenhouses as is. here is a pic of the two 12" vornado fans i set up in the shazzydome for exhausting air at plant level. it was 65 in the shade on a windless 30 percent humidity dry afternoon in the yard at 4pm, 71 in the fenced in patch in the sun, and with the 2 exhaust fans blowing and the upper vents wide open with screens also unzipped, it was 78 degrees under the shadecloth in the greenhouses at sprout level. these are things i am recording in my diary so i can go back next year and remember what the hell i was doing. i now feel comfortable of not having to mist inside the greenhouses yet as it approaches the high 70s in the shade towards the end of the week. on a relatively windless day like today i was still able to manage to keep the interior temps at 13 degrees above the outdoor temp in the shade. so later this week, it should stay at 90 or below and the winds are supposed to be 20 mph sustained which will only help to keep the temps at a desirable range. plants look healthy and all have a small second leaf kicking up with no signs yet of burnt edges which i usually get at least on one plant during the acclimation process. anything over 80 degrees in the shade will require a misting on a timed basis while i am at work. Wednesday, April 28 View Page here is a view in the small greenhouse with just one 12" vornado fan that is about 3 feet from the sprouts to help expel air at sprout level. the gentle breeze created on the back end of the exhausting fan should help strengthen the young stumps on the sprouts as well. gave the tomato plants a neptunes seaweed and fish drink this afternoon and the greenhouses stink a little like fish...and so do my hands a little while i am typing right now. time to go wash the hands a little more thoroughly before dinner time cuz i stink. lol. Thursday, April 29 View Page double your pleasure, double your fun...DOH.. not so fun. i had my suspicions, but this morning i got a better close up look. we have a strong wind warning today and after making sure all is secured well, i put some more soil around each plant all the way up to the cots to make sure they are stablized well. the fastest grower out of the block, the 901, doubled up on me. i wanted to be sure and was thinking about starting the other 901, but i decided against it to see what would happen. i was hoping the the small leaf under the second true leaf was just an aggressive 3rd true leaf. this morning i can see that it is facing the same direction and both are side by side. hopefully it will grow out of it. it is such a strong little sprout that i will give it a chance do do its thing all the way until the four or five foot vine stage and see if it corrects itself or i can perform the surgery and cut one off repeatedly to see what happens. the 873 naylor 2009 that is right next to it is very aggressive too and it will be a tough call to make. the 873 is my 1147 x gene mcmullen's 1119 and was 24% heavy. these 2 will now battle it out. i have never stayed with a double viner all season. i know that glenn andrews has more experience with double viners and encouraged me to grow out my 904 that doubled up a couple years back but i decided against it back then. i will be shooting him an email soon. but i did see my buddy timmer's double viner flat vine and ribbon out and was a mess of a plant. i still have plenty of time left to see what happens before the culling stage, but the 873 just got a 50% chance in earning the spot in my mind this morning. i looked up close on all other plants and they all seem normal. like gene mcmullen has said for all the 8 years i have known him...it is what it is. if the 873 earns the spot, it was meant to be. don't want to get your hopes up too soon Meat (tyson naylor) but you got a pony in the race in my number one honey hole. time will tell. Friday, April 30 View Page "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — [pauses] - shame on you. Fool me — You can't get fooled again." president george w. bush well even i can get fooled and i believe the 901 has fooled me good. with the extreme dry north wind this whole week and temps in the greenhouses yesterday at 91 degrees on a 80 degree day in the patch, i decided to give the sprouts a good soaking drink of warmed water. i figured they could use a drink by then and also the evaporative effect of wet soil under and around the plants would help keep some stress off them. that drink with the combined heat the past 2 days made the plants explode with new growth. the two leaves i thought were on the one side is actually one crazy mis-shaped second true leaf that is a weird shaped wide sucker that had overlaped on itself and looked like 2 leaves when it was small. besides that it has a partial slit down the center from the outside of the leaf edge going toward the center of the leaf. what i thought was two small leaves was actually one wide slitted weirdo second true leaf that was also folded in the center. with the explosion of new growth it has become obvious that this freak leaf is just one leaf and the third true leaf has already formed in the correct place and i jumped the gun...like a fool. doh. hey Meat, sorry about the mix up and if all goes as planned i will be going with this 901 which is the most aggressive sprout i have ever grown in my 8 years. i never meant to get your hopes up and the race is not over by any means cuz i still have your kick ass 873s next to both my 901 and 991. anything can happen by then and i will not hestitate going with one of the 873s if tragedy strikes or mutations show up. hope to see you on the podium at the Monsters of the Midway weigh off this year at Bengston's Farm, as long as you are either on the right or the left. wink wink. shazzy Saturday, May 1 View Page it is now time after the high heat acclimation and sun acclimation to remove the shade cloth covering over the little ones bright and early this morning. i figured i would introduce my new friends next to a trusted old friend. lol. this is the 1147 shenoha 2008 number one sprout and the winner of the race so far for this spot. Saturday, May 1 View Page and following close behind is the 1147 shenoha 2008 number 2 sprout. this one was a little more leggy than the 1147 number 1, but still looking very nice and the race for spot domination and survival of the fittest is far from over. Saturday, May 1 View Page ain't she pretty!!!! this is the 991 urena looking good at this point in the race. the only thing knocking this one out of the competition for spot dominance it tragedy or mutation. she is picking up steam nicely and has longer than wider true leaves at this point. she is also a spinner and rotated a little since transplanting, but that ain't no thang to worry about. Saturday, May 1 View Page here is the 873 naylor 2008 (1147 shenoha x 1119 mcmullen) that was 24% heavy doing its thing nicely and graciously doing its duty as a backup. it is a spitting image of my 1147s and is a robust plant for sure. this is the 873 next to the 991. Saturday, May 1 View Page well well well. with another morning comes another surprise. 2 days ago i posted that this 873 had a 50/50 chance due to my suspicions of the 901 double vining on me. then yesterday i posted that the second true leaf of the 901 was just a deformed folded and split second true leaf that fooled me and the 901 would undoubtedly earn the spot. after another full day of growth from yesterday morning's inspection of the 901, this 873 naylor is far from out of the race again. the following pics will show you why. Meat, sorry for the rollercoaster ride the past 2 days, but this 873 naylor 2009 has pulled back to nose to nose as these ponies race it out for patch dominance. Saturday, May 1 View Page maybe i am a fool (actually i take that back, i know i am a fool) but this plant has me second guessing myself, then thinking i got things figured out, then second guessing again day by day. wtf? lol. this is the 901 and here is my current take on it. as you can see by the deformed second true leaf that was folded over on itself when tiny similar to curtains, that it is one leaf. but now i have to believe it is actually 2 second true leaves that were fused into one. the split towards the right of center and the wideness of the leaf makes me tend to believe this. also, you can see that this small sprout has kicked out 5 true leaves already which is silly for a sprout that just pushed dirt 11 days ago. does it have some muscle...you bet. but it is starting to look like a zucchini if you ask me and is bushing out like my buddy Timmer's fused double viner that flatvined and ribboned out on him some years back. last year i had a couple secondaries on my 1161 that doubled up side by side fused together that ended up looking like 2 garden hoses fused at the middle and put out a leaf, tap root and tendril on each side. they were very hard to train and ended up cracking all season long as i tried to stake them down. too rigid to work with. a mutation that occurred for who knows why on only a couple secondaries. i have to believe this one has started out on this path. if it corrects itself out...so be it. if it doesn't...so be it. Que Sera Sera...What ever will be , will be...the future's not ours to see Que Sera Sera. yes i was actually singing the song as typing it. yes i am a fool. lol. Saturday, May 1 View Page another blurry view of the 901 shows how fast this thing is growing as the beginnings of the vining stage is already taking place. will it stay as one or split to 2, or have 2 fused vines...your guess is as good as mine. lol. after the heavy rains usually comes slugs, so i am going out right now to circle all sprouts with sluggo. after that it is time to go pony up baby. it's derby time and i love throwing away a days pay once a year at a chance to go back into the OTB later in the day and proudly collect some scratch. Smarty Jones was my last good winner and eventhough it was the favorite, i put a hundo on it to win and had a nice payoff. here is the shazzy shazanova betting line up for the derby. first of all, i put 5 bucks on the 4 horse every year cuz of the movie LET IT RIDE with richard dryfuss, terri garr, and david johanson and one of my all time favorite comedies. there is a line in the movie where the character "Cheesburger" says to Trotter (richard dryfuss) "The 4 horse Trotter? The 4 horse is a joke. They put little kids on the 4 horse to have their pictures taken." maybe i should have listened to "Cheesburger" cuz unlike Trotter, the 4 horse has never paid off for me when i bet it on derby day. but it is tradition and you can't 'f' with tradition. here is the rest of my betting line up. 1-11-20 $5 boxed triffecta. $20 on one of the long shots 50-1 "Dean's Kitten", the 8 horse. $20 on both other long shots at 50-1 the 9 horse "Make Music for Me" to show and $20 on "Back Talk" to show. and i gotta bet on the only lady in the field "Devil My Care" for 20 bucks to win. and i am off!!!!!!! Sunday, May 2 View Page well well well. the 4 horse, super saver, made me some scratch back and i lost only 75 bucks yesterday cuz i had the winning ticket with a 5 dollar bet. NICE!!!! my buddy Flan (dan flanagan) also put a 20 dollar bet on the 4 horse to win out of the same tradition stated in the above post and. he cashed in for 176 bucks on a 20 dollar bet to win which is not too shabby. made a major blunder today with no consequence. i left the gate latch open on the fence between the patch and my psycho dog's fenced in area. she was out and about in the patch on her own for over an hour. thankfully she stayed out of the greenhouses and just had fun playing in the dirt around the edges of the patch. that could have been disaster so my luck carried over from yesterday a bit. phweeewww!!!! the lock will go back on each time i am done in the patch even if i do not latch it all the way as i reminder that one mistake like this could end the season. today was a nice day to lay around and nap after yesterdays lunacy at bobby's tap. must have been a full moon last night cuz everyone was a howlin'. lol. Monday, May 3 View Page for doug in minnesota, i am trying a science experiment tonight with 2 10 hour hand warmers taped to the bottome of a 5 gallon bucket to see what temps i will get at 6 hours from now when i go to work. the real way to run this trial experiment is to have a high low thermometer or a thermometer that records continuous temps over a period of time. Monday, May 3 View Page doug, here is how i quickly set up the 5 gallon bucket set up with the 2 hand warmers taped to the bottom and the thermometere taped upside down so the probe reads the air temp and not the soil temp. i will report back to you on the message board doug. this set up may come in handy if i put in my tomato plants and we get one more unexpected subfreezing night in later may. Friday, May 7 View Page the hand warmers still held the air temp in the 5 gallon bucket up 2 degrees at 5.5 hours from midnite to 5:30. i think with a warm bottle of water and some hand warmers under a styrofome cooler would be the best solution after reading shannon's post. i would swap both out once in the middle of the night with a fresh hot bottle of water and a fresh hand warmer. i would think this would be able to hold off a good 5 or more degrees below freezing if needed. especially if also in a hoophouse too. watered in some merit cuz i have seen some betles flying around as of late. once while fishing for some crappie and once at work. what i thought was a corn beetle i identified on line as a soldier beetle. it's one of the good guys and is a insect hunter. never new there were so many types of beetles. still trying to find the shiney golden brown beetle with 2 black diamonds on its back looking vary similar to a cuke. i have a feeling that these flying beetles of similar size, athe fact that the corn around here is already in and about 4" high, and also that it has been the hottest april here on record with 6 degrees above average has everything 3 weeks ahead of schedule for the average year. maybe this cool stretch will slow them down. drenched merit yesterday to be sure and will use a very very light dose of tastar one if an early wave of cukes hit us. got a rain day today. windy cold 50 degrees and raining outside, 72 right now in the shazzydome and the smaller greenhouse at 7 am. with a little more sun that thermostat will kick off the heaters at 80 degrees. think i will go out in the shazzydome and pick which 5 tomato plants i will keep. the rest of the knuckleheads at bobby's tap are having their tomato plant draft...just like the nfl draft. rolling dice to see who goes first. gonna be a fun rain day at the tap. Friday, May 7 View Page well well well. what do we have here?......that is a good question cuz i have no idea what sprout is what. i got a bunch of free seed packets from when i ordered the deepspader last fall and threw them ontop of some leaf litter and poor soil along the fence line in the back of the solarium and covered them up with some more leaf litter to keep the birds and squirrels off them. that was sometime in march. it is full sun and there is a 5' tall chain link fence in this area about 15' long. after getting my compost delivered in late may, i through some across the top up to the deck line and filled in the gap between the fence and the deck about 6". i knew the prouts would now have to push through along way to reach light and break the soil, but they were free seeds and this was just for fun. i through in some speckled long neck swan gourds, some pear goards, and another goard i do not remember. i figured with that many seeds, some will make it. today i noticed this little cluster. i am going to let the strongest along the fence win the spot and allow 2 to grow that look different seedling wise than the other and see what happens. there is another like the darker green bigger one in this stretch about 6 feet down. i expect to see more shooting up and will cull later down the road. i will get some bagged compost and garden soil and line the back of this area on the other side of the fence to give them some more root space and nutrients and see what happens. just a fun type deal and the pictures of the gourds looked cool. why not? bet my lunatic dog will like to mess with them and think they are toys and pull em off the vine. and that would be ok too. lol. Friday, May 7 View Page and this is my starting line up and keepers out of the 44 original started tomato plants. from left to right. the 5.58 Timm x self, the brutus magnus, the gordon graham delicious, and 2 big zac f2 hybrids on the right. the big zacs are the most vigorous of the bunch. but all are healthy and this cloudy pic in my solarium does not do them the justice of how nice like in the bright sunlight. i am very proud of these babies that just broke above ground 38 days ago. their soil temp has never seen a night lower than 54 degrees and they have only been fed a very lite dose of 10-10-10 when still in 2 inch pots with seed starter mix prior to transfering the best into 5" peat pots filled with patch soil with rti pumpkin pro myc fungi. also they got a light neptunes seaweed and fish about a week ago. they will go into the patch later this week when things dry out. they will stay in the shazzydome until then getting the royal treatment. i pulled all plants into the solarium today cuz i picked out the best 5 for me and 3 best for my mom dad and my aunt chrystal and her husband j.b. get well aunt chrystal, you are in my prayers. i gave 8 plants to some of my contractors at work and all the other guys who saw them chimed up...looking for some...but too late...cuz today is the big tomato draft at Bobby's Tap. lol. it sounds so stupid, but my buddy McDermitt is gonna grow one and is a huge sports and this has escalated into a whacky event...as do most things at Bobby's. Friday, May 7 View Page and here are the 36 remaining after the 8 went to the guys at work. after today the only ones left in my shazzydome will be my 5 and the 3 that go to the folks and my aunt on mother's day. the rest will get drafted today at the bar. they were timed to go into the ground about may 15th but i think this week is a good week once the patch dries out. a nice one inch of rain last night and this morning and we needed it around here. Saturday, May 8 View Page the tomato draft was a blast and almost everyone in the bar that thought we were stupid before talking all winter about the Bobby's Tap Giant Tomato Contest...well they all said "Where are my plants, and how come no body told me?" you can only guess my response....use your imagination cuz this is a family site. lol. yes the draft was a silly idea, but damn it was fun watching everyone picking plants and the belly-aching from those who pulled the lowest draft number. most everyone picked the big zacs in the first round and the remaining 5 big zacs went early in the second round. everyone with 2 plants got at least one big zac and one gordon graham delicious...the 2 most aggressive. no body but myself, Tommy the Bartender and McDermitt got the killer looking brutus magnus plants. i only had 3 of them and i got the best one and they rolled dice for the first pick of the other 2. this was fair cuz us 3 were the ones who came up with the contest on a cold day in January at the bar. there is a bet sheet going with who is going to grow the biggest tomato and who kills their plants first. lol. in 2 weeks its the yearly fishing contest and bets are already coming in on biggest fish and most fish. this is the last time of the growing year for me to have time like this to mess around. in less than 3 weeks the patch work will keep me busy every day after work and my play nights will be limited to tuesday night dart leagues and saturday afternoons after the patch work is done. . Saturday, May 8 View Page it's in the upper 40s and windy as hell outside and the temps in both greenhouses are a toasy 79 degrees at last check. how funny is the shazzydome now georgie boy. keep laughing cuz it is one of the best investments i have ever made for this hobby....so far that is. but it stands up strong in the wind without a worry and the vents are very easy to use with 4 on top and 7 down low including the 5' door opening. zip up zip down. it is a well designed portable greenhouse that pops up like 15 combined umbrellas with 8 flexible tent support stakes inside to help keep the dome shape in the winds. i used stronger support ropes and you have to make a stronger ring with tie wire than the plastic ones that come with them. heavier rope attached to the stronger wire loops through the sewn on canvas straps will ensure the plastic rings do not snap in a 70 mph downburst like one of my smaller greenhouses some years back that made it 1 block down the road. so was 550 bucks pricey...yes...but i just had a smoke in the dome looking at the pumpkins plants and my tray full of my tomato plants and all i could do was to think of ole' georgie boys jokes at the winter meeting. he has some in his early diary pics under "George J". the fatman is laughing now georgie, lololololol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sunday, May 9 View Page and time for my weekly sunday pics of the pumpkin plants that i will no longer call sprouts. these 2 look almost identical and are both the 1147 shenoha 2008s. this will be a tough race to call. the one on the right has the stockier base and is a little more aggressive. this was at 8 am this morning which is 17 days since the seeds pushed dirt in the basement grow room on april 21st. Sunday, May 9 View Page this is the 873 naylor 2009 in the front and the 901 hunt in the back. the 901 still looks more like a zucchini bushing out with 2 leaves on each side instead of one. i am hoping once it starts vining i can get a better look at whether it will be a double viner for certain or not. plenty of time left for that decision, but the health of the 873 will make the decison a whole lot easier if i have to whack the 901 if it is a true doubler that i cannot straighten out with surgery or straightens out on its own. Sunday, May 9 View Page i tried to show the 873 next to the 991, but had troubles submitting the final pic as many were trying to upload i imagine at the same time today. the 991 and 873 look identical to the 1147s in size and vigor. i also prepped the tomato spots and have a silt fence around the area. i started getting my 5 keepers acclimated to true sun for a half a day today and they went back into the greenhouse this evening. later this week they will go in the ground. still a little chilly this week until later on like friday or sat. i had a great mother's day with the family and we took mom to brunch at Cog Hill Golf Coarse. i ate good with a breakfast plate of eggs benedict, bacon, sausage, and hash browns followed up by 2 slices of prime rib and some turkey with gravey, about 6 jumbo shrimp cocktail, and some cheesecake for dessert. nice! and i gave mom her tomato plants and life is good. go blackhawks tonight!!!!!! Tuesday, May 11 View Page the 1147 race just got easier to make the call. almost all plants began to lay down last night getting ready to vine. they have all made the lean in the right directions except for the double 901 going still standing straight up. the heavier second true leaf is now touching ground as a support and the vining stage will soon to follow. nice stocky mini stumps on all except the one leggier 1147. today i pulled back a little dirt around the mini stumps to give the plants some slack to lean over more without wanting to fold or crack. i do this also to inspect the stump an inch under the ground level to see if any splitting, cracking or rotting. i have had a small split happen in the lay down period in the past, so this is something i check on before making the cull decision. the leggy 1147 has a very small verticle split about an inch under the soil level. doesn't look serious, but it is an indicator for me to take the stockier one that i was leaning towards anyway. the race is over and the 1147 to the right in the last pic has won the spot. i will leave the other one in for insurance for a while. all others look fine like i said except the 901 still throwing out 2 of eveything. the weird thing is that there is a slight stagger in the doubles. the leaves on the left side are are slightly bigger than the right but then they both fill in and are side by side on opposite sides of the plant. still can't see the vine tip yet. the 873 next to it is my healthiest plant of them all vigor wise so this race is far from over. the 991 already has won the spot even though the 873 is still in for insurance reasons. so this is my final culling decision between the 901 and 873. Thursday, May 13 View Page first pruned trendril of the year off the 1147 and i just got done stabilizing the plants with bamboo. tomorrow is gonna be warmer, sunny and windy after many days of clouds and plants have been zipped up tight. so i opened up all vents today and let some slight breeze air out the plants. got a rain day today and just had some bright sunshine pop out for a bit and went to check on the plants and decided it was time to tell the 901 which way to go. i carefully removed soil around the mini stump and dug some trenches for the leaf stalks to lie in. since this plant has 2 first second true leaves, i dug a little trench for each and have now carefully mounded soil back around the stump and used multiple bamboo to secure her on a nice tilt in the right vining direction. she would have continued growing straight up otherwise with all the multiple bushy leaves centering the balance. some of the leaves are not pointed upwards at the sky now but will adjust shortly. so far one central vine tip that is kicking out 2 leaves on each side, but too early to see if its throwing double tendrils. i will know in the next 2 days what the plant is doing and if is 2 fused vines or if it is throwing double tips. the mini secondary at the first leaf junction is coming out with 2 leaves, which is not a good sign. i will try to train the 901 and 873 next to it in slightly opposite angles to let them have a chance to compete against each other til i get a good feel for what is what with the 901. Friday, May 14 View Page "tomato row". from back to the front is the gordon graham, a big zac f2 hybrid, a brutus magnus, a 5.58 timm x self, and blocked by the front silt fence is another big zac f2 hybrid. they just went into their spots at 2 pm to get some true sun time before tomorrow all day in true sun. it is pretty bright and windy enough in the shazzydome with the vents open that they are pretty well hardened off right now. sprinkled in some rti pumpkin pro myco after deepspading the holes and loosing subsoil and in then went. the soil is plenty moist from recent rains, but i will give the roots a warm drench with seaweed mixed in tomorrow morning after things warm up a bit about 10 am. i buried them up to their first true leaf set and now let the games begin. i bought these 9' garden stakes at home depot and they will work just fine for main stem central supports all season. i will wire tie together the tops of the stakes off to the fence and to each other in a lattice to have good stability when the plants reach over 7' tall. i will not let them flower until about 4' or 5' where hopefully some megablooms show up. this has been fun and i give treetop credit for encouraging me to try something new. thanx glenn. Saturday, May 15 View Page and then there were four. 2 plants just got the whack. the leggy 1147 with th slight split in the mini stump right under ground level and the nice the 873 back up next to the 991. the 901 i think will get the whack soon. very thick kinky vine that is more of a rectangular block than a regular main vine. it is massive, but i have seen this turn into a flat out ribbon that was a mess just like my buddy Timmer's plant some years back. it looked exactly like this 901 with doubles of everything even at the secondaries. i really wanted to do a 901/991 cross this year, but oh well. i am not taking the chance when the 873 is such a nice looking plant. i am going out right now with the knife to do the deed. congratulations Meat, your pony has just won the race. now i hope i can do it justice and take home a big mutha that weighs 24% heavy just like the 873 did. and this is the first illinois cross i have ever grown. with a 1147 shenoha /1119 mcmullen combo and both pumpkin plants in the cross producing 24% heavy pumpkins...i like my chances. Saturday, May 15 View Page and then there was three. no more choices or decisions for the pumpkin plants. the line up is set with the 991, 1147 873 line up. here is a pic of the culled 901 tip that threw out 2 of everything including tendrils and male flowers. it was as i thought early on a fused double viner. Saturday, May 15 View Page and here is a pic of the first secondary throwing doubles right out of the gate. the final indication of the tip throwing doubles of everything and the secondaries also doubling up made the decision a lot easier. Saturday, May 15 View Page and this is what training a main fused double viner or flat vine is like. it becomes rigid and thick and easily cracks and splits in trying to train it and keep it in place. well the 901 i have in the freezer will get a chance next year, but for this year i am excited to return the favor and prove out on on Meat's crosses. thanks Tyson for proving out the 1147 last year, and i hope i can do the 873 Naylor 2009 proud in 2010. tomorrow will not be picture day of the remaining 3 cuz i will be crappie fishing in the morning and watching the Blackhawks in the afternoon. should be a fun day. i will wait a week and get some pics next week and start doing an every other weekend set of pics until the pumpkin stage and then i will go back to weekly pics. Saturday, May 15 View Page hey there georgie boy...gonna come and get some 901s, and then the 991/901 cross will still take place if it all works out....yep....i was singing the song georgie boy with those lyrics. seeing my rival from the north has graciously offered me future male flowers from his 901 with these words in an email he sent after reading my gibberish posted here... "Hey my 901 looks good so far..I can always send you a few males for pollen. Just think of future plantings.. my 901 that produced 1500lbs that was 25% heavy..with your 1499 off the 991 that went 24% heavy! George that pretty much sums our rivalry and friendship all in one. george is a great guy for an ass. lol. Monday, May 17 View Page Meat, here is your pony in the race that should be laid completely down by this weekend or sooner. ain't she pretty!! she is throwing out a couple of them weird stump leaves that i will prune off here soon while still small. i may have to whack a leaf or 2 to get this one laid down. she has a lot of energy from that first true sunshine in about 5 days yesterday. some massive leaves already and a quickly widening stump. she has some power that with some good luck i can harness in the right direction. you can see my condensation drips from the heaters running all day today on this crappy rainy 57 degree day. got some weeding to get done too since i 'f'd off all day fishing for crappie in the a.m. yesterday and watching the blackhawks kick some shark tail in the afternoon and then playing darts all night long. we got 10 crappie but only one of keeping size about 10" that we threw back at the end of the day. nice sunny morning on the lake was nice. then the blackhawks looked shaky the first 10 minutes and got their acts together nicely and played like they should and we got a nice road victory. and i won 2 games with my buddy for 20 bucks a man team darts. that free 40 bucks went right back into bar with 10 jagerbombs for a hawks celebratory toast. great day. Monday, May 17 View Page as great as yesterday was, i was a little mad at myself for not preparing correctly for the day. we left for fishing at 6 am and it was cloudy. it got sunnier all day and by 1:30 pm when i got home it got a little to toasty in the greenhouses. i had the upper vents open expecting 68 and cloudy. it hit 74 and was sunny and the lower vents and doors should have been all the way open on both greenouses. the 1147 and 873 showed no signs of the stress but the 991 was the least to like the heat and the first true bright sunshine in 5 days. for what ever reason, only one leaf on the 991 got scorched. it was leathery yesterday and limp and you can see in the picture i have the droopy sides bambooed away from hanging their limp weight on the main tip. i will probably cut off the toasted areas and leave the healthy protions alone. weird not even a burnt edge on any other leaves. it was only 95 degrees in the greenhouses, but the combo of no sun in 5 days and the fact that i didn't water all week cuz it had been cloudy all week long was a little too much for the one 991 leaf. no big deal, but i did learn 2 lessons. all vents and doors open all the way if i am not gonna be home no matter what the weatherman says from this stage on. they were wrong yesterday. number 2, i might have to keep a closer eye on the 991 with warmer temps approaching and get a misting head above this plant for upcoming warmer sunnier days. Monday, May 17 View Page and here is the new beast of the patch...the 1147. the picture is deceiving and the vine looks laid down already. she has a little work left to easy her all the way to the ground. and the condensation dripping is present in this pic also. and with that i figured out why the 991 had a burnt leaf and not the other 2. the other 2 have condensation dripping near them every night and the 991 doesn't. the 991 was too thirst yesterday for the difference in increased sun and heat. nice work columbo. Wednesday, May 19 View Page touchdown baby. they are all at ground level and running now. tomorrow i will do a shallow till for weeds outside the greenhouses and hand weed and hoe inside the greenhouses. i am getting ready to remove the greenhouses and put up the silt fence wind break this saturday. hot temps next week and running plants make the decision easy. the misting system will immediately be set up and the timer set and also shade cloth will be used when the 86 degree temps hit next week to ween the plants onto true sunlight. lots of work to do from here on out as secondaries training begins very soon as well as the main bamboo adjustments evey morning and night. i started 8 1125 shenoha 2009 and they all sprouted and look good and are in the shazzydome getting true sun and the royal treatment to be given to bobby and his daughter, sarah the bartender, and john the cop. glad to see they all sprouted nicely and was happy to pull off a 19 out of 19 record this year on germination. tomatoes are getting acclimated to there new home and should perk up nicely with the bright sunshine that has finally arrived here today. Thursday, May 20 View Page i just woke up to wtf moment. i went out to unzip greenhouse vents and re-stake the mains with bamboo, and what did i see? a rabbit dug a hole about 6" behind my 1147 stump. i never had problems with rabbits, but the space heaters were running last night and she must have decided what better warm loose soil than this to call home. i removed all grass she already had packed in the hole, repacked the hole with dirt, put some dog hair from my dogs brush in the area, and took about 50 bamboo stakes and encircled the back of the plant. i am sure she did some major root damage that i am not all too happy about since we got temps in the high 80s less than 2 days away. i gave the plant a drink to help compensate for the loss and i will get some rabbit bait today while at work and she will not bother me no more. i hope. not sure if d-con works on rabbits, but i will try it along with what ever rabbit repellant home depot has. i am glad she did not decided to eat and was more worried about digging the hole and stuffing it with grass. i found the entrance hole under the greenhouse where she burrowed in and secured that area too. never a dull moment in this hobby, but this is a first for me. Saturday, May 22 View Page my dog oreo presented me with a gift this morning as she has done in the past. too bad it wasn't the rabbit that dug the hole behind the 1147. right by the door this morning was the squirrel she has been battling all spring. this squirrel had tempted fate playing chicken with her too many times. the squirrel had pissed on the dog from the tree too many times and the annoying chirping from right out of the dogs reach was just enough to keep this battle going intensely for a while now. this morning the dog won the battle and the squirrel lost its life. it was either the bravest squirrel i had ever seen or the stupid squirrel. i didn't see the kill, but i guess it was one false slip off the dew and fog covered garage while jumping for the tree that did it in. or the dew covered power line crossing from over the garage to the house. as far as the rabbit, i put hair from my hair brush, hair from the dog brush, brushed the dog a bunch of times and put out more hair, and then used rabbit repellent with coyote piss. haven't seen seen the rabbit again. greenhouses are coming down in a couple hours and it is perfect timing cuz the vines would have reached their limits by next weekend and the 90 degree heat will be here tomorrow. vines are just about 4' today on all 3 plants. the 1147 has weirded out on me this week and has put out multiples on just one side of the plant. there are 2 of everything on one side of the plant at a leaf junction, then normal singles on the other side at the next junction, then back to double again on the same side that doubled up, and now back to a single again i can see in the main tip cluster. i do not see it posing too much of a problem as long as the females developed single wise on the one side throwing singles. hopefully it will straighten back out to totally normal. i will prune the weakest secondary in the double side and then all terts off that one. still undecided if i keep the 2 leaves or whack one. silly hobby. i love it. Sunday, May 23 View Page here is the 1147 this morning at 9:30 right before the first misting cycle of the day. it is back on track currently to throwing just singles at each junction. hopefully it stays that way. weeding will be done tomorrow, today is a day of relaxation and watching the blackhawks in the a/c and hopefully they clinch today and be on the way to the finals. yesterday i got the the greehouses down, the silt fences and shade cloth up, and the misting system set up with multiple heads set up above each plant and also 3 misting heads on tomato row that covers all 5 plants nicely. it is 11 am and windless and hot as hell already out there. Sunday, May 23 View Page this is the 991 looking good today. it was just starting show the first the signs of the heat that was already building this morning. zero wind out there and my patch runs usually 3 to 4 degrees warmer in the sun than recorded at the joliet airport. i have a black asphalt driveway to the south of the patch. i have a brown brick home next to the east edge of the patch. but i have let ivy grow on that side covering the brick to help buffer the oven effect. you can't see any brick at all on that side cuz my patch soil is higher than the house level and the composted soil run off feeds the ivy nicely. very beautiful green color. i also have the 6' wooden fence that reflects heat and reduces air flow also on all other edges of the patch. yesterdays work was essential to fight this heat and sun on plants growing so fast that the root zones are barely keeping up until the taps roots get going. this will be the hottest week in late may i have ever had to deal with and that rabbit taking out 1/3 of the 1147 roots didn't help that plant too much with this heat either. lol. it was the first plant yesterday and today to shut down into wilty mode to protect itself from losing too much moisture. i got the misting system going yesterday by 12:30 and it was just in the nick of time. it will get plenty of use this week for sure. the watering from misting and this heat is going to push the plants at least one week ahead of schedule. if all goes well, i imagine i will be pollinating at the 13' to 15' mark about june 20th which is 4 weeks from today. but that is a long way away and this heat and wicked thunderstorms usually go hand in hand. Sunday, May 23 View Page and here is the 873 naylor 2009 running nicely as well. all 3 plants are exactly the same size. i will be weeding tomorrow afterwork and the rest of the patch is getting tilled again after these next 2 days of heat dry it out. i have plenty of rye grass seeds that germinated since the last tilling that were just late sprouters from last fall. i have let them grow along with the weeds figuring the myc fungi will be setting up nicely and the organisms are working with roots and small plants better than if just let cleanly exposed to the elements. and just some more green manure to go back into the soil. it will be the last till as most all of the weed seeds should have sprouted by now and i have pulled any weeds that were geting too big and possibly going to seed. Sunday, May 23 View Page and here is a pic of tomato row. this was at 9:30 this morning when the first misting cycle kicked in. i figured why not keep these girls cool too this week especially as they have the heat from the sun reflecting off the fence to deal with. they are looking good and i have already pulled some flower clusters off these little ones as they continue there journey upward. Saturday, May 29 View Page well i beat the heat today and got all patch work done early from 6:30 to noon. pretty toasty out there right now with the bright sunshine, low humidity, and very light north breeze. the a/c feels nice!!! i have been misting regularly with this heat and i decided now is the best time to cover my stumps. i pruned all 3 plants' stumps of all un-necessay small leaves, cots, and the small first true leaves laying on the ground. captan was applied to all fresh cuts and the little white plastic patio tables went over all 3 pruned stumps with a dobie brick on each table for wind weight. no sense getting these fresh cuts wet from misting so the tables came out early. i like don youngs' plexiglass trick and will do that sometime soon instead of the tables so the light can still penetrate at the same time of keeping the stump area dry. next i continued the vine burying and rti myco fungi at each leaf node and buried over the top of just each leaf node to encourage top taps to anchor down too. thanks to pap for the excellent post and replies from larry checkon and don young and tom p. and others in the premium members message board who helped me change my mind. i pruned all terts and did all hand weeding prior to that. then i added 3 more misting heads over each plant and will continue to add as needed. watered in some azos around all plants and tomatoes too. all other patch weeding was completed in areas the tiller did not get earlier this week. everything is in check, the plants are running like mad. the 1147 is still goofy but strong and still popping out double of everything just at every other junction on just one side of the plant. lol. freak. and i killed one cuke beetle and saw another and will spray talstar one this evening at twilight with a light dose and then demand cs full sttrength next weekend when cooler out. a very nice morning getting dirty in the patch was good for the head after a crazy week at work. Sunday, May 30 View Page 1147 this morning has its first female about at 8'. it is on the side that has double everything at that leaf junction on just the one side every other junction. right next to the female is a male flower. lol. still overall a healthy plant that i think i can still manage to get something nice off her even though she is a little goofy, like myself. Sunday, May 30 View Page 873 naylor 2009 looking lovely this morning and also loving this heat. the heat spell will mean i might have some pumpkins sitting a while before the weigh off cuz they are running like race horses. that is going to be a nervous stretch if i make it that far, but with some better powdery mildew control and some new products like the co2, i am hoping to keep the plants healthy and the pumpkins still growing slowly til all 3 weigh offs. if i pollinate at the 13' to 15; range about june 18th, that will give me 99 days of growth for Milwaukee for one pumpkin, and 107 days for one of them for Bengston's Farm Monsters of the Midway Weigh off on Sunday Oct. 3rd for the biggest pumpkin i grow ott wise, and 113 days for Stoughton which will be the one of the other pumpkins besides the largest that is still growing all the way to the end or the latest one to still be putting on inches. the pumpkin that shuts down first will go to Milwaukee so i am not losing pounds. now all i have to do is grow them. lol. nice to see a female sitting at about 8' on the 873 this morning. it will be a pincher, but still very nice to see. i will get a better idea of shape and color in a day or 2 to see what i can expect down the line. Sunday, May 30 View Page and the new beast of the patch is the 991. she loves the heat but needs to be misted as i found from that one day 2 weeks ago when one of here leaves leathered out on me and toasted. the leaf structure and color is a little different than my 1147 and 873 which leaves look identical. i see a lot of my 1147 genetics in the 873 (1147 shenoha x 1119 mcmullen). the 991 leaves are a little darker green but not too green. very pretty plant and the vine so far has been as easy as any plant i have ever grown. her leaves are the first every morning to droop when the heat builds so i have been starting my misting at 9:30 am for all plants to keep them producing in the heat instead of wilting and on shut down mode. misting schedule has been 9:30 to 10:30, 11:30 to 12:30, 1:30 to 2:30, and 3:30 to 4:30 which works great. i haven't burnt a leaf or even leaf edge since that day i went fishing 2 weeks ago and it got too toasty in the greenhouses. and the 991 also has a female at about 8'. very nice to walk the patch this morning hungover from the Blackhawks victory last night and see the first females on all 3 plants. go Hawks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Monday, May 31 View Page tomato row this morning before the storms came. and the line up is the gordon graham on the left at 32" tall, a big zac next to it at 31" tall, a brutus magnus at 30" tall in center, the 5.58 timm x self at 27" tall, and another big zac to the right at 27" tall. seems like the hotter it gets into the corner the more growth i am getting from them. all suckers are pruned and i am using a green grade stake ribbon or tape that is plastic and flexible yet strong to tie the plants off to their poles. not tightly, but enough support to hold them up in storms. i got all pumpkin plant vines staked down securely this morning after i got done burying leaf nodes and adding myco fungi and pruning terts and hand weeding at the same time. had a storm with wicked thunder building up at 10:30 so i covered all mains completely and covered the tips with mini white patio tables in case of hail. no hail yet, but a nice soaking rain is going on as i type. i can't even imagine what the plants are gonna do now that this is their first taste of lightening charged real rain water. time to hold on as i have an important 10 days coming up keeping mains down and secured from snapping, splitting or cracking with all the taps giving energy, the big leaves giving energy. plants are vining at almost 1' per day in this heat. it is supposed to cool down a bit and that will be good for letting the plants catch up a bit and slow down with nicer temps for female development too. Tuesday, June 1 View Page tuesday is now my weekly drench day. tonight i watered in some fulvic acid and some vcp i had left over for the flowering juices. i see a single female on the single side of the 1147 and will most likely go with it when it fully forms at about 11'. never know if i get another chance of a single being thrown on the correct side with this mutant plant so i might be pollinating my first plant very early around june 10th. if it takes, it will be my designated milwaukee pumpkin for the earlier weigh off. next tuesday's drench will be neptunes seaweed and fish. followed by humic acid and vcp the next tuesday after that. i will begin foliar feeding for the first time as soon as the cooler spell arrives. i hate spraying anything on leaves when it is this hot out still at night unless absolutely needed like the talstar one sprayed a few days ago. foliar will consist of humic acid with a half dose of neptunes seaweed and fish followed be fulvic acid combined with some vcp following 4 days later and so on. after pollinations are complete the vcp will be replaced by just a plain calcium foliar. the co2 product will not be used until after fruit set with mature leaves being hit only concentrating more under the leaf than over. hopefully i can make it through the 2 days of flash flood watch here predicted the next 2 days without a hail or wind episode. the rain doesn't bother me as much cuz the patch drains very well from the deepspading done in the fall and spring this past year as i found out from the 1.5 inches we got yesterday. Wednesday, June 2 View Page another 1.5 inches with only one semi rolled over secondary that was easily propped back up. glad that storm lost some energy and rolled in after midinight cuz it was crazy strong in the day time in nebraska and iowa. i got up at the first sound of loud thunder to watch the rains pound down and was glad to see no hail. rain day today from work and its too wet to do patch work so i got the day to kick back and chill. nice. round 2 of storms is supposed to come through tonight. i will be glad when this jet stream pattern buckles cuz it is set up straight to pound storms again and again in this area. Wednesday, June 2 View Page and after the storms the sun came shining through this morning at 7:15 a.m. and i had to get a picture of the morning sun hitting the patch after the rains. leaves took some pounding but most are already back up strong. a couple leaves on the 1147 lost their backbone from flapping in the wind. you can see the one in the foreground folded down and will stay that way cuz of the internal leaf structure snapping at a few points. all in all i am very happy to see the plants weathered the storm nicely. the 873 is to the back left and i will start making the main vine slowly turn as soon as i see what side the next female falls on and then i have 17' in either direction to continue running the main parellel to the fence. same for the 991 on the back right and it will get a curve either way and run parallel to the house and the last secondary. did some official measurements with the tape measure today and the 1147 female on the good side of the plant is exactly at 12' and the main vine is 12.5' this morning. i started training the 's' on it this morning. the females i thought were at 8' on both the 991 and 873 are exactly at 9' and are still developing as i haven't pinced them yet for insurance reasons. the 991 has a 12' main with a female in the cluster and the 873 is 12.5' with a female in the cluster. if the mains continu to lay down nicely and the females look to be developing properly, then the 9' females will get pinched. i used to just snip the 9' females early, but after the 1725 last year grown within 10' and 2 snapped main vines before pollinating last year, i decided to let these to grow and see the development stage in case of needed phosphorus. these second ones down the line on these 2 plants should fall about 13'-14.5' which is in the prime zone for me. also got females on many secondaries so the flowering balance seems in check so far on all 3 plants. Saturday, June 5 View Page a microburst came rolling through this early this morning and delivered a powerful punch to land of shaz. a section of my 6' tall yard fence got blown down and i lost a 12' rotted branch from one of my trees that was laying in the driveway this morning and small branches everywhere are down. but the 1147 looks fine cuz it is more sheltered closest to the trees and garage. the downward forcing winds however always affect the other 2 plants in the center of the patch the most and had some minor damage. i lost 3 big mature leaves on the 873 and 4 big mature leaves on the 991. they were snapped at the base right next to the vines as those huge leaves caught the wind and were the tallest of the bunch and were snapped off. a coulple leaves that were under the weight of the snapped leaves were propped back up and are fine. also one secondary on the 873 was rolled over just a bit and propped back up, secured and reburied at leaf junctions. could have been a lot worse. there was a storm cell producing half dollar size hail tracking dead on to joliet yesterday that split in 2 and disapated about 3 miles from the house. that could have been ugly. all main vines are covered completely in soil until this round of storms is finished. i will remove the hail protection coating of dirt between the junctions later this week when the patch dries up a bit and i can get into the center of the plants and do so much needed weeding too. 5 inches of rain so far since monday has me staying out of the center of the plants as much as possible even with walking boards. the patch continues to drain nicely and the plants seem to love the rain water. this is a pic out my window today looking at the 991 in the foreground and the 873 right behind it. Sunday, June 6 View Page just got taking the second punch in 2 days. just got done looking out the window watching the destructive winds remove the panel from the fence that was just put back up and screwed in today. this is the panel i remove to move pumpkins each year, but 10 screws in old wood did not do the trick. i watched as every leaf in the entire patch got blasted to the max....again 50 to 60 mph winds. from the looks, all weakened leaves from yesterday are down and maybe 6 to 7 per plant snapped. hey i am getting better airflow right...lol. crazy storms.....again it could be worse as no hail and to my knowledge at this point mains are still in tact. i will investigate when the storm is over. Sunday, June 6 View Page 5 leaves snapped on the 991 and 1 rolled vine, 4 leaves on the 873 and one rolled vine, i leaf on the 1147 and no rolled vines. many leaves bent but not broken. all roll overs fixed with 6 foot green stakes under the side of leaf stalks for support and reburied roots. snapped leaves have been cut. i will not be burying vines tonight as the patch again is soaked and will wait til tomorrow after work. the last burying was friday so i am still cool. gonna wait to spray demand cs til tomorrow and leave the plants alone to recover tonight as the sun just popped back out. this calls for some budweisers and to hell with pumpkins for a night, lets go blackhawks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Monday, June 7 View Page the 991 looks like duncan keith from the blackhawks with 7 missing teeth...or leaves on the main i should say. actually it is 6 on the main and about 6 secondary leaves total this weekend. the 873 lost a total 3 main vine leaves and 4 or 5 secondary leaves. all roll overs remained upright today with addded support still from 6' garden stakes and reburying and there was gusty north winds today and they held up well so they should be good until tomorrows 2 inches of rain predicted and more storms. all vine burying, weeding, myco fungi adding and s curve training was done tonight. finished up with a combo spray of demand cs with a little humic acid thrown in as georgie boy spotted an svb in his patch this weekend. it is amazing how nice the plants look today accept for some beat up leaves that lost some backbone and missing and are folded over a bit and the missing spaces from the removed snapped leaves. the leaves surrounding the gaps will get that much bigger with the extra space. i must say it is amazing what i witnessed yesterday with every leaf on all 3 plants blown over touching the ground one way, then to the ground the opposite way and back and forth like this for 5 minutes. another 50-60 mph wind event. if i wasn't so sheltered in my neighborhood already and didn't have the 6' fence around the patch, my plants would have been totally leveled. gene mcmullen got leveled last year by a wind event and still kicked ass with 1544 and 3 or 4 more over 1000, so i am not too concerned. "it is what it is" is what gene has said for years. wishing gene the best as his home town of streator got hit with a tornado over the weekend. i was sure glad to hear himself, his family and his property were safe and sound. that kind of stuff puts it all in perspective. a plant is just a plant and many years left to compete with pumpkin growing. the safety of oneself and family and neighbors and friends is what it is all about. Tuesday, June 8 View Page just got done removing seed coats on my last set of sprouts to be given away this year. this group of 16 will go to 2 different superintendents on my job site. one of which is tundra dan's old buddy jimmy trinka who is getting another 10 plants besides the 4 i gave him last week cuz his neighbors all want to give it a try too. that makes 44 out of 44 this year on germinations of which 33 of them were the 1125 shenoha 2009 (1185 daletas which produced 1125 and x the 1385 jutras which produced the 1173 and both were orange). they were all nice looking symetrical sprouts with no doubling up out of the gate on any of them. i will not get a look at what they will do for a serious grower, but it will be fun to hear the progress of how they do for all these halloween pumpkin growers. i love passing along the hobby and hope that a serious grower gets hooked one of these years. got a cool cloudy rainy day that will be followed up with clear bright hot sun the next 5 or so days so i added 13 more mister heads around the plants today to get full coverage on all the newly forming secondary leaves. i made a stupid but not too costly mistake and learned a nice lesson today. i started to train the secondary at the female at 12' on the 1147 to run back parellel to the main and was gonna hook it around and keep it as long as possible. snap. clean crisp snap luckily not into the female stem or main. close call and stupid. i should know better...hands off on cold mornings. doh!!!!!!! extension cords, mini patio tables and fans will be used 24 hours to keep the females cool during the upcoming heat wave and the ice bottles are ready for pollination day in the heat. Thursday, June 10 View Page HAWKS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a proud night here in chicagoland. what a great run to bring the cup home! unreal. Saturday, June 12 View Page "saturday morning pumpkin sex makes me happy" ..... yes i was sining those words instead of "sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy". lol. not only once but twice and right before a rain shower. that was exhausting. lol. the tape measure came out for official lengths of the females on the mains. the 1147 at 12.5' was pollinated with 4 873 naylor 2009 males. it looked like it's momma blossom....ugly. 5 twisted lobes. and not a full nondeveloped partial female segment that looks like a tooth that the momma 1147 had, but still a little weird shaped kicker piece with some about 3 seeds in the blossom. it doesn't worry me as the 1173 last year had seeds in the blossom and my 1147 had that weird tooth like appendage and both developed just fine. it is one of the biggest females i have ever seen. about 6 days ago i thought it would open around the 10th. but it kept waiting and growing bigger and opened 2 days later than expected originally. i am getting pretty good knowing or guessing about how long it takes to develope and open...and this one has fooled. it has been a silly plant since early on, but looks to have some muscle. i am hoping with the tendency it had to throw doubles for a while on just one side of the main every other junction means it is really like 1.5 plants combined. the first secondaries are very close to being terminated at 16' so it has plenty of plant already. the first secondaries on the 873 and the 991 at 16' have already been terminated. and the second round of pumpkin sex was followed up by using 5 males from the 991 to self it at 14'. perfectly symetrical 4 lober. it was supposed to be 90 today but they changed the forecast to 83 and hopefully it stays cloudy. i will bring a fan out to them anyways incase that sun pops out and it gets too toasty out and have the ice bottles ready if needed too. Saturday, June 12 View Page here is a window shot of the 991 in the foreground and the 873 behind it. do not confuse the ivy surrounding my window as leaves down by the 991 tip. you can see the gaps where i lost leaves from both of last weeks high wind storms that uprooted a 40 foot pine tree 2 blocks away. the gaps are filling in with bigger leaves near the space as predicted. i had to remove 2 more that were cracked 2 close to the main and the fissures were already turning color in a pre-rot state so i cut them clean and captan was placed. i have 3 days of vine burying to catch up on as i have been celebrating the blackhawks victory for several days now and also had fun watching the white sox pound the cubbies yesterday as the sox now have a better record today than the scrubs. sweet. you acan also see the disticnt color diference in the 991 and 873. the 991 is a richer darker green and the 873 like its momma the 1147 have a little lighter green leaves. the 991 in front and 873 behind it are not traditionally back to back but more like back to back but staggered to the side from extra main vine room. you can see my white patio tables covering the stumps from this excessive rain. the stumps look good and healthy and dry. some vine areas where i put dirt across early on to hold them down and protect from hail and then removed has a brownish color on the vines but still healthy. another reason why i do not cover entire vines when i see this. to me this is a pre-rot condition and not good if i left the soil on the vines the whole season. with this high humidity and wet conditions, i will mix some eagle with the talstar one spray tomorrow night to prevent downy mildew which i have seen on garden sites has popped up already in some areas due to the above average warmth pushing the cycle of life here 3 to 4 weeks ahead and all the rains. Sunday, June 13 View Page dodged many a big storm this weekend and that is cool for a change. i noticed over the weekend that some of the vines that were covered a little more than others at junctions were browning out a bit and slightly changing color. no rot or disease, just a staining that left me uncomfortable. i uncovered the more buried section enough to just barely cover the tap roots that have emerged out of the tops of the vines. this continual rain and humidity and wet soil has made me hold off on even covering the secondaries at leaf junctions for the time being. the myco is still added and the junctions will be covered at some point to encourage the above taps above, but for right now i just make sure all the taps on secondaries have enough soil under them for the under taps to take hold. the possibilities of rotting vines from continual rains and wet soil is there. the patch hasn't had a chance to dry out completely in well over 10 days. the plants look great and this jet pattern is supposed to buckle wednesday and dry things out. at that point i will go back and bury the tops of vines at leaf junctions only. due to this wet humid conditions and downy mildew and powdery showing up in the midwest on gardening message boards, i stihl fogged some daconil and talstar one combined with a little fulvic acid tonight. next week it will be the eagle/demand cs mix and rotate these combos of insecticides and fungicides every week. complete weeding and hoeing needs to be addressed as soon as the patch dries out. i have used the walking boards and have got most larger weeds in check so as not to mess with root systems if i let them get to big and hand weed. but many smaller weeds have also loved the rain and these will be dealt with soon enough with the hoe and the hand. Monday, June 14 View Page pollinated the 14' female on the 873 with 9 991 males. perfectly symetrical 6 lober. the next 1147 at 16' will be tomorrow. i removed the petals around the females pollinated on saturday. i will not wait 2 days for the 873 and will remove them tomorrow morning after one day cuz the high humidity and rain had the females a little slimier than i would like to see after 2 days. the slime was rubbed off and captan applied this morning before any moldy fuzz shows up. if all 3 of these take they might be the ones cuz all 3 are on very nice curves on the main. Tuesday, June 15 View Page pollinated the number 2 1147 at 16' with 4 991 males. it was a 4 lober that was almost perfectly symetrical. and self pollinated the number 2 on the 991 at 17' with 5 991 males. 4 lober with smaller spread out lobes. last night i cut off the semi slimey parts of the blossoms of the first 991 and 1147s pollinated 3 days ago, placed captan on them and put a fan on them. they look good this morning totally dry and healed and the fans will blow all day today and keep them dry. the 1st 1147 is a big mutha and was the biggest i seen on a pollination day of any female i have ever seen. on day 3 today it has already laid down on the ground. it is long and looks just like the mama 1147 female at that stage. hopefully it continues to grow. the 991 pollinated 3 days ago is still in the air and is getting bigger too and still is shiney which is a good sign. it will be helped down a little with a styrofome block behind it to lean on to ease it down. the petals of the 873 pollinated yesterday were removed today and all petals will be removed the following day from here on out from the lesson learned on the first 2 pollinations. too humid lately to leave petals on 2 days in a row. Thursday, June 17 View Page self pollinated the second one at 17.5' on the 873 with 4 male 873s. i switched up the pollen source and selfed just to make sure one plants pollen is the good stuff. just playing the odds. the first 873 is growing nicely and rounding out for being 3 days old. it has a smaller stem than the 991 and 1147 and looks to want to lay down on the vine with the sharp angle. so i took a piece of triangle shaped styrofome and made a wedge. as the pumpkin grows with more weight it will push off the styrofome and away from the vine. i have had to do this several times in the past and it works great. no real pressure on the mini stem at this point. the first 991 pumpkin laid down is still has a nice shine to it a grew a lot over night and at 5 days looks to be ok so far. same with the first 1147. it is bigger than the 991 already even though also 5 days old this morning. but it was a bigger female the day i pollinated it. the 1147 is a long one like its momma was and the 991 is more oval shaped too. the 873 is a little more round but too early to tell at only 3 days old. the heat is back and i put out some more mister heads and will put out even more tomight with the 90s coming. in about 2 weeks i will begin to diconnect the mister heads, remove the 6' garden stakes, and attach the 18" pre-staked low volume sprinkler heads with built in mini spaghetti tube and transfer barb and plug right into the same lines the mister heads were attached too. this will be done from the interior of the plant working out gradually with the older leaves not needing the misting as bad as the new leaves. thanks to dandy don young for all the chat help over the winter on this one. i have 6 fans running on the pollinated females at this point. i will not call them pumpkins yet until they prove not to abort. the fans are to keep the blossoms dry with the misting system running the next week or so in the heat and to keep them cool during this heat spell to increase the odds of continued growth. Thursday, June 17 View Page looked for the white t-shirts.....can't find em'......out comes the whitey tighties over the little girls on a 93 predicted day. size 38 jcpennneys classics are lined up for the 6 day old little ones. the 4 day old 873 might be on the ground by the morning and get a set of shazzy's drawers on them as well. lol. Saturday, June 19 View Page all is quiet on the shazzy front after a night of high drama. i watched the bow echo forming in iowa yesterday afternoon on my phone radar and knew we were in for some trouble. that duratio wind storm was impressive on the radar and immpressive in person. the sky turned dark black in the matter of seconds and all hell broke loose at 4:30pm as i watched from inside the house. trees down all through the neighborhood, but i faired pretty good. 10 leaves folded and split at the base of the stalks all together on all 3 plants. and they were all secondary leaves of smaller size on the perimeters. the interior of the plant is pretty mature already and those leaves all had each other to lean on and buffer the wind better. one partially blown over vine on the 873, 4 on the 991, and 3 on the 1147 were easily propped back up. i just bought 10 6' 3/4" plastic stakes to use for my 5 tomato hammocks i intend to use for the keeper megablooms. they were used to gently slide along under 4 or so leaf stalks at once and lft the roll overs back in place. one was put and left on each side of the roll overs for stability after propping up and the small unburied pulled up roots were reburied. i used the misting system in the 93 degree heat a lot yesterday so the ground was saturated already. this was good cuz those roots slid out easily and were not damaged and reburied. then round 2 came. but it lost its punch right before arriving and was just another 1" or so of rain. plants look great this morning and i removed the sweatshirts i had covering the little ones in case of sideways hail that the patio tables might not fully protect. staying out of the patch today and letting things heal. Saturday, June 19 View Page i decided to get the tape out and see what is doing on the little ones at 7.5 days this evening. the 991 at 14' is 16" at 7.5 days and looks healthy, has a nice stem, and is in a very nice location. the next one down the line is just about laid down and and still looks good at this point. the third one gets pollinated tomorrow morning. the 1147 at 12.5' at 7.5 days old is at 19.5" circ. and looks good barring a couple of peculiar small raised pimple bumps. the next one down the line at 16' has laid down and is a big freak early on too. the third one at 19.5' got the blossom top snapped off when my stupid ass tripped on a spaghetti tube and it close lined the female taking its top off before it had a chance to open. doh. the fourth one at 23' will be open in a few days but i have my heart set on the 12.5 footer and have already began moving it slowly closer to a 90 degree angle off the main. the 873 at 14' is 5 days old today and looks nice and will most likely be the one as it is in a perfect spot in the honey hole of the patch and has laid down nicely and looks slightly ahead of the pace the 991 is growing at. Tuesday, June 22 View Page survived another round of storms last night with no damage and just another heavy rain. we got 2 more days of this wicked weather left and hopefully the pattern changes. yesterday at 3 pm this 991 pumpkin was 21" circ. this morning it is 23.5" which is nice and means it is on its way. it was a very small female on the day of pollination compared to the 1147 which was the biggest female at pollination i have ever seen. this one is at 14' and the set at 7 days old is right next to it and and the 3rd was pollinated yesterday. the first one has won the spot based on 7 day measurements, position on the vine, and the fact that it grew 2.5 inches in 15 hours. the other 2 are staying on as shock absorbers until these heavy rains quit and until i terminate the main vine. this pumpkin is now known as "Clegg" which is a character from the hbo show "east bound and down." clegg is kenny powers best bud on one of my favorite comedies of all time. hoping for big things from Clegg. Tuesday, June 22 View Page and here is a picture of "Kenny Powers" at 10 days old this morning at 6 am sitting at 30.5" circ on my 1147 shenoha 2008 plant and is a brute. kenny was 27" at 3pm yesterday and is 30.5" this morning. wow. mutant strength. and the next one down the line is growing at the same rate and will also be left on as a shock absorber until the heavy rains pass and until i terminate the main vine. workin slowly on my 90 degree turning on all 3 pumpkins. the secondary snapped off a week or so ago on this 1147 pumpkin and i cut it flush. the brown is this picture at that spot of the secondary is just a healed area that looks worse in the picture and is fine. hoping kenny keeps chugging without blowing at this pace. and the picture of "April", who is kenny powers woman, will be coming up in 2 days at its 10 day mark. april is on the 873 naylor 2009 and is not far off kenny's pace. it also has another one down the line that took and will be left on as a shock absorber til the rains pass and the main vine is terminated. this is an exciting time of the year and i was most concerned with the 991 of all 3 plants for early growth. and now that it has grown nicely overnight, it is a pretty cool feeling knowing i got 3 fish on and hopefully i can land them in the boat come late september and early october. long ways to go and severe weather could hit anytime with this pattern, but for today, i am a happy camper. Friday, June 25 View Page here is the 873 naylor 2009 a couple mornings ago at 31" circ. on day 10 at 6 am. it is officially now known as "April" who is Kenny Powers's woman as i am staying with the "East Bound and Down" theme. april is hitting at 4.5" per day and so is "Clegg" on the 991. and Kenny Powers is a freak and hitting a little over 6 inches per day already for a couple days in a row now. it is getting a more creamy white color every day now as well as "April" who is getting more white too. got a nice round one so far in april, and kenny powers is a long one that is a brute that is shaped like a keg. clegg on the 991 is an odd teardrop shape or honestly, it looks more like a big boob that is rounder by the stem but more pointy on the blossom side. i will take some 15 day pics and measurements and then after that it will be pics every 10 days with no measurements posted. i will keep a record for myself, but decided i will play my cards closer to the vest this year with the 5000 dollar first place prize looming out there. dreaming big. nice to have the electricity on for the first time in 2 days. spent the night of the storm at the motel 6 as it was way too hot in the house and i wanted to have a tv to watch the storm coverage. i ran to the basement after hearing the sound of the freight train and what also sounded like gunfire. it was trees snapping in sequence as the wind hit. wicked storm and trees down from my block to 6 corners as the storm rolled down route 30 and turned into a tornado by the time it hit matteson. 7 folded leaves to my surprise was the lump sum of the damage. nice. they all were on one section of the 873 more in the open on secondaries on the perimeter. the interior leaves had each other to lean on. i retrained a close secondary right through the gap and moved the other ones over a bit. no more gap. i got lucky. Saturday, June 26 View Page here is a picture that has me fretting, but i think will be ok in the long run. this is the stem on April on the 873 naylor 2009. 3 days ago i saw a small split forming on top of the stem that has gotten wider, but not deeper. this pumpkin was the one that was going to lay on top of the vine and was slightly wedged away from the vine early on with a piece of styrofome so it would lay down away from the vine. i never put too much pressure, but somehow some very small unnoticed cracks must have occured early on in the lay down process and since then a couple more small ones developed only on the backside of the stem opposite side of the stump. they look worse in the picture than in person, but still have me fretting what could be problems down the road. the good thing is that the top split is just slowly widening and not going any deeper. it is healing itself and small tears keep reaching outward but not downward. there has been plenty of slack in the vine so it is not stem stress. i still cut 2 more taps besides the ones on each side of the stem in each direction this morning and put the main on styrofome blocks on each side raising it up to avoid future stress in this area. it almost seems like these are growth splits from a rapidly growing stem and pumpkin. more superficial than deep. what ever the reason, a fan and captan went on it this morning and will stay dry as all pumpkins have been covered in tarps since monday to keep from getting hailed on or rained on all week. this pumpkin grew 5" in circ. from 3pm yesterday until 7 am this morning and is chugging. hoping these splits continue to just widen out on top with growth like they are doing and not going any deeper. the heavy rainfalls all week cannot have helped matters with the big push. hoping it all just heals up and is not a problem, but for now it is something i am keeping a very close eye on. Saturday, June 26 View Page that close up shot made the small split look like the grand canyon with the early morning shadows. here is a top pic with captan on it this afternoon. very loose slack main that is propped has zero pressure on it and i think it will be fine. i have seen this cracking in this area before on stems with no stem or vine stress and they have always healed fine too, just never this early on a 12 day old pumpkin. and you can see on the right an area of main vine that was covered and uncovered and the staining of the green color to brown from the soil. again i call this a pre-rot situation that will lead to rot if vines buried too deep too long in saturated soil like we have had this year. those areas are solid to the touch and just look ugly but definately enough evidence to me of not burying except at the junctions and then unburying later on those areas not washed off by rain. i will have to say, i have more top roots than ever this year making it down and around by burying on top of the junctions besides just along side. i used to just make sure the bottoms tapped in with myco buried. the plants are still growing like ape shit with this rain sun and heat and the patch will completely filled out by the end of the week. the heavy storm that rolled in overnight threw down another inch of rain at least. hoping the girls do not blow cuz they are all 3 on their own with out backups. the main vines on the 1147 and 873 are terminated and the 991 main has a female in the tip at 30 something feet if needed, but Clegg has jumped up to almost 5" per day on day 14 now and is kicking in gear day by day. it was the tiniest female at pollination and is basically about 1 or 2 days behind kenny on the 1147 that was almost the size of a lemon on pollination day and the biggest i ever saw at that stage. Saturday, June 26 View Page the split on April stem did not go any deeper today in 8 hours as there is no fresh cracking yet at the applied captan area which would show futher fissuring. i also blocked directly under the stem and vine, checked vine looseness again and propped up the main a little more on each side too. this should help stabilize the small tears while healing. funny thing about these shallow splits is they have never wept any sap and haven't gone that deep at all. after looking at the last picture posted, small tearing might have developed from the secondary and the leaf twisting at that junction in the wind in last fridays' 70 mph wind storm. the section of fence was blown over on that west side of the patch right in front of this pumpkin. it is either that, growth splits that are relieving stress with minor splits instead of a full blown out split, or i did the damage when trying to keep it from laying down on the vine and pushed it a little too hard early on with the styrofome wedge used to guide it away from the vine. i would not have sliced half way through the stem of the backup pumpkin if i noticed it before tuesday. my gut says it will be fine and will heal and the majority of the juices will not be affected by superficial tears that are not even weeping juices. but my silly mind still frets...i think this is a good thing as the area is stabilized, secured with block, more tap roots cut, plenty of slack also, captan on a clean wound, and a fan running on it. the things i can control i will. those i can not i will say, "it is what it is". but yet my mind stills frets...lol. go whitesox!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sunday, June 27 View Page this is "Clegg" on the 991 urena at 15 days old and is 48.5 inches circ this morning at 6 am. it gained 5.5 inches circ since yesterday so it is definately picking up steam. the five day average between day 10 and day 15 is 5 inches per day exactly. this is the runt of the patch so far and is doing quite nicely. Sunday, June 27 View Page here is "April" on the 873 naylor 2009 (1147 shenoha that produced 24% heavy x the 1119 mcmullen that produced 24% heavy) at 6 am on day 13 at 49" circ and has averaged 6 inches exactly per day over the last 3 and grew 6.5 inches circ since yesterday morning at 6 am. the stem splits had some very minor widening but no deepening that i could tell occurred overnight by the captan filled wound showing a very slight crack in the center while widening. again, still no weeping from these shallow cracks and more of a superficial widening on top as the stem grows larger. the splits are on the right side of the stem away from the stump and have not affected any growth so far for sure with this thing chugging off 6.5 inches circ since yesterday. but i do need to keep an eye on the area to complete the healing process with this crazy growth rate. you can see it is blocked under the stem and main and also the mains are blocked and 3 taps on each side cut with a very loose main. the fan in the picture will run as long as needed during the healing, growth, and healing process. tyson naylor goes by meat57 here on bp.com. not a bad idea to pick up one of these 873s for next year. this plant has been a beast all year and is showing her stuff pumping out an average of 6" per day so early on and jumping to 6.5 yesterday. hoping to return the favor and do you proud Meat. and i think (and hope) the small splits will be fine in the long run, but i still like to post all my info for my own records and incase someone else is going through the same thing down the road and can have some reference. Sunday, June 27 View Page and the king of the patch so far on day 15 is "Kenny Powers" on the 1147 shenoha 2008 (1041 mckie x self that went 15.4% heavy). at 6 am this morning Kenny is sitting at the highest recorded 15 day circumference measurement ever to come from my patch. 63 inches. it has averaged 6.5 inches circ per day since day 10. it's a long way to go for Kenny, but today i have a smile in my eyes that i can feel right now as i type. goose bump smile. will kenny powers be the one...who the hell knows in this crazy hobby. if i can get April completely healed on the 873 and she continues to chug like she is doing, her and kenny will be neck to neck on the day 15 mark. and with clegg as the runt on the 991 growing 5.5 per day now...who knows...clegg ain't out of the race yet as it is still way early. and hey cub fans....how about dem guys from da sout side...da whitesox!!!!!!! those measurements listed today will be the last of the year until after the weigh offs. just pictures from here on out. go sox!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Monday, June 28 View Page well this picture doesn't look pretty, but it somewhat makes me feel better about what is going on around the stem and vine union of April on the 873. they are all just growth and expansion cracks. as long as i keep them dry, they should theoretically heal with time. grow, crack, butterfly a bit, and heal. they do not run deep. similar to a scar on a pumpkin, in time it gets bigger with growth. these growth cracks get wider on top as the area continues to grow and then heal and do not run deep enough to draw sap. the otherside is healing good and these on this side presented themselves inside where the old leaf was and next to it into the vine a bit. this union area is sometimes whitish or yellow between the vine and the leaf, vine and the tendril or the vine and the stem. it has cracked superficially before in these area when the stem gets massive and heal on their own if dry, but never had them this early. the rains and rampant growth has to be the reason cuz again their is no stress cuz the vine is blocked and as loose as can be. it will remain stabilized to let these cracks heal stress free and i will simply have to keep a close eye if sap does start flowing at any of the cracks to make sure to clean and captan them. the fan is running continuously and will remain so and the pumpkins are tarped with silver on the top and white underneath and they will stay up all season. no white sheets this year until the pumpkins grow larger. when they do get bigger, i will raise the tarps up higher to keep the pumpkins dry and still have good airflow around them and the surrounding leaves. the sheets will be used along with the tarps to protect the sides from early morning sun and later in the day cuz the tarps will be pitched up higher in the air as they get big and i need to work around them. Monday, June 28 View Page this pic might be a repeat as i am not sure if it went through earlier. these are my pear gourds, green and white speckled long neck swan gourds (somethinge like that...they looked cool int the pic and another gourd i forgot what they where. shits and giggles plants to grow on my 6' fence in full sun behind the solarium next to the deck. i got free seeds and whatever sprouted sprouted and they were never thinned out. not sure how many plants or which ones are which, but some little females are giving me a hint at which are which by the shape. just got caught up on vine burying and am taking a break before going out to spray quadris/demand cs (same as warrior) on my monday weekly spray schedule. last week was quilt/demand cs but rains came 4 hours after spray. a couple small leaves got chemically burnt last week so i took that as a sign that the spray dried enough to get me through the week. today i saw my first svb. i am sure they have been around, but i haven't seen one or a cuke beetle since starting spraying 3 weeks. been 6 weeks since last merit drench and that will happen tomorrow now that i have personally seen the enemy. tomatoes and gourds will get sprayed too as i do not plan on eating either. saving the giant tomato seeds for treetop and strong disease control is necessary so pm doesn't start on tomatoes and shift to nearby pumpkn plants. got the white comforters out for tomorrow night since it is going down to low 50s and high 40s the next 3 nights and want to keep as much heat in the pumpkins all night to slowly let them cool down all night long to avoid splits. 35 pounds of rti pumpkin pro down, and 5 pounds left for vine burying this week. and then no more vine buring as the patch will be full. nice. Tuesday, June 29 View Page yea yea...that was my last measurement posted. well i figured i needed to give April her props and at least give her the 15 day mark circ measurement like i did with Kenny and Clegg. 61" this morning at 5:30 am. she is a chugger like Kenny. comforters will go on tonight as there is already a nip in the air this morning at 60 degrees and the girls been used to 70 degree nights for the past 15 days. the lower 50s are predicted. i had 2 old sweat shirts over kenny last night cuz i could only find 2 white sheets and i like to cover my pumpkins when i stihl fog like i did last night. i felt the exterior temp of kenny and was warmer to the touch than the other 2 with just sheets on them. the pumpkins are big enough now to retain heat over night with the mass size and i will use this mass to their advantage by trapping in their heat and using the heat of the ground with a thick comforter drapped over the pumpkins and surrounding soil. i like j.d.'s quote recently in his diary about having to adapt. that is the name of the game for sure and knowing when to adapt is the key. adapting after the fact can be too late. foresight from previous years experience and current weather patterns will lead one to adapt prior to the changes. trying to stay one step ahead and adapting as you go is critical for success. i enjoy following j.d.s diary every year and decided after reading it last night that the hell with keeping my cards close to the vest. i am gonna post my 10 day measurements along with pics like i always do for my own easily accessible records and also just to post for those following a persons pumkins throughout the season. it is what it is anyways, and like i learned last year, ott doesn't mean diddly when they hit the scale and can go way heavier or way lighter than you expect. Tuesday, June 29 View Page this post is for tundra dan. trinka was standing with my client on our job site and watched me walking out of Bed Bath and Beyond with 3 jumbo king size white comforters with space age moisture dispersing properties....gets rid of your sweat while you sleep and stays dry somehow...king size comforters. they shook their heads and said...pumpkins? i said you know it. they are my babies and are getting the royal treatment. 49 degrees the next 2 nites and low 50s the 2 after that. i have the comforters over the pumpkins and spread out flush to the ground retaining as much gound heat temps too. these comforters are better then on my bed. lol. like 4" thick. the white will come in handy on cold days in september to reflect the sun but still keep temps as consistent as possible all day long within the pumpkin and near outer flesh external temps for reduced chances of splitting. Thursday, July 1 View Page this sucks. i found this today on the 1147 under a buried section of main. on a nice cool morning i decided to get caught up on some weeding. my union is on stirke and all of chicago's operators and laborers went on strike together today so i have the whole day and week to play in the patch until the strike gets resolved. while weeding along the main of the 1147 i uncovered a section that had more dirt still on it then i like and uncovered it to find girdled section of main vine that is somewhat soft about 2 feet in front of the pumpkin between the pumpkin and the stump. it does not look good. i have put some captan on it but i think it is too late as this section sat in saturated soil too long for the past 2 weeks of rain. the pumpkin slowed down a bit the past 2 days and i attributed it to the cooler nights and days. the pumpkin is still sittling at 82.5" circ today on day 19, but i have to think that this narrow section of vine that is already somewhat soft to the touch is definately trouble for long term growth and poundage. very disappointing. both other mains are fine after checking for any others still buried and uncovering any dirt still on the mains. but this is definately a bummer. there is plenty of plant behid the pumpkin to help it grow all season, but looking at the massive vine and stump that will probably go mostly un-used for a heavy juice flow blows. i am covering the area with a small table and putting a fan on it, but it looks a little late. better news is that the 991 is chugging nicely still and the 873 stem cracking has stopped so all is not lost. 2 chances at glory still and Kenny on the 1147 will be grown with full effort for one of the other weigh offs, but i do not expect any new personal bests with this one after discovering this girdled soft section of the main. doh!!!!! Thursday, July 1 View Page dropped down all mister heads today and attached the low volume sprinkler heads. nice even coverage under the canopy. also added stake extensiond to the tomato poles. the plants will now go up to 10' tall before terminated. i have at least one small tomato on each plant and 2 fused double bloom tomatoes on the 5.58 timm x self. the rest are all single blooms. hoping for some megablooms on the top 3 to 4 more feet as all plants are 6 to 7 feet tall now. i have been choosing the best shaped single tomato on the thickest stem branches of the cluster and limiting to only one per cluster. i will let 3 or 4 of the tomatoes that win the cluster spots compete and see which ones get culled and which are keepers. with plants this big, i will let at least 2 stay on per plant the enire way unless i see a megabloom or a giant that will get the whole plant to itself. got a picture of a problem on my main vine before kenny on the 1147 that has not been approved and posted yet. weird small narrow section of vine on the main that was buried and discoverd today to be soft and skinny about 3' in front of kenny. it is enough frustration that i took it out with busy work setting up the low volume sprinkler heads and weeding and adding the extension stakes to the tomato poles. i also drenched seaweed, humic, and merit today and now i am off to bobby's to drown the sorrow of the 1147 main vine discovery today. this hobby is crazy. everyday a plant or pumpkin rotates to which is the best plant with most promise. i got a dumb smile on my face after the realization that it is what it is. control what i can, and try my hardest and let the chips fall where they may. once the picture and and diary entry are approved, you will know what i mean. Friday, July 2 View Page kenny on the 1147 is on the decline hard. 1.5" circ since yesterday means it is still slowly getting some juices from behind the pumpkin, but not much from the established kick ass section in front of it. i will keep it for a halloween pumpkins and let some other pop tert pumpkins set to give away in october. every year one of the plants turns into a halloween pumpkin plant. i thought this was the year i finally got 3 big'ns competing all season. and so much for the largest 15 day measurement pumpkin. kenny powers has lost its power. it is 84-52-53=189 ott on day 20 and estimated 153 lbs. it went from a 10 to 15 day average of 6.5 inches circ per day down to 4.2" per day and only grew 1.5" circ total yesterday so is pretty much toast. better news is April on the 873 is 76.5-52-52=180.5 ott or 135 lbs on day 18. and pulling up the rear is clegg on the 991 that is making a strong push as of late gaining an average of 5.9" circ over the past 5 cooler days and is 78-53-48=179 ott or 132 lbs on day 20. still got 2 good growing pumpkins which is par for the coarse for year in and year out with one plant taking a crap on me. i will take some pics later on. my attitude was ajusted nicely yesterday at bobby's and it is time to nap while we are on strike today and patch work will be done tonight when the sun is lower in the sky. Friday, July 2 View Page adapt. what else can you do. after seeing that kenny only grew 1.5" inches circ yesterday and also that the entire half of the plant after the girdled and half rotted main vine is wilting bad in the heat due to the pumpkin now taking in all the juices from those barely established root systems and the smaller leaves, i decided to act now. whack!!!!! i cut every secondary from the wounded vine back to the stump, 5' from the main on each side. this opened up room for 4 secondaries i will curl into the area established on one side of the plant and 3 small slowly developing secondaries on the other side will also curl around and fill the space. and from those i wil let teritaries also fill the gaops. if the main completely rots in that section, the rest of the 5' on each side left in will also get whacked for more curled around secondaries and their teritiaries. the ones on the main will continue to add a little through the bottlenecked main in the mean time that is no longer soft and has firmed up. but at this point it is less than an inch across the narrowest point. hells bells, when the plant throws you a curveball, throw one back. lol. the pumpkin will hopefully slowly grow still with time and when the rest of the patch is filled back in, hopefully i can salvage some late big steady gains and turn this tragedy into a comeback story...like kenny powers in the show. no wonder why i named this pumpkin after that jack ass character!!!!!!!!!!!! Friday, July 2 View Page shave and a hair cut....2 bits. this is the aftermath of my 1147 pruning to make room for the new reverse spider. both sides of the plant look like this. the explanation for why is in the previous post. you can see the flagging in the windless hot bright sun as the plant is sucking the hell out of the less established root system trying to keep up. the leaves were misted all day and are rebounded nicely after this pic. those secondaries remaining secondaries will curl all the way towards the main and most likely that inner portion of left on plant will come out too based on the condition of the damaged main vine. best thing was this pumpkin was set at only 12.5 feet so i have a lot of plant behind the pumpkn and with new vine training i will now have plenty of plant eventually on the front half with all vines leading to the healthy side of the plant and it will have a reverse sink. gonna be interesting to see what happens. this is like a clone with a pumpkin at the stump. what the hell...anything to salvage maximum possible growth. i ain't giving up yet on Kenny. Friday, July 2 View Page here is kenny on the 1147 on day 20. droopy leaves on the backside and all. you can do it kenny...just keep growing and i will get you some more plant in no time. Friday, July 2 View Page clegg on the 991 looks like a big yellow egg on day 20. Friday, July 2 View Page and here is good girl April on day 18 all healed up with here minor stem cracking early on and doing her thing on the 873 naylor 2009 plant. Friday, July 2 View Page the plant told me what to do. it said chop off the remaining plant now. the rotten area went completely soft and shriveled inward. the remainder of the plant i intially left on in front of the pumpkin was removed. seven secondaries will be retrained with the use of some tertiaries too to fill in the gap. the pumpkin grew an inch circ in about 10 hours so it is still growing. if i can keep it growing while the patch and root system catches up, maybe this plant has a chance to produce 4 digits. that is my goal with this recent turn of events to salvage what i can and experiment to see what can possibly be accomplished for myself and others out there who run into this again in the future. i put down a liberal amount of neptunes seeweed and fish, agro k 9-18-9, and humic acid as a drench on the remaining root system. all male flowers have been removed, and the tarp was removed off the pumpkin and it will get just a white sheet so the leaves around the pumpkin can get full sun all day. in the picture i blanketed this pumpkin with a white comforter and will do so for any night with this pumpkin that goes below 65. this is an experiment and i need to push as hard as i can with the limited plant at the time being to try to keep the pumpkin producing at least 2 inches per day that would put it around 104" circ on day 30 and maybe with enough leaves by then i can maitain that pace for a while and get a long slow steady grower. i put up the rain tower sprinkler to cool the plants off during the heat on a timer basis now that the low volume sprinkler heads have been attached. this set back has me diggin in my heals and fighting back to salvage the best of an f'd up situation. Saturday, July 3 View Page warmer temps are back now at night and hopefully with the heat comes some faster secondary vine growth for the 1147 to work itself into the removed front of the plant. i looked back at the photo i took of the plant yesterday morning when i did the intial shave on it leaving in 5 feet of secondaries along the main. you can see how massive the stump was already under the white table and the main vine looking like a boa constricter winding through the patch. the plant had some real potential. que sera sera, what ever will be will be. after removing the plant i dissected the section and have decided to send it to a lab to see what the culprit was that made it girdle, rot and shrink. this might be an important find because when i dissected the troubled area in half, white foam bubbled and oozed out. this was my first experience with a foaming section of plant whether it be a stump or a vine. i will post this pic in the message board to see if others can identify it as well. i cut off 6 more inches of vine all the way to the next healthy secondary union leaving that good secondary on in front of the pumpkin incase the rot was leading to the rest of the plant and put quilt fungicide directly on the cut with the fan still on it. the pumpkin grew 2 inches circ. yesterday in warmer temps and that is up from the 1.5 the day before. i took off its blanket from last night and will let it warm up in the sun this morning before covering it with a sheet. 70 degree night time temps for the next week might help it stay the course and do something decent. if i can get anything on it at all of decent size, i am considering taking it to an early weigh off to meet other growers and have fun with it still. morton is not too far away and they paid 41 cents per pound last year for the winning pumpkin that was 895 lbs. that is my new goal with kenny. always wanted to see some pumpkin' chunkin' too and it it might be a fun thing for me and the bobby's crew to do if it works out. Saturday, July 3 View Page and here is this mornings pic pf the 1147 plant out of my house window. these smaller secondaries in the front of the picture are being curled around now. i removed the ribbon vine secondary half way through and let a teritary become its new tip. that is the smallest one to the right. the others then were trained backwards so they had more room to grow and that is why those were not terminated thankfully yet. the backside has 3 nice strong secondaries still growing that are wrapping around where the pumpkin is. i will train one of them them over and through a gap in the leaves that one secondary on the backside to the right that was the last secondary right before the pumpkin. also the strongest tertiaries are being left on the plant to make more leaves. with the pumpkin taking most of the growth juices, it will be some time before the spot is completely filled back in, but it will get there eventually. i will not give up on kenny...the plant and pumpkin deserve all i can give them with the amount of effort put into the plant so far. no quit here on kenny or any plant in the land of shaz. Saturday, July 3 View Page and i had to get a pic of my crazy dog Oreo as she stands up and barks and growls and snaps at the water every time the sprinkler comes around. the sprinkler is being used as a mister on a timer to cover the whole patch with some relief today on this hot clear bright day. i am extremely statisfied by the even coverage under the canopy of the low volume sprinkler heads. they work great. Oreo has me laughing today as she never tires of watcing and waiting for the sprinkler stream to make it back around and go crazy every time. she is a freak like her owner and as you can tell she eats good like her owner too. lol. Saturday, July 3 View Page and her is Oreo sitting with her ripped up monkey next to a pile of vines from the 1147 that will get thrown away in bobby's tap dumpster. she looks so innocent in this picture. tell that to every animal including that squirrel this year that she has presented to me by the door over the years that looked in the same shape as her blue monkey. patch work is done for the day and time to have some cold ones and forget about the pumpkins for an afternoon. ya right!!!! Sunday, July 4 View Page April on the 873 naylor 2009 is 88" circ. on day 20.4 days as it is now 2:30 pm. averaging about 5" per day. same for clegg about 5" circ per day still. and half plant kenny is at 88" circ but still slowly growing at barely 2" per day. with this heat i will have the second half of the plant filled back in with mature leaves in 3 weeks or so. i have maybe a half pound of myc left and will drop a little at each node sparingly and try to make sure all new taps get a at least a small dose. hoping fresh leaves will last long into the season and provide long slow steady growth for the Morton weigh off in mid september. if i can get one about 700 lbs estimate and it goes heavy, who knows. the plant is really flagging bad today in the heat and wind, but it is getting cooled off with the rain tower sprinkler going off once per hour keeping all the plants producing in the heat. no flagging at all on the 873 or 991 accept on some newly terminated secondaries at the ends with small new leaves and they are getting cooled off too. time to go throw some bags,light off some fireworks and have a few cold ones. Tuesday, July 6 View Page took some ott measurements this morning after waiting 4 days to see how the 2 big'ns left are doing. the heat has them chugging again and they both are doing pretty good for this early on. "April" on the 873 naylor 2009 on day 22 put on 102 lbs in 4 days averaging 25.5 lbs per day and is 98-62-61 = 221" ott or 237 lbs. it jumped from 5" to about 6" circ per day the last 2 in in the heat. been using the under canopy watering system running in the a.m and the over head rain tower cooling and watering the plants on a timed basis all day until about 5 pm in this hot dry windy scorching temps. "Clegg" on the 991 averaged 5.75" circ per day the past 4 days and is sitting at 101-64-59 = 224" ott and estimated at 246 lbs on day 24 and averaged 28.5 lbs per day the last 4 days. kenny didn't get any measurements today as the plant is having a hard time in this heat without the established root system of the stump and 11' of main and secondaries that got whacked. i finally got the realization at how slow the secondaries are growing as the plant and pumpkin push the remaining plant to the max that this one will just be a halloweeny for a friend at this rate. it is ok and i am already over it completely by now. i will continue to train the slow growing secondaries and to spray the plant the same and keep it healthy so not to spread diseases to the other 2. maybe i can salvage 500 to 600 pounds for a good carver. Tuesday, July 6 View Page said what the hell and i put the tape to Kenny too this morning. it gained 39 lbs in 4 days and is sitting at 192 lbs. now if i can keep it growing about 10 pounds per day for the next 80 days i will make it to 1000 lbs estimate. lol. not!!!!! poor poor kenny. lol. but how can i really complain when i have 2 of 3 plants with chuggin pumpkins. i just did the last backwards sliding of the 2 good growing pumpkins with loose mains to get the final bit of clearance possible down the road between vine and pumpkin. with both of them around 240 lbs, it ain't the easiest thing to do wrestling them babies. a little twist and turn while pullin and more clearance was made. then i checked final vine tension and blocked the mains again with styrofome. it was now or never. nerve wracking every year no matter how many times you do it. last year i had to cut off the back half of the main after the pumpkin late in the game for stress clearance on the short stem 1185 plant. these 2 babies also have short stems and vine clearance will become somewhat of an issue for both down the road. their mains might both have to be blocked way up high and keep the curve of the main within the curve of the shoulders to avoid pressure. it's always something to keep making it interesting. Tuesday, July 6 View Page a tomato hammock was put under the one keeper double fused tomato so far on the 5.58 timm x self plant. just took some wire and made a bunch of loops and then put that into a circle and tied surveyor's flagging ribbon across from side to side. then i tied the bottom ribbons together in the center and secured this hammock from 4 outer points of the circle to a center wire that was attached to the pole. sort of like a lifting ring made of plastic ribbon and wire that is wide enough to allow more growth room and totally support the tomato. now i have a nice easy lounge chair for it to sit in with no weight on the stem any more. the other double fused split early at the blossoms into the fruit and was culled and i have one more very small double fused one at about 6' and still letting the plant flower. gonna cull all to this one in the pic soon if all goes well or maybe keep 2 at the most on an eventual 10 foot plant that is about 7' tall now. i have grown bigger tomatoes not trying, but this is the best i got so far going just for mega blooms or one or 2 big ones on a plant that has no suckers and is going to grow 10' tall. the 2 keeper single bloom tomatoes were getting nice size on the gordon craham plant but they got blossom end rotting. black ends showing up. i have had tomatoes where only one variety did this while the others were fine. hoping its and isolated plant thing. got one other small megabloom with 2 fused females on either the brutus magnus and the other palnts just have one or 2 of the best shaped single blooms per cluster growing while waiting for a mega bloom to show on those plants. Wednesday, July 7 View Page hey Meat....this bud is for you!!!! here are some updated pics of you girl April on my 873 Naylor 2009 plant. high heat has them going crazy early on. glad i watered thoroughly yesterday so the saturated ground could hold the shock of a good nalf inch or more of rain that hasn't been around in a while. yesterdays measurements posted in the diary were at 7 am. todays were taken at exactly 9 am. this pumkin grew approximately 38 pounds in 26 hours. it is sitting at 104 65 64 = 233 or estimate of 275 lbs on day 23. good lord Meat. now it is quicklky sitting its fat ass down to the ground and getting the tilt shape early which makes it harder to measure circ. i measured from the hump on the blossom end to below the stem parallel to the ground. right under the stem is 103" circ and that is a tilt upward in circ and not parallel. at parellel it is 104" circ and at the blossom side hump at downward angle to the widest point below the stem is 106" circ which is tilted below parallel. these pumpkins that grow blossom down are harder to measure, but from what i have read, parallel is the key, so that is what i went by. and the over the top and side to side measurements are not influenced at all by shape and each of those grew 3" in measurement since yesterday at 7 am, so i feel good about the measurements, but nervous as a nelly. got some minor weeping and small surface cracking on the stem side on the rib lines. nothing serious, all superficial stretch marks, but a sign this thing is pushing its limits. i am hanging on tight for the ride over the next 20-30 days Meat, and i will show updated pics every 5 days brother. Wednesday, July 7 View Page April day 23 stem shot Wednesday, July 7 View Page April day 23 ass shot. this girl is getting some big hips early on. nice. Wednesday, July 7 View Page and this is Clegg on the 991 Urena this morning at 9 am which means it also grew exactly 38 lbs est. in 26 hours. lol. silly. Clegg says he wishes his best bud kenny powers was along for the ride cuz kenny was the fastest grower of them all on day 15 and was 63" circ. too bad for kenny, but pretty cool for Clegg and April as these 2 hopefully will hold tight and give me a fun race all season. Clegg is also showing some minor superficial surface cracking at rib lines on the stem side. not hard to believe as this one is pushing its limits early on too. Clegg's 25 day measurements were 106.5 66.5 62.5 = 235.5 ott or 284 lbs at 9 am this morning. Clegg is easy to measure with its egg like shape. go Clegg go. here is a low ass end shot of Clegg. Wednesday, July 7 View Page side view of Clegg on the 991 Urena on day 25 at 9 am Wednesday, July 7 View Page and here is the side view angle of Clegg like the other pics from early on to compare growth rate sizes from pic to pic. the plants look great and the leaves on the ends are huge and all male flowers are off both plants. weeds are staying below the canopy and any i see going to seed gets cut off with a knife at ground level. it is too hot and too wet from keeping plants cool and rain overnight that the weeding has switched from pulling them to maintaing them without trampling around and disturbing and pulling up my root system. i feel the small under the canopy weeds if not crazy thick help buffer some of the water usage and help keep the soil cooler in the heat. besides that my fat ass in tightly stacked secondaries ends up doing more damage to leaves than anything. time to stay out of the interior except to prune pop up terts, prune dead leaves and apply captan and to inspect the main vines. the co2 will now be incorporated in my fungicide/insecticide/fulvic acid cocktail on a weekly basis. i will go 1 tsp per gallon if hotter out and 2 tsp per gallon if in lower 80s. with over 95% of fully mature leaves in the patch, i felt now is the time for the co2 especially with the benefits of hotter temp protection, powdery mildew preventing qualities, and added calcium to the plant. these are all things needed most in july, august, and september. Thursday, July 8 View Page i will hold off on the co2 until this weekend. from the good advice from people here on bp.com, i will not mix it in my cocktail at 1 tsp per gallon. i will spray it by itself with a drop or 2 of dish soap for surfactant about every 10 days from hear on out starting this weekend. tonight the heat has broke and spraying is going on the 10th night since a heavy dose of quadris and demand cs was put on. i have waited til the heat broke so i can give them another heavy dose tonight. temps were still at 90 at twilight the past 3 nights and last night it rained like a son of a bitch so tonight i will do like i did 10 days ago. i spray 4 gallons of combo mix with the stihl fogger on small droplets concentrating under the leaves dropping the fogger head below the canopy and hitting every main vine thoroughly and secondaries too and under sides of leaves. that is 4 gallons to cover 3 plants. then i mix up 4 more gallons and do the big over the top blast from the perimeter with more throttle. i use enough force with the throttle to sort of blow the leaf bottoms over a bit to expose the bottom sides of leaves too and use the 4 gallons of mix for all three plants. 10 days is not pushing it with this kind of coverage, but this is the perfect condtions for disease so i will never go more than 7 days again here on out. i think i made a good decision though by not coating the leaves that had to deal with that dry hot pounding wind and still temps at 90 at twilight. 3 days off schedule will be tolerated this time, but next time if it is hot again i will just lower the doses and increase frequency to every 5 days. Thursday, July 8 View Page kenny powers is no more. it has been cut and rolled out of the area and mill fabric removed. i am treating this plant as a late season stoughton plant that is now similar to a clone. all the energy from a 220 lb cull will now go into the strongest secondary that already has a long female in the cluster. 15 days makes at july 23rd pollination. by then without the culled sink and summer heat, i should be able to get more than i could weith a stunted growth pumpkin. thnking realistic and it was fun rolling the 200 something pounder out of the patch. new life for the 1147 and it is now like a plant that had a late start. the strong secondary with the female will now be the new main on this clone. lol. what the hell right. stoughton or bust. Friday, July 9 View Page and kenny powers has ended his career and life as a pumpkin. it was a fun ride early on kenny and you brought me a lot of joy and disappointment. but you had to get the whack. the plant kicked out a foot of growth since last night on the good secondaries i have circling around to fill the gap. the 2 strongest secondaries have females. one is in plain site and should be about 10 days making a pollination around july 19th. the othe which is one i would consider training as new main and let the terts become secondaries is in the cluster and should be in 2 weeks or so about july 23rd. if the second one takes, it should be the keeper and will have 78 days before needed to be loaded for stoughton. the plant is a lot less stressed since i took the juices from slow growing kenny out of the mix. at this rate, this half clone of a plant will have a full 700 sq ft of which 400 sq ft will be new leaves that will hopefully look good all the way to october. this was the only way to possibly have a decent pumpkin on the plant. and i am committed to do what is ever needed to get something of size for the show. anything over 600 lbs will make me extactic. if i can get a 800 ott go 20% heavy...who knows. but i will do my best. i got tables shading the 2 females and clusters. i will be only getting these 2 shots for an ideal window of time still, so these girls will get a fan throughout development soon and also frozen bottles and fans at pollination and the fan remaining on til 5 days after set in the upcoming heat wave and reamin shaded continuously. by the time the pollinations occur, the rest of the gap might be closed to be filled in with this heat. i am treating it as a "late-clone-plant-experiment-with-a reverse-spider-on-the-strongest-secondary-turned-into-a-new main" pattern. you think that title is long, you should see the small female blossoms. lol. Friday, July 9 View Page here is a pic of tomato row with all plants 8-9 feet except the brutus magnus which slipped dowm the pole a bit with weight but no cracking of the stalk, (similar to a spring) is at 7' tall. i had to remaove 2 gordon graham keepers of the cluster that were between 5 and 6 feet due to blossom rot. got one up higher on it and plenty of flowers at 8 to 9 feet. tomato plants are getting some daconil tonight. i have a small one of a solid keeper of a cluster on each plant and just found a mega bloom double fused at 7' on big zac #2 and another megabloom double fused on the 5.58 at 7'. gonna add more extensions and then stabilize all the top poles with wire to the fence. what the hell, i will put an aluminum ladder back in the corner at see what these things can do height wise. the stlak on big zac# is garden hose size at 6 feet in the air so i am hoping to get a keeper on it that doesn't split early or get some blossom end rot. with it on 2 plants, the daconil will go on the heavy side tonight and i will drench calcium around the plants and foliar with some vcp 0-13-0 thrown in with the daconil. and hopefully stop the blackened blossoms from showing up again. Friday, July 9 View Page not the best pic but here is a mega bloom double fused flower on the big zac #2 plant at 7' and will be the only tomato on an 8' and climbing plant if it takes. that would be sweet. Friday, July 9 View Page brutus magnus tomato at 13.75" this afternoon. single regular bloom at about 4.5 feet. it is the only one on while waiting for a megabloom. i have big fat hands so this pic is not doing it justice. lol. its a nice one so far. Friday, July 9 View Page and here is a different view than the bobby's tap smiley faced golf ball from the other day. this is the 5.58 timm x self plant's double female megabloom sitting in its surveying ribbon and galvanized wire looped hammock. it is 14" around on the one tomato itself lower in the pic and 14" around from the smaller fused tomato's blossom end to the other lower tomato's blossom end and is still growing nicely. starting to go a greenish-yellow so not sure how big they get from that stage on. it will be fun to see what happens. and the other megabloom above it on this plant is at 7' so maybe 2 freak mommas on this one, one early and one later for a weigh off later in august if it works out. gonna try to get a couple plants to flower at about 12'-14' tall for the Monsters of the Midway Weigh Off. hopefully i will see some mega blooms in those clusters in that range. Friday, July 9 View Page figured i would take this beautiful pic of my combo gourd patch. pear gourds and long necked swan gourds inter mixed. cool to see them open their flowers late at night like this. tomatoes and gourds got daconil and vcp 0-13-0 as they continue their flowering and fruit setting. drenches tomorrow of neptunes seaweed fish, vigor calcium phosp. 0-13-0, and humic acid for all pumpkins, tomatoes, and gourds in the morning. Saturday, July 10 View Page April on the 873 naylor 2009 at 9 am this morning is 255.5 ott or est. of 359 lbs on day 26 and averaged 28 pounds per day over the last 3. Clegg on the 991 urena is chugging at 35 lbs per day the past 3 days and is 262.5 ott or 388 lbs on day 28. tomorrow night starts the co2 program and tuesday will be the 3-18-18 with tko. also ordered some 0-0-25 to be started lightly in 2 weeks or so. gave them all a nice cocktail drench this am after 90 minutes of underwatering sprinkling. drench of neptunes seaweed and fish, humic acid, and vigor cal phosphate 0-13-0. just 4 gallons of mix total down the side areas around the main vines and stump for each plant. the mater and gourds got it to and all pruning of terts is done for the day. gonna set the timer for some afternoon cool down of leaves on a timed basis and cool myself down and get ready with some practice for my summer league of darts starting this tuesday, which reminds me, i will hit with 3-18-18 on wednesday not tuesday. Sunday, July 11 View Page the extensions have been added to the tomato poles. 14' is it unless i decide to get more creative. i have all five 14' poles tied off to each other and to the fence for stability. just saw a lady look up and see my shirtless sweaty fat ass standing on a ladder looking closely at my big zac blossoms at 9'. she had the look of disgust while i had the look of joy. lol. i found double fused megabloom at 9 feet open today and had to give her a shake on a windless day....the flower that is not the lady. lol. to see a 270 lb shirtless man in shorts all sweaty and hair sticking straight up standing on a ladder above the six feet perimeter fence looking like he is sniffing a flower on a 10 foot plant as i was trying to get a close look...yep that sight might make it to the dinner table convo this evening. lol. also found what looks to be a triple segment megabloom at 6' on the 5.58 timm x self. sad news is the gordon grahams keep splitting very early on and have a shiney darkening color near the blossom that goes straight black eventually. had to pick the only one left today and hopefully the daconil and calcium will control the disease or calcium deficiency which ever is causing the blackening. the plants have been hit with quadris daconil and quilt at different times so not sure what is causing the blackened rot on that tomatoes and had one on the big zac number 1 the same way. the rest look fine. getting excited about the 1147 recovery and recent vigor since removing the pumpkin. vines are thickening up nice and leaves getting respectable size. in 10 or so days their will be plenty of new plant also help to support a female to grow of semi-respectable size. this will be an interesting fall plant and it is fun having to train vines again. Monday, July 12 View Page here is clegg on day 30 on the 991 urena. losing vine clearance day by day and actually put some muscle on the back right side and spun the pumpkin to the left a bit for equal clearance on both sides. i do not have a whole hell of a lot behind the pumpkin for plant wise. two 15 foot secondaries on the one side and 6 angled back secondaries on the other side. there is 14' of 17' long secondaries on each side in front of the pumpkin. if i lose the battle of clearance if i feel stem stress is an issure. i may have to do like last year with the 1125 shenoha and cut behind the pumpkin and spin this girl a bit with a strap and some friends to get the vine coming more into the pumpkin where no shoulder can push on the main. very short stem when i compare to last years 1385 pics and the stem is coming more off the top of the vine and curled over than from the side of the main. sliding the pumpkin back will not create more room at this point i am going to put some thicker blocks of styrofome in now to start slowly letting the pumpkin push the vine out. and then when i feel the stress is too great, remove those and put in some thinner sponge foam to keep the vine off the flesh as it pushes out in the mean time. big heavy rains yesterday, but i had the ground nicely saturated with some heavier under the canopy sprinkling for 2 hours yesterday in preparation for the rains. yesterday was slightly cloudy and hazy all day and the leaves did not need to be cooled down at all. on hot sunny days i only run the under canopy system 1 hour and then water at least 2 hours during the day on hot sunny high 80s or 90s temps on timed 15 minute intervals between 10 am and 4:30 pm with my 6' rain tower sprinkler in the center of the patch. clegg on day 30 this morning at 8 am is 128.5 78.5 73 = 280 ott or 467 lbs and has jumped up to 39.5 pounds per day average the last 2 in a row. Monday, July 12 View Page a hazy morning ass shot of clegg on day 30. Monday, July 12 View Page and here is a side view of clegg on day 30. looks like i might be putting both the 991s in the freezer in the shazzydome next year if i can get them to germinate. beauty of a plant and nice pumpkin to this date. a longer stem would be nice, but i will figure out how to deal with it the best i can all season. April on the 873 Naylor 2009 will be measured and pics taken in 2 days when it hits day 30. Monday, July 12 View Page here is a pic showing the main vine blocking i have around Clegg's main vine at the stem area on the 991 urera. at this point i have 1" styrofome between the vine and the pumpkin on day 30 and that gap has been closing steadily. with a lot of play in the vine, the pumpkin will slowly push the loose vine over till it becomes taught. at that point i will replace the 1" stryofome pieces with thinner spongy foam. the stacked blocks supporting the main has it nice and loose and out of the way of the lower quarter shoulders that will become blobby and fat as this thing grows. this is the best i have felt about it in the past 2 days. i am just trying to prepare for what could possibly be 500 pounds of growth in the next 15 days Tuesday, July 13 View Page how much dissappointment can one plant bring me is the question. yesterday i pulled off 2 females on smaller secondaries on the 1147 at or near the tip cuz i had 2 stronger secondaries with females i was going to try. both stronger secondaries grew straight up over night and blew out on their own. identical blow outs snapped. the plant was getting harder and harder to train these cobra like secondaries standing up like and 's' as the plant has just got its strength back with a better established root system. i staked them down last night but they have been becoming more and more rigid as the vine thickness is increasing and catching up to the tips. more rain this morning on ground so maybe a storm with some wind came by, who knows. or just blow outs, and right before the females getting bigger each day and ready to pollinate next week. the plant just told me to relax and wait. it needs more plant it just told me. lol. i will now pick the remaining strongest secondary as a new main to fill the remaining gap and have at least 3 side vines on each side of considerable length located near the pumpkin off that vine. almost threw in the chips this morning on this plant, but i am callous to it by now and will just have to wait another 2 weeks for the female in the cluster develope. maybe the heat wave that is up coming told the plant to grow more leaves cuz them females ain't taking anyway in that 95 degree heat in a week. lol. yep. this plants is making me nuts. lol. 2 more weeks would make a july 27th pollination giving me 74 days to stoughton, which is plenty. took the tape to April on the 873 naylor pumpkin to help ease the pain. this girl has found a nice steady pattern and hit 30 lbs per day the past 3 and is estimated at 448 lbs on day 29. 127-75-74 = 276 ott. i am hoping with 2 parents that both produced 24% heavy pumpkins that this girl is chugging its inside wall thickness in the process of doing its thing. Tuesday, July 13 View Page i have had to deal with a small split running with the vine at a secondary union on my 991 plant about 2' from the stump. it has remained covered and dry and a fan on it but keeps butterflying open slowly with time as the main grows larger in that area. sometimes it weeps as it splits. there has been a fan on it has been addressed with captan for over a month. i just got done cleaning it this morning and checked later to dab up a few juices that usually come after a cleaning and reapplication of captan. after removing some juices i realized the split barely made it into the hollow chamber and the juices are dripping into the hollowed out area. not good. so i took my pocket knife and cut a small hole into the chamber underneath this area where the lowest point of the main is right there for drainage. captan reapplied and the fan and sun are drying it out. the liquid that came out the bottom was clear with no browning color at all. there is no rot at the split and hopefully it will just put a minor dent in the stump flow. only about a teaspoon of clear liquid came running out the bottom hole which wasn't too bad. need to keep it clean and stopping rot on and in the main. i can't find any browning yet or softening of the main anywhere around or near it so hopefully i put in the exit drainage hole for any juices building up in the healing process internally just in the nick of time. the flesh from the small hole i made on the bottom was healthy which is good. it is always something but i think if i can keep it from rotting and still chugging for the next 20 days or more i will still have a chance at some very big numbers even if i do lose the stump. i would lose only one secondary on each side and the stump if it rots. the split was there before the pumpkin even set, so the split to this point hasn't impacted growth since the pumpkin set. getting pretty good at dealing with the headaches now. lol. i will take a pic soon. Wednesday, July 14 View Page here is April on the 873 naylor 2009 (1147 shenoha 2008 x 1119 mcmullen) at 4 pm on day 30 at 282.5 ott and estimated at 480 lbs. Wednesday, July 14 View Page side view of April on day 30. Wednesday, July 14 View Page April on day 30 stem side. tonight i will drench the 873 and 991 with 3-18-18, calcium, humic acid, and neptunes. these 2 plants will get this cocktail drench every 4 days with just two 2 gallon watering cans applied to each plant around the stumps and along the sides of the main vines. co2 was sprayed over the weekend with 9-18-9. the next 2 weekly foliar feeding will be on sunday with co2 and 3-18-18 starting on aug. 1st i will beging the 0-25-25 foliar with co2. the first drench with 0-25-25 will be in 2 weeks when the pumpkins are on days 44 and 46. my insecticide, fugicide, fulvic acid will be on sundays. gonna be some hot hot temps for the next 10 days. watering has been at least one hour in the a.m depending on rain and at least 2 hours toatl during the day with the rain tower to cool the plants and soil at 10-20 minutes a time every hour depending which hour. 10 am and 11 am are 10 minutes, 12 and 1 are 15 minutes once per hour, and 2 3 and 4 pm get 20 minutes. this is on bright hot sunny days. cloudy days get less day watering and less frequent. the 1147 is just getting a neptunes and humic acid drench tonight and i will lay off heavier ferts until i get one or 2 set on secondaries. got 2 females on decent secondaries looking to open in a week or so. the plant is filling in more every day. still on my mind to get something on this plant at all bring to stoughton. Wednesday, July 14 View Page correction. that should have read will 0-0-25 foliar application will begin around august 1st very light in doses at first and increasing to full strength weekly mid august to finish. Thursday, July 15 View Page with the chicago operators and engineers strike still going on, i afeel like i am in retirement. louging around, strolling the patch, back to the air condition, back for a stroll through the patch and so on. the 1147 again grew a secondary straight up and all the terts becoming new secondaries are doing the same thing. i am down to one strong secondary now with a female on it as the other one did the cobra 's' over night and snapped itself right before the female laid down. i have the one female on the ground on the good secondary left and have it shaded and it will see a fan today until 5 days after pollination attempt. still trying as the plant fights me every day and has won up to this point the battle...but not the battles of wills. took the tape to Clegg on the 991 to see how the main vine by the stump issue is affecting it. so far, not so much which is nice. it looks to be firm and healing in the area. i opened the area with a knife more to be able to get into the cavity in the vine to remove any goo. i removed some wet captan paste, inside it to let more air flow into the vine with a strong breeze from the fan to help keep it dry. besides the finger width size hole in the side of the vine and the small drainage hole underneath it, it looks not too bad. over 3/4ths the width of the main in that spot is in tact and the stump and its roots are still being used as far as i can tell. no rot or heavy weeping at this point. need to keep it healthy in this heat wave as long as possible and have it covered so no rain or sprinkler gets close to hitting the affected area. the pumpkin averaged 36.5 pounds per day still the last 3 and is 139-84-78 and cleared the 300 ott mark sitting at 301" ott or 577 lbs estimate on day 33. Friday, July 16 View Page change of plans. tonight i will hit with quadris and 3-18-18 and fulvic acid combo. rotating quadris and quilt every 5 days with 4 gallons of mix under the leaves and 4 gallons of mix over the leaves with my stihl fogger. the heat is here and the humidity yesterday had the heat index at 115 degrees yesterday. 78 dewpoint. yikes. humidity is lower today and hot still so and i upped the water a bit to account for the breezy hot 91 degree low humidity day. but the humidity is back all week and then some with 8 of then next 10 days with high heat and humidity. good for pumpkin growth...but good for powdery mildew and other diseases too. this year i will need to keep the leaves as healthy all season long as possible with sets on june 12th and 14th if i have a chance to keep them growing 73 more days until milwaukee and 80 days til the Mosters of the Midway Weigh-Off at Bengston's Farm in Homer Glen sunday october 3rd. sundays will be the weekly demand cs spray comboed with lighter doses of co2 at 2 tsp per gallon each week with 4 gallons of mix below the leaf canopy and 4 gallons above all at medium to fine droplet setting. small drenches every 4 day of neptunes seweed and fish, humic acid, and light 3-18-18 will continue. by small i mean just two of my 2 gallon sprinkling cans of mix along the main and around stump area. my idea this year is to keep providing more p and k as they deplete it from the soil chugging over 30 lbs per day and to help sustain better growth from day 35 to 60 than i have seen in the past. i read in a study yesterday that nutrient and minerals that can be absorbed through leaf tissue can be found at the tip of every root hair within 60 minutes after application. that is silly. Friday, July 16 View Page sprayed tonight with demand also besides the other mix stated above for tonight. the co2 at 3 tsp per gallon and one drop of dish soap will be stihl fogged on sunday evening or monday evening to prepare to help fight the transpiration loss on the 95 degree temps forecasted for the middle of next week. got a fan and a small table on the female on the last remaining strong secondary of the 1147 looking to open in about 3 or 4 days, hopefully before the lower and mid 90s return tuesday or wednesday. ice bottles and the fans will be used. gonna be toasty at 93 tomorrow and the plants will get their hourly 10 minute sprinkle with the rain tower starting from 10 am to 5pm. the timer is set with the under canopy watering system for 90 minutes tomorrow am from 5 to 6:30am. main vine still holding and healing nicely on the 991 at that recently cleaned fissure near the stump and a secondary. weird looking at a hole the size of my pointer finger wide in my main on the side of the vine, but the little larger hole i created after removing minor rot and ooze in the fissure after realizing it went into the vine cavity has allowed me to dry the outised and inside of the wound at the same time. the pencil thick drain hole is healed underneath the fissure and no fluid has leaked out since the day that i created it. tables and tarps make sure it wil never get moisture besides dew and the fan will stay on it all year. Saturday, July 17 View Page it's official, clegg on the 991 loves the heat. the past 2 days it jumped back up to 4 inches circ growth per day and gained 89.5 estimated pounds. that is 44.5 pounds per day over the past 2. biggest single day gains ever in my patch. it is sitting at 147- 81ss- 88sb = 316 ott or an evil 666 lbs on day 35 this morning at 8 am. didn't i say it loves the heat. likes it hot as hell. lol. all healed up completely and dry on the main vine fissure and this jump means it is having little if any affect on growth. the pumpkin is a long shape that is now starting to round out more and get higher through the center top portion. very minor ribbing at this point makes me happy and no real changes in color. it is a speckled white and yellow mottled color with very smooth shiney skin. i will wait and get a picture in the sun on day 40. i know it is getting big when i had to get the duct tape out for circumference measurements. this is what it is all about. for now that is. lol. long way to go. Saturday, July 17 View Page this pic shows the rounding out across the upper back side. go clegg go. my 2011 line up is getting more certain every day. 2 991s in the freezer will go in the shazzydome if they both sprout next year for some sibbed crosses. this pumpkin is a selfed 991 urena. Sunday, July 18 View Page hoping for the best tomorrow morning on the 1147 female on the last strongest secondary. it is now over 25' long easy. got females on some tertiaries that will all be halloweenies if this one or the next down the line in a week or so on the secondary do not take. i have not weeded barely at all on the plant since trying to keep as many roots to get the plant re-established. the weeds get chopped off after getting above the leaf canopy, but not pulled to avoid loss of roots. not the prettiest looking spot in the patch right now but about 350 sq ft of plant and growing day by day in the heat. the fan has been on the female for over 3 days in the heat and the bottles of ice will come out immdedately and replaced all day as the strike is not over yet. i notice 4 male flowers today on the 991 that i missed when pruning off male flowers on the last secondaries established on the 991. these 4 will all open tomorrow. kinda freaky luck. hopefully it was meant to be to get a decent one still for stoughton on the 1147. if i can keep them powdery mildew free all season and it is a warm fall, this plant will have 700 sq ft of relatively new young leaves in the end to feed one if i can get it set in the heat. fingers crossed for this one. Monday, July 19 View Page April on the 873 naylor 2009 is 303 ott this morning or 588 pounds on day 35. the average has dropped to about 22 pounds per day. but this is consistant with my 1147 from 2 years ago. with the smooth exterior skin still and its parents both going 24% heavy, i expect this one to concentrate more with slow and steady gains as the inside walls are developing extra thick. the 1147 shot out of the blocks like a cannon but was a longer steadier grower than the 1446 werner plant that year and added pounds all season while the 1446 stopped a month short of the weigh off. this one is about 4 days ahead of the 1147 in growth. and this one is smooth as a baby's bottom just like the 24% mama last year. i think this one is gonna be a massive 1100 lb estimate rock in the end that could see 1250 to 1300 lbs. i just got done pollinating the 1147 with 4 991 males. take baby take so i can have a new third member of the family. the bottle of ice and fan are on it. alarm is set to change bottle at 9am and then another one at 11 or noon then the big daddy super size laundry bottle for around 2 to 5 pm. i watered thoroughly yesterday in the windy heat and will water more this afternoon to get the pumpkins ready for tonights possible 1 to 2 inches of rain. do not want any big surges from here on out. consistant surges yes, big surges no. Monday, July 19 View Page the 1147 pollinated today was a 4 lober for record. i have decided to try something a little different with the 873 plant. i am going to give it a 2/3s dose mix of 3-18-18 and 1/3 of 0-0-25 in a drench today. i will throw in a just little more k and slowly add a light dose of 0-0-25 foliar along with the 3-18-18 when i foliar feed in about 3 days for just the 873. then on about day 42 in a week i will give the plant half 3-18-18 and half 0-0-25 foliar and a week later and go 2/3s 0-0-25 and 1/3 3-18-18. this plant has about 2 less secondaries on each side than the 991 as i inadvertantly angled the first 2 secondaries rows on each side of the 991 back further than i realized at the time. i do not want to mature it early, but the 6 lb average slide in recent gains made me decide to push this one a little harder to nip the decline in the bud and try to keep sustained current growth without further decline in average daily gains as long as possible. my feeling is that if it is gettting as thick as i think in the inside, it should be able to handle a slight k push better than a thinned walled fruit. Monday, July 19 View Page just re-read my last 2 posts and saw an error in my judgement. with the possibilities of 1 to 2 inches of rain tonight, i will not be giving any of the plants anything at all today except enough water to avoid a surge from the rains tonight. just got done adding myc fungi around the 1147 leaf junctions. no burying vines on this 1147 since that main rot episode. all lower taps are encourage down with a little dirt if needed under the vine along with the myc fungi. i just want them tapped in from the bottom and if the top taps make it around on the 1147, so be it. i got a lot of females showing on trained tertiaries so if this one or the next one on this strong secondary don't take, i should have a nice bunch of white pumpkins to give away in october. the thickness of the main vine at the point where it was cut off 3 weeks ago is getting massive thick and the plant has kicked out a lot of growth in every direction over the past week. the plant is giving me a little more hope each day. if i can pull off a 1000 pound pumpkin from this plant after all it has put me through, i would consider it my greatest accomplishment to date since starting to grow AGs. Monday, July 19 View Page after replacing an ice bottle for the 1147 female i pollinated this morning, i decided to put a tape on Clegg on the 991. 80 lbs in 2.2 days means it hit about 38 lbs per day. sweet. 328.5 ott or 746 lbs on day 37 and 3 hours. i am hoping that this will be my half way point after the peak 44.5 lb day growths a few days ago. if i can double this size until october i will be a very happy man. Tuesday, July 20 View Page giving a shout out to my boy JT, jason traylor, for the motivational high five. kind words brother from a good man. i love the people you meet on this site. the brotherhood and sisterhood of pumpkin growers never ceases to amaze me. i guess it's the fact that were are all so nuts that we have to unite in our lunacy cuz no one else gets it. lol. for record sakes i drenched today with 1/3 of 0-0-25 to 2/3s mix of 3-18-18 along with calcium, and neptunes seaweed and fish. again only two 2 gallon cans per plant of the cocktail applied with my 6 foot tube and watering cans down the sides of the mains and stump areas of the 991 and 873 where the best roots are established. i like easing a plant into a change of ferts with a drench first to let it slowly absorb and become more plentiful in the plant before a quick shocking foliar where it is almost all in the plant in 60 minutes. a very light dose of 0-0-25 will be mixed with the 3-18-18, demand cs and quilt fugicide spray cocktail this friday. the 1147 just got two 2 gallon cans of neptunes as i am trying to set pumpkins again. the 1147 i pollinated yesterday doubled in size, but has a weird darker color where the stem meets the pumpkin and i do not think it is healthy little one. time will tell and the next one down the line will be in 5 days or so. still plenty of time to stoughton. that is my motto as i am starting to lose time. lol. gotta have one set on this one good secondary vine by aug 1st at latest. if not, what is the biggest pumpkin ever grown on a tertiary? maybe that is my new goal if all else fails. lol. no quit here on the 1147. Tuesday, July 20 View Page also for the record so i know what i did this year next year. 1 tablespoon per gallon on 9-18-9 up to day 30 foliar and drench once per week 3 days apart. 1 tablespoon per gallon 3-18-18 day 30 on foliar and drench 3 days apart. 1 teaspoon per gallon 0-0-25 started day 36 and day 38 pumpkin in a mixed drench with 3-18-18 at one tablespoon per gallon. 1 tsp per gallon 0-0-25 foliar with 1 tablespoon per gallon 3-18-18 foliar will be on day 41 and 39 day old pumpkin until day 60. and then full strenghth 1 tablespoon 0-0-25 per gallon 1 tablespoon 3-18-18 per gallon mix to finish both in drench and foliar once per week about 3 days apart form each other. calcium (drench only) 1 tablespoon per gallon added to every drench fertilizer mix cocktail along with 1 tablespoon per gallon of grandma enggy's humic acid and 2 tablespoons per gallon of neptunes seasweed and fish. never more than 4 gallons of mix per plant in drenches done only surrounding the stumps and along mains in about an 8' radius with my 6' long 2" wide clear plastic tube and 2 gallon water cans with the tops unscrewed off to pour down the tubes. co2 is being done once every 2 weeks on its own and was started after all leaves where mature or at least over 10 inches wide. all foliar applications except co2 have grandma enngys foliar fulvic acid added at 1 tablespoon per gallon. quadris at 2 tsps per gallon mixed with demand cs at 2/3 teaspoon per gallon is mixed with fertilizers and fulvic acid at application once per week at dusk. seaweed will be thrown in the mix now too to help keep the old leaves feeling young and to help fight pm. then i rotate quilt fungicide the following week at 3 tsp per gallon with the same above ratios as the quadris. leaves are still looking great and still have all of them except those that were blown down in storms or my fatass knocked over and had to remove. Wednesday, July 21 View Page back to work baby....the strike has been resolved!!!!!!!!!!!! nice. i will say it has been a nice summer vacation that cost me about 3000 bucks to stay at home and play with my pumpkin patch for 3 weeks. it was the most enjoyable 3 weeks in the middle of the hottest summer since 1988 that i can remember. stroll the patch in the morning, cool off in the a/c, stroll the patch in the afternoon, cool off in the a/c, then take a shower and go to bobby's tap every other day and act like a fool. tomorrow i will be having a cup of coffee and a cigarette while driving 1 hour 20 minutes to my project through the worst construction traffic known to man. and then i get to drive home in it too that takes longer than that. but it will feel good to get back in the swing as this 3 week vacation comes to a close and i get back to reality. Wednesday, July 21 View Page on a pumpkin note, the 991 main vine near the stump/secondary fissure is still doing fine. the original split has been increased in size some as i removed some more semi soft material around the finger width size hole. it is now guarter sized on the side and the drain hole was also cleaned a little better and is now the size of my finger width. with the dirt dugout below the main, i can now get my fingers inside the area, remove some saturated captan powder, let the fan completely dry the area again blowing air into and through the 2 holes, and then re-apply captan powder. the stump is firm and the main is firm and solid and healthy looking around the affected areas. i have 2 small tables, one over the fan and one over the affected area with a small piece of tarp draped over the 2 tables. no water from rain or sprinklers can touch it unless flooding type of rains that might splash or fill up in the dug out area under the main. that is what the drain hole in the bottom of the main is for if it does get wet or any juices in the healing process collect and leak out instead of sitting inside the cavity and setting up rot conditions. i am sure i am losing some juices with the 2 holes, but only 75% from the stump roots and the 2 secondaries on each side before the affected area. the main is getting more masssive everyday and i am sure there will be plenty of juices even if i lose the stump from this point on but will do my best to save the stump all season long. Wednesday, July 21 View Page here is a nice pic of tomato row at twilight. hoping the fungicides sprays and calcium/micronutirient drenches get rid of the blackened blossom ends on the 2 biggest plants to the right. one is 12' and the other 13' tall as this is looking up over a 6' fence. both have small tomatoes at 9' and higher so far that look ok with no megablooms, but once they get cue ball size they blacken out. still trying and maybe get one or 2 good ones for later competitions way up high as i will add extensions if needed to get a good one on each plant. the 3 shorter plants all have tomatoes on them and have not shot as tall since setting and keeping the bigger ones. and by short the shortest is 8' and has slumped down and spiraled with growth or it would be just as tall as the others. they have been fun all season and all my friends are hooked into the world of ginat vegetable growing and reports of softball size tomatoes keep coming in from the bobby's tap riff raff. Wednesday, July 21 View Page here is my biggest tomato to date and i think its about the size and shape of a human heart. lol. it grew 3.25" circ around the right side tomato of the fusion and 4.25" around the circumference at widest point of both tomatoes combined in 12 days and makes it 18.25" circ at widest point and 17.25" around the one bigger of the fused on the right. when it stops growing for a few days i will take it to mitchells meat market in joliet. they have 3 guys that work there in our dart league and will be the official scale for bobby's tap giant tomato contest of 2010. 10 official growers at 5 bucks a piece to enter as many all season as you want. biggest wins the 50 bucks. this one might be hitting the scales soon as it is getting more yellow then green. it still is expanding and fissuring and healing around the stem in growth so i know it is still growing slightly, but for not much longer i pressume. careful monitoring of circ down to the quarter inch will let me know when to pick at the end of growing. this what i have read is the best weight potential for a fruit as evaporation will slowly diminish weight with ripening to a bright red color. i also have a bet for a case of beer and bragging rights with a guy from work who i gave 4 plants to and would love it the most to win that bet. we are both 2 stubborn mofos and lock horns once in a while with no hard feelings the next day. it will be good to show him this pick tomorrow at coffee. Wednesday, July 21 View Page and well well well, what do we have here. my shits n giggle plants are paying me off with this cool looking thing that i guess will turn into the speckled long neck swan gourd. it was tucked away between the solarium glass and the corner of the ivey and fence. cool. i have lost many to blossom end rot and have found if i can find the females the day after pollination and remove the petals, i can get them to set for longer eventhough many die and abort in the heat. so far a free packet of seeds and a little work brought this joy and i felt like a kid on christmas wehen i discovered it tonight. i also discovered about 10 cuke beetles in 10 minutes while pulling female blossom petals off and checking them out. so i brought out the backpack pump sprayer and hit them and my tomatoes with quadris, demand cs, and 0-13-0. hopefully this will also help with setting females from the absorbed phosphorous into the leaves and the calcium that will wash off to the roots when it rains early tomorrow morning while stopping powdery mildew and bugs from transfering to the other side of the house on the wings of bugs at the same time. did not see one cuke beetle in the patch so far today, but all these open flowers attracted them to the gourds. watched them drop off the leaves one by one off the gourds while spraying. gonna post an alert to illinois growers about the recent cuke sightings. Wednesday, July 21 View Page and could it be...is it possible...that right when i go back to work after the strike i have new member of the family? this female at 25' is a 4 lober pollinated on july 19th with the 991 on the 1147 second secondary in right after the section of cut off main vine. the main is well bigger than pop can wide at the cut off point now. this secondary was wrapped around and will have 6 tertiaries grown as secondaries spidered around before the pumpkin and 6 or more after the pumpkin to fill in the remaining shrinking gap of the plant. about 450 sq ft of plant right now and will be 700 in no time. this female is 2.5 days old, still shiney and looks a lot better and bigger since yesterday. forgot to remove petals after day one and today removed them and threw on some captan on the blossom just in case. the fan is still blowing on this one too to keep it cool and it has remained covered. never got above 81 on day of pollination. if it takes and becomes my stoughton or bust pumpkin...i will name it kenny powers jr. lol. come on kp jr. go go go!!!!!! a set on the 19th gives me 81 days of growth before loading friday night before stoughton. hopefully kp jr. is the one to take the sting out the potential this plant once had prove to me to never give up on a plant unless its a contagious diseased plant. i would like to prove that something is salvagable when tragedy strikes early enough on a plant and retraining and growing on a secondary may not win 1st place, but can still have another pumpkin to bring to another show for fun. i will say having all the time in the world with the recent 3 week strike couldn't have come at a better time to kick this plant into semi-competitive shape. got another female in about 3 days 5 feet down the line already shaded and a fan goes on it in tomorrow for the high heat coming friday and will stay on it til after setting or aborting. Thursday, July 22 View Page weather like an armpit...my arm pit...nasty! with 94 and real feel of 105 for the next 2 days, i waited til 9 pm to start spraying while it barely got down to 85 tonight at that time. neighbors have to love the stihl fogger going....wvvebbmmmeemmmmmeeemmmmmmm every secondary row....and wvebbbbbmmmmmeeeemmmmmm down the mains...sounding like i am chopping down trees at dusk. lol. it was spray tonight or wait 3 days til the heat breaks. then i thought about the cukes i killed on the gourds last night and the high humidity and the fact that pm showed up last year on july 28th which is close. tonight it finally got down to 85 at 9 pm and i let them have it with quilt, demand cs, grandma enggys fulvic, 3-18-18 and 0-0-25. 3 teaspoons o-0-25 mixed into with 9 teaspoons 3-18-18 and 10 teaspoons fulvic acid into the demand cs quilt combo with 4 gallons total sprayed mostly under the leaves and i nice top coating as well. all at very fine mist taking over 30 minutes to spray. same program as last friday except rotated quilt in. i will start every 5 or 6 days depending on the weather here on out mixing quadris and quilt and adding a little more 0-0-25 as the season goes. this is very minor amounts for 2-700 sq ft plants as far as foliar feeding..but the right stuff to feed them in small doses hopefully gives them babies what they are asking for. power. Sunday, July 25 View Page here is a pic of april this morning on day 41 on the 873 naylor. it has picked up the pace a couple pounds over the past 5 days to 24.4 pounds up from 22 a day and is hopefully going to be a long steady grower all the way to the end like my 1147 did 2 years ago and have some very thick walls. i have to believe with its smooth skin like its momma that was 24% heavy and papa that was 24% heavy, the outside numbers are not reflecting what the insides are doing. you can see a fissure in the connective tissue between the main and the stem formed into this hole that is similar to a knot hole on a tree. it has weeped and was cleaned and is healed and firm on both the stem and main around the hole. a fan is on a table blowing on it 24 hours a day and captan placed in an around the area. i need to keep a careful watch on this area to prevent losing the stem. so far just an eye sore that hasn't dropped the gains since showing up. i think it will be fine just like the hole from the fissure in the 991 main by the stump which is also completely healed. seems like the area grows bigger around both sides of the fissured hole to compensate in both cases. i am a big fan of the fan and both areas are being fanned til the end of the season and monitiored closely. Sunday, July 25 View Page here is an ass end shot of April on day 41 on the 873 Naylor 2009 sitting this morning at 151-86-86 =323" ott or estimated 710 lbs. that is 5 days ahead of pace of the original 1147 shenoha 2008 that went 15.4% heavy. Sunday, July 25 View Page and a pic over the shoulders of April today on day 41. this pic shows the location of the hole that started as a deepening fissure between the main and stem at the connection point that is healed, dry, captan covered, fanned and tarped. still thinking this one should come in estimated over 1100 to 1200 lbs and gonna go heavy as shit. how heavy, time will tell and i still got to get this one landed into the boat and on the scales at milwaukee. i got 63 days before cutting and loading nite for milwaukee with this one so i have to closely monitor the fissure hole and keep it clean and dry and producing til then. the 1147 was still grwoing slowly til the weigh off so i hope April can do the same with some shazzy TLC. Sunday, July 25 View Page and Clegg says how do you do? Clegg is a good dude. go Clegg go. 38.8 lb average over the past 5 days for this 991 urena pumpkin and it is sitting 167-97-90 = 354 ott or 930 lbs on day 43. didn't measure for 5 days as it is making me too nervous with all the rains. no splits at this point and just minor superficial stem cracking and minor weeping from expansion growth on the stem that had the little bit of sap removed and cleaned and captan on it as well. some cantaloping surface splitting along rib lines and on the stem side shoulders but nothing out of the ordinary so far. i got lucky here with about 3 inches rain total spread out over 3 waves of storms over the weekend. north of us got whacked with 7 inches or so in many areas so it could have been much worse. 50 to 60 mph winds knocked down trees everywhere but did no damage here but snapped my last 1147 good secondary vine i am trying to get sets on. i have mill fabric under a freaky looking 6 day old set that is 16.5" circ on day 6 this morning and is still shiney on the 1147 on that last good secondary trained as a new main with tertiaries trained as secondaries. looks like an early bean shape similar to my 1185 daletas pumpkin that grew the 1125 shenoha last year. it's them 1041 long pumpkin genes that show once in a while i think. the last chance on that secondary fell today when i could only luckily muster up one lone male lower to pollinate the nice 5 lober and better shaped little female 5 feet down the line. it was selfed. a nice cool 81 degree day for a high today so hopefully it will take and they both compete for the spot. Sunday, July 25 View Page Clegg showing off his side view profile on day 43. dips and lumps and bumps forming as this thing is morphing into its own beastly shape day by day. Sunday, July 25 View Page and final angle shot of Clegg on day 43 estimated at 930lbs. will Clegg make the podium and be one of the monsters at the innagural "Monsters of the Midway" weigh off at Homer Glen this year? 69 days is a long way a way, but hopefully with better powdery mildew control, additonal small doses of p and k foliar and drench feeding, humic and calcium in drenches, some neptunes seaweed and fish drenches, fulvic and co2 foliar, and genetics of long growth will keep it growing all the way until then. tundra dan's 991 grew all the way until stoughton last year which gives me good feelings about long term growth with this one. the main vine behind the pumpkin continues to be slowly nudged over as the pumpkin grows. the main is blocked up high with slack and i monitor stress on the vine daily. i keep moving the styrofome 1" block between the shoulder and main slowly out further from the stem with growth to slowly arc and push the loose vine over without putting any leverage or force near the stem connection to avoid tearing pressure in that area. sliding the pumpkin is not an option based on the curling under arc of the main with the short stem. i have slid it back as far as i can go at this point. any more sliding would be too much force on the main right near the inside shoulders near the stem with the way they are arced and the pumpkin laid down intially off the top of the vine instead of off the side. the tension right now with the styrofome block is not that much and when i feel it becomes too much i will replace the 1" piece with a thin 1/4" foam piece for some more clearance. i think i can keep raising the main with blocks little by little, keep the main as loose as possible, and slowly nudge it out like i have been doing with out too much pressure. i hope anyways. lol. Sunday, July 25 View Page i found this baby hiding not too far from the long neck swan gourd in the shit n giggles plants. this is a bottleneck gourd hiding out in the jungle of vines that are out of control. these are the only 2 sets with the heat this year so far. i keep removing petals off females after shriveling up to hopely get some more to set and stop from blossom end rotting early on. for not much soil and just compost and some bags of garden soil along a fence line, they are doing more than i could as for. but they have been getting some nice drenches of neptunes and i will do some again with my weekly drenches for all plants on tuesday. Monday, July 26 View Page made an error in yesterdays average wt. daily calculation gains. i divided by 5 days instead of 6 days. i woke up this morning and realized something was out of whack. April on the 873 grew 20 pounds per day even from days 35 to 41 and Clegg on the 991 grew 32.5 lbs per day average from days 37 to 43. the measurements were taken yesterday morning at 9 am on july 25th for the record and the last measurement prior to that was on july 19th, 6 days ago...not 5. doh!!!!! this week i will wait 7 days and just measure on sundays from here out with pics to avoid confusion. Monday, July 26 View Page 3.08 Shenoha 2010 off the 5.58 Timm x self plant from Treetop from the GTG. got 2 friends with gordon grahams thinking they still got a chance to top me. this is the first entry into our Bobby's Tap Innagural Giant Tomato Contest. we all weigh at Mitchell's Meat Market and they dust off the scale for accuracy. good dudes. this one weighed out at 3.075 which will be called the 3.08 shenoha 2010. nice to see the 3 number show up on the scale and felt the thrill of the weigh off by myself. lol. i am still amped up. it was a long journey with my first year at tomatoes seriously to get to this point. hoping for some more bigger things to come. Monday, July 26 View Page This Bud is for you Glenn and Pizza!!!!!!!!! with out your initiative to get this GTG going Glenn and all the help from PIZZA, i would have never have grown this freak of a tomato off the 5.58 timm x self i got from you guys. great work Glenn for the inspiration as i now have over 15 people hooked and already thinking about next year's giant tomato season. thanx for the seeds, and thanx for all your hard work getting this thing going. i can see big things in the future for the GTG in illinois. 75% of all our seeds will be come back to you accept some (25%) we keep for ourselves from big ones. not sure what the original requirements of seeds to be sent back agreement was, but i believe this to be fair and all my friends will be in if they get big ones at donating 75% of their seeds. thanks again Glenn and Pizza, let's keep this Tomato Train rolling!!!!!! and God Bless back at ya Glenn!!!!!! Friday, July 30 View Page day 48 for Clegg on the 991 urena. 176.5 100 94 = 370.5 or estimated at 1065 lbs. july was kind to Clegg with over 950 lbs of growth in the hot month. Friday, July 30 View Page side view of Clegg on day 48 at 1065 lb estimate on the 991 urena. that dimple on the center rib line doesn't make me happy and i lost the 1301 eaton plant pumpkin to a split in an area similar back in the day. but i have seen in pics that this has been in similar 991s of this shape that made it to the scales. still hoping the walls are plenty thick in that area as the 991s tend to go heavier than lighter. Friday, July 30 View Page and here is clegg on the angle shot holding the camara up high. getting more gnarley looking by the day and turning light orangish yellow. the main vine near the stump remains completely healed even with the cleaned fissure hole and drain hole i put in. solid as a rock. and the stem on April on the 873 is fine still too and the hole in the stem is healed fine still and she is sitting at 800 lb estimate today on day 46. she will get some pics on sunday in the sun as she is starting to get some salmon color to her white shoulders and the cantaloping is increasing more and more every day. i think she is solid as a rock and is still concentrating more internally than externally. and i think i finally got one back on the 1147. the first set from 10 days ago was culled due to deformed shape. the one at 5 days looks good and tonight is already 17" circ on day 5.5 and the plant has filled completely back up except the area i have reserved for the two tertiaries before this secondary vine pumpkin to wrap spider around the kin for 20 feet each. i might have a late one back in the game and will push it as hard as possible and fast. with a late weigh off oct. 9th at stoughton, this gives me 75 days of growth before loading night and sept. and oct. are forecasted to be warmer than average. stoughton or bust with this one if it hangs in there and gets through the possible abort stage yet. cooler days right now should help. for record it was selfed with the only flower that day in the patch from the 1147 and was a nice 5 lober. Saturday, July 31 View Page here is a pic today of the official 2.54 shenoha 2010 grown off the brutus magnus seeds from Treetop and Pizza for the gtg. it was weighed at mitchell's meat market again by my boy chris from the dart league, but too busy this morning to get a pic on the scale. 75% of the seeds will be going to the gtg. very nice shaped fruit that looks like a miniature pumpkin right now with its orangish color. very nice plant. Saturday, July 31 View Page here is a pic of the 2.54 shenoha on the left and the 3.08 on the right. i will show them off to my folks at my mom's b-day party tomorrow and then get to removing and drying the seeds this week. got some cal-mag coming from Tom P. to try to get anything on the 2 plants with blossom end troubles. got a nice early single on a big zac at 7' and more singles on the brutus and 5.58 up higher too. but i have to believe these are the 2 biggest this year from my plants and i am proud of the efforts so far and still having fun with them. Saturday, July 31 View Page and here is apic of the newest member of the family, "Stoughton" on day 6 this morning at 19.5" circ. been a long ride to get back to this point. it was exactly one month ago i noticed the rot on the main vine and removed the 200 pound stunted pumpkin days later and then whacked half the plant and filled the rest of the spot back up with secondary and tertiary growth. i did not do much weeding to avoid root damage in recovery mode and the plant looks ragged, but has 250 sq ft of additonal new young leaves as well as another 125 sq ft to fill in with new leaves. stoughton or bust, this secondary pumpkin is giving this tragic 1147 story a chance as a comeback feel good story. or it could split tomorrow and break my heart all over again. lol. silly silly hobby. i love it. Saturday, July 31 View Page and here is one of many new members i have of the family. another long neck speckled swan gourd along with 7 more that took and another bottleneck gourd getting big already too. sweet!!!!! Saturday, July 31 View Page and here is one of many new members i have of the family. another long neck speckled swan gourd along with 7 more that took and another bottleneck gourd getting big already too. sweet!!!!! Saturday, July 31 View Page hey tough guys what are youzz guyzz doin' back in da alley? this Gang of Gourds is all the way in the corner of the fence by the back alley as the vines rode the fence 30' in that direction. might get some interesting shapes and sizes with this gang. i have been trying to pull off the petals as soon as possible after pollination and have been getting more good sets. i like these freaky things and will build up the soil nice back along the entire fence line and grow a different variety of gourds every year from here out. they are fun if you got a section of fence somewhere in full sun. Sunday, August 1 View Page 2 cloudy cool humid wet days and the first signs of pm have raised their ugly heads on a couple leaves on the 991. the quilt fugicide will be laid down heavy tonight with 4 gallons of combo spray below the canopy and 4 gallons of mix above. every 5 days now from here on out religiously. with 55 days left for milwaukee, 63 days for the Monsters of the Midway weigh off at Bengston's in Homer Glen, and 69 days for Stoughton, that gives me 13 more times to spray to finish the season. Sunday, August 1 View Page took a couple of my friends to bobby's tap for some pics. here they are hanging out in my corner seat. lol. Sunday, August 1 View Page April on the 873 naylor 2009 (1147 shenoha x 1119 mcmullen) on day 48 today estimated at 835 lbs. the hole in the stem vine union is a weird thing. it is where the tendril was on top and the tap root white knob on the bottom. the area between the two internally and externally fissured and had minor browning with no rot over 10 days ago and then completely tunneled through between the 2. it is now nice actually cuz the wound has the fan blowing through it similar to the cleaned fissure hole and the drain hole i put in the 991 main by the stump. kept completely dry and rot free, both of these areas have healed very nice and the surrounding areas become enlarged and grow more i believe to compensate. i can reach in both areas with my fingers to coninual monitor firmness and health in the areas and apply captan. the area around th hole in this pic is becoming a huge knobby section. most of the flow from that big ass bottle thick vine going into the pumpkin goes directly into the stem on the right side in the pic mostly hidden by the fan and the hole is not impeding any growth whatsover from the front half of the plant coming through that main vine. very strange and i am glad the 10 percent bleach with q tips along with captan and continual 24 hour a day fanning has kept what could have been huge drains on the plants to minimal losses. Sunday, August 1 View Page nice ass April. lol. big and fat and sitting almost completely blossom end down. i can barely fit my hand under there to feel for blossom end splits. thankfully nothing feels out of whack. lol. i am like a proctologist with this kin. lol. no rubber gloves needed yet thankfully. she is looking more boulder like every day. this girl has heavy written all over it and i love the fact that it was pollinated with the 991 that clegg is growing on. this might be my heavy x big size cross i have been dreaming about making for along time now. how heavy....my guess will be over 15%. hopefully it makes it to milwaukee to show off her fat ass to the cheeseheads up north and let the scales tell how heavy it is. da bears! Sunday, August 1 View Page hit the plants solid with quilt fungicide tonight. heavier droplets too and 10 gallons mix total for the 3 plants over and under heavy. the 1147 got only 3-18-18 thrown in but the other 2 got some 0-0-25 medium strength dose up from light strength dose. and again grandma enggy's fulvic acid to round out the cocktail. love the fulvic foliar. next spray in 5 days will be eagle and some stylet oil mixed in to hit the pm from a different angle. there are some really stubborn pm strains out there i have been reading about and some are getting very tolerant to everything on the market. after closer inspection i found it on 5 leaves today. that means the sysptoms are just showing and its already been here. i haven't missed a week of spray yet this year except a month ago when i held off due to high heat at night until 12 days between cylcles when the weather broke. last year it arrived on july 28th. propbably same day here about and i just spotted it today. not surprising with the year we have had weather wise. controlling it and slowing it down is the key. the quilt is supposed to knock it dead in its tracks as curative and systemic so i feel good about the battle ahead with the arsenal i got of quilt, quadris, eagle, cleary's and stylet oil. the quilt will be done every 10 days and the other brands thrown in mixed with stylet oil in between at 5 days and rotated. Tuesday, August 3 View Page 5.6" of rain this morning. it is events like this that i am glad i have some weeds under the canopy to help buffer the pounding and help with the moisture intake. i just keep chopping them down when they get above leaf canopy with a serated edged knife and saw them down low once a week. walked on only 2 walking boards to prune some pop up terts on this hot humid rain day off of work. even on those boards i could feel how saturated the soil is. i watered 2 hours below the canopy yesterday morning and then 1.5 hours above and had the ground pretty saturated from my own watering prior to the event to protect against surging with expected rains. 5.6" wasn't expected and netiher was the lightening that knocked out the power for a couple hours. i never even looked at the blossom ends today. why ruin a night out tonight with dart leagues. i will check them on tomorrow. after we get another whacking of rain tonight and then again i think wednesday in this pattern draped from south dakota down the i-80 corridor. i measured the 1147 secondary set "stoughton" at 8.5 days old last night and it was 27.5" cc. i gave it some character today with a table leg edge corner while removing the table and putting a fresh white t shirt over it. all my pumpkins have scars eventually. lol. doh!!!! a sliver top side/white bottom side tarp will go over it tomorrow on day 10 and i will take an official 10 day measurement on the new member of the family. gonna have to wait on pics until i get my camara back from my folks house when i left it there sunday. Wednesday, August 4 View Page more rain about and and so far so good on the pumpkins holding together with going on 6.5" in less than 36 hours so far with more lining up out west in iowa. measured "stoughton" on the 1147 secondary today at 7 am on day 10 and it is 34.5" circ. go stoughton go. lol. ya never know. is 1000 lbs crazy to dream of on a plant that now has 350 sq ft of new leaves since 7-2 and the old leaves were the original youngest on the plant since it was the backside of the plant after the pumpkin i kept and retrained back around spider style. actually the pumpkin is sitting not to far from where the original stump was located. lol. the entire plant now is basically a clone that is only 60 days old so. far so good and the hardest thing about getting to 1000 with this one will be the amount of juices getting through the smaller secondary and original main vine union. this is the thinniest part where juices from the rest of the plant will come from besides this 25' secondary it sits on with 5 terts 15' long terts right before "stoughton". if i can get one close to 900 lbs estimate, i think genetics will make up for the extra 100 to get to 4 digits. so that is my goal with "stoughton". 350 ott will put it 900 lbs. it has a nice start so far but time will tell. Friday, August 6 View Page did some main vine inspections after all the 7 inches of rain this week in 2 days to make sure no rotting fissures or soft spots. i found 3 main vine unions with fissures with minor weeping and minor browning. cleaned all 3 good with 10 percent bleach and a rag and applied captan and the sun is hitting on them now. very minor stuff that could have been major since all three were in a row about 3 feet in front of the pumpkin. no harm no foul at this point and they all looked good and clean and dressed up nice. all 3 will get a small table over them to prevent from getting directly rained on or watered on after i spray tonight. it seems the more massive the vines and stems keep getting all year, each segment on the main is like a big huge knuckle that has slight surface fissuring similar to expansion cracks from stem splitting. the woodier the texture gets, the more it fissures with growth. these areas need to monitored closely and all main vine unions before the pumpkin need to be inspected routinely to prevent any rot from setting in as the weigh offs get closer and keep them growing as long as possible. i found the stylet oil stopped the pm dead in its tracks on the gourds and all those powdery mildew leaves on those plants that were sprayed the other day look good and healthy with just some yellow spots where the fuzz was setting up. i will now use it in the rotation and add it to the quintec when spraying in between the quilt applications and rotate both every 5 days to hit the pm with different killing and controlling methods. no fuzz now on the gourd leaves today and just shiney leaves from the mineral oil. all problem areas healed still on all plants as routine close inspection, recleaning with 10 percent bleach and a fan with captan has them in check as the juices continue to flow. Friday, August 6 View Page and to keep the juices flowing, tonight 3-18-18 full dose and 0-0-25 medium dose will be added to tonights quilt and demand cs combo along with some grandma enggy's foliar fulvic. monday i will get back to drenching now that the plants have taken the push from the recent rains in stride. drenching from here out will be cal-mag, neptunes seawweed and fish, grandma enggy's humic acid, 0-0-25 medium dose and 3-18-18 full dose. again just 2 two gallon watering cans applied with a 6' tube around stumps areas and along main vine areas once per week. the majority of the feeding will be foliar every 5 days while spraying for pm. "april" on day 53 on the 873 naylor has hit 13.3 pounds per day the past 7 and is 164.5-93-91 = 348.5 ott and estimated 887 pounds today. i am hoping to coax at least 225 lbs out of her the rest of the season for milwaukee in 50 days from today. "clegg" on the 991 is 185.5-104.5-98 =388.0" ott or estimated at 1221 lbs today on day 55. it has averaged 22.2 lbs per day over the last 7. love to get another 330 plus pounds out of this baby over the next 58 days until the Monsters of the Midway Weigh Off at Homer Glen. and "stoughton" on the 1147 secondary hit 5" per day the past 2 and is 44.5" circ today on day 12 and has 64 more days til it makes it to stoughton if it holds together as i push it as hard as i can as it gets the same ferts and watering as the other 2 plants. Friday, August 6 View Page not the clearest pic in the world but a nice one from my buddy bob's camara phone. i gave a 5.58 timm x self plant to bob's mother in law which is bobby's mom from bobby's tap. julie and tony(bobby's mom and dad) have a nice tomato garden every year and are from the old country out of slovenia and grow only to eat. so i gave him a plant for big eaters. this one grew with many more on the plant and was 2.75 pounds. the stem is longer than official and they were not in it for the contest, but to eat it like i said. they sent me a thank you pic from my co-worker and buddy bob and bobby's sister barbie (bob's wife) and from allison their daughter in the pic. beautiful thick and meaty tomatoes off the 5.58 timm x self which was the same plant i grew my 3.08 on. the 3.08 shenoha 2010 seeds will be available through the gtg next year and are fermenting right now and will be rinsed and dried here in 2 days. Friday, August 6 View Page forgot the pic of allison and the tomato and pics are not going through right tonight and hopefully i do not see 5 duplicates while i tried. spraying went well i did not see to many affected leaves, maby 6 with slight spotting and one leaf heavier covered that was coated and killed with the quilt fungicide. stared in awe of the 991 main vine tonight while i looked at it leafless from stump to the pumpkin tonight while spraying from behind the plant. monster thick vine going all the way to the stem. nuts thick. never seen anything like it. and the gang of gourds from the last pic is now a gang of specled green and white bowling pin looking swan gourds that are straight up and down and got huge with all the rain. they are damn cool and make me smile the most. the freakiest looking cool things that i have ever grown and will have fun drying some out and giving some with earlier picking to save the nice speckled pattern and luster. i like 'em and am hooked on gourds now for fun. gonna go look at some cool ones to pick out for next year and try new ones every year. Wednesday, August 11 View Page success!!! i finally have a tomato keeper so far on my 14' gordon graham tomato plant and one on the 15' big zac plant next to it after the help from tom p. and his cal-mag and tomato blend drenches. too much rain this year and the sloping corner by those 2 plants i feel leached the calcium out of the soil. a local garden supply store owner said the rains this year have had many growers losing tomatoes to blossom end rot from calcium and micronutrient deficiencies. i also limited all 5 plants down to one on each plant for the fall weighoff. sadly no megablooms, but if one shows i still have a little window of time to make it a keeper if it pops this week. i found a 100 dollar for first and 75 buck second place for a tomato weigh off running all season til oct 10th at pesche's garden store in mt prospect by work. i told my buddy from work and he took a 5.58 timm x self tomato from the plant i gave him and he is leading at 2.73 lbs and they took his pic and all and it made his day. i told him i just snipped all suckers and will terminate the stalks and continue topping the plants the rest of the way and limit to one tomato per plant with monster plants so i hope i can catch him. got another one on the 5.58 x self looking good over 15" already and is the same long fanning wide shape as his 2.73 i got to say that i got at least 10 people this year hooked with many more willing to try next year. i am going to talk with mitchell's meat market about possible working with them and the city of joliet for a summer long weigh off next year like pesche's in mt prospect and get more people involved locally and into the gtg. Saturday, August 14 View Page this is a first for me. nice. Saturday, August 14 View Page clegg at 400.5" ott today on day 63. 192-108.5-100 or estimate of 1340 lbs on the 991 urena. this is a selfed pumpkin. it averaged 14.8 lbs per day over the last 8 days. i am getting to know this pumpkins growth cycle and guess the weights pretty accurately after waiting 7 or 8 days. it should fall down to about 8 per day average the next week and will be sitting close to 1400 on day 70 if all goes like is. then hopefully it slowly coasts in growth the next 40 days after that and i have a chance at the illinois record of 1468. still got 49 days til it gets loaded up...if it makes it that long. lol. time will tell. Saturday, August 14 View Page side view of clegg on day 63 at 400.5" ott on the 991. Saturday, August 14 View Page and the angle shot of clegg on day 63. you can see i have not been in the patch too much to even chop the tall grass weeds. they barely stop any light going to the leaves and any cluster that gets too large over the canopy gets trimmed down with a serated knife. trying to limit all time in the interior to whacking pop up terts, clusters of weeds that go above the canopy and to check on my main vine. i do not want to track any powdery mildew spores around if possible. the pm is in check nicely with the quilt fungicide. you can see in the pic i have a row of now total 5 small tables with tarps on top over areas of the 991 main vine and fans underneath them to keep the healed areas rot free. so far all areas have firmed up totally since that overloading of 7" of rain caused weeping at any and all fissures on the plants and created a couple new ones with the push. 1" of rain was not bad last night and 40 mph didn't even take down the 14' tall gordon graham and 15' tall big zac tomato plant, but they sure did get a nice test and i was glad to see the recent re-inforcement to the poles worked good on these massive tall heavy plants. i will get pics of April on the 873 in about 5 or 6 days. i am waiting for het to hit the 1000 lb est mark by around then. and "stoughton" on the 1147 comeback story plant on the secondary is 76" circ today on day 20 and looking like the original 1147 momma and getting that big ass working. i will get picks later this week. too hot today and just the time measuring and taking pics of the 991 pumpkin has me lathered in a sweat. nasty heat on humidity lately. tomorrow night when the heat breaks i will chop weeds below the canopy and then immediately spray some quilt/demand cs/3-18-18/ fulvic foliar/and some 0-0-25 at meduim strength dose and hit the plants with 4 gallons below the canopy and 4 gallons above with the stihl fogger. Sunday, August 15 View Page my dog oreo is definately out of her gourd!!!!!!!! here she is in the background with her eye on a squirrel. she is relentless. when the sprikler comes around and hits her area she attacks the water and jumps on her back to feet biting the water in the air. then back to the squirrel...then back to the sprinkler when it comes back around...she had me laughing off a hangover this morning. this is a long neck speckled swan gourd i pulled this week to show this freaky looking thing to my buddies at work and the bar. you can only guess all the fun that was had at bobby's tap with the shape of this thing. if i end up on u tube...it might be considered unsuitable for younger viewers. lol. Tuesday, August 17 View Page here is april on day 64 and slowly creeping along at 6 lbs per day average over the last 11 days. it is sitting 954 lbs estimate and is 169.5-95-92.5 and 357 ott. hoping i can coax her along slowly for awhile yet. the stem is very small and i believe the fissure that knuckled into that enormous knot may have prevented the stem from increasing in size as the pumpkin did too. that stem knot has to weigh a good couple pounds extra. lol. but is is healed and the pumpkin slowly is turning greenish on the shoulders and has the nice salmon color that the original 1147 ended up with that went 15.4% heavy. i see a lot of similarities in the 2 as the 1147 was 997 est. and i think this girl will end up being very close to that or a little higher. the 1147 kept slowly growing all season that year very similar to this as they beef up the wall density. doing calcium drenches with cal/mag once per week along the main vine and stump area root systems to help it translocate faster into the main and to the pumpkins. Tuesday, August 17 View Page and backside overhead shot of april at 357 ott and est 954 lbs on day 64. her wide hips are hopefully solid meat. speaking of, hey Meat...hope my girl April here on your 873 Naylor 2009 does what both her momma and daddy did and go 24% heavy. that would be nice. i am hoping to top my personal best twice this year with this one and go over 1173. that is my goal to coax another 50 -70 lbs in the next 38 days til chopping it off and taking to milwaukee and hope the scales are mighty kind to this girl. been a pleasure growing the plant Meat (tyson naylor) and i think if not for the stem issues it may have gone at least one or possibly a couple hundred pounds more in estimate. great plant and a nice solid kin. for an unproven back up plant, i can't be any more happier with the results so far and was proud to repay the favor to a good pumpkin growing friend and grow one of his seeds. here's to you Meat, (sip of Bud) thanks again for the seeds. Sunday, August 22 View Page another whacky new for me. nice. Sunday, August 22 View Page clegg on day 71 this morning is 407.5 ott or estimated at 1413 lbs. it averaged 9.1 lbs per day the past 8. the plant looks raggy around the pumpkin from me tampling around it to measure once per week and the leaves getting covered by the tarp when it is up and weeds growing under the tarp. i only take off the tarp for pics. but the plant is still healthy with no main vine rot at this point and everything healed nicely. all leaves down the main have been pruned for a while and all looks good so far for coasting in the next 42 days til picking. the powdery mildew is almost non-existent from the quilt fungicide. many green shiney leaves left and even the big ole rounded out old timer leaves are not looking too bad. the plant is kicking out terts i have to prune still which is a great sign of vigor. the best my plants have looked in later august ever to this point. i got de-con around the pumpkin for mice and hopefully it will coast off another 100 lbs estimate when all is said and done. hoping to see 200" circ. in 2 weeks when i measure and take pics again. i will continue to foliar feed, drench, and spray with the same combo rates i have been using mentioned in a recent post. i have been watering consistantly in the heat in the morning and the afternoon for 2 hours stretches with the 6' rain tower too cool the patch, the soil, tarp temps, the perimeter wooden fence, the driveway, and the hot brick house...cool the whole microclimate from 2:30 to 4:30 pm and allow drying time for evening humidity. 5-7 in the a.m to replentish what was sucked up at night. now with lower humidity and less high heat days, 3 hours every morning on the timer from here on out unless rain. Sunday, August 22 View Page sideview of clegg on day 71 and estmated at 1413 lbs Sunday, August 22 View Page and the angle shot of Clegg on the 991 urena Sunday, August 22 View Page not the best pic as i threw over the tarp and took a picture leaning out from the sidewalk to get a pic of the stem side as i haven't taken a pic from this angle yet cuz the backside tarp i usually leave secured when taking measurements. you can see the vine is taught to the shoulders with spongy foam pieces keeping the vine off the flesh. i had to raise the main high on each side to create as much wiggle room as the pumpkin pushed the vine backwards all season with styrofome blocking on the shoulders until only the spongy foam would fit. i can still pull out on the vine and it still has a little play left...very little. lol. hoping this kin has still got some more ugliness left in her as the bulges keep bulging everywhere... just like papa shaz. lol. and that is a fat joke so keep your mind out of the gutter. lol. Sunday, August 22 View Page and i will close this weeks picture show with a harvest of longneck swan gourds. no growth from these 5 over the past week meant i figured take them and start drying them now before the neighborhood kids start grabbing them off the back alley fence. i will keep them in my air conditioned fan blowed bedroom on the cabinet to let them all slowly dry for the next 6 months and i will hopefully make all kinds of things from birdhouses to bowl with lids maybe pained aztec with a woodburner outline around patterns. these goofy things have brought me a lot of smiles, stories, and jokes that i couldn't repeat on this site. lol. very fun and easy plant to grow as it i have gourds 15' feet up on the backside of the house as they attached to my ivy on the brick. its official..not only my dog oreo is out of her gourd...me too!!!!! Monday, August 23 View Page i heard 2 things over the weekend that were so right on i had to share them. the first is from my friend's son who is growing an 1125 shenoha plant. the only thing my friend dan has done for the entire year is lift up the pumpkins to put styrofome under them. the rest the 5 year did with excellent 3' deep of 100 year old black dirt on the farm in that spot and a garden house out to the plant so the kid could spray it down and water every day. that is all they have done and they have 2 bigger than laundry basket circumference. his son looked him dead in the eye and said, "dad, isn't it amazing that these big things come from just a seed?" and then after seeing my pumpkin, the 5 year then said, "i think i will try a few things different next year dad." wow. i created a monster. good luck kid and you might as well get a shrink now. lol. very smart boy and it thrilled me to here my friend re-tell the tales. the next thing that was dead nuts was when i showed off Clegg yesterday to friends in town due to the passing of their father. i cheered them up, gave them some long neck speckled swan gourds, and took the tarp off Clegg so they could get some pics. while taking some pics, debbie said, "only one word to describe that pumpkin shazzy, OBNOXIOUS!!!!" which made me laugh cuz the pumpkin takes after its human papa....me....king of obnoxious!!!! gluttany is my finest quality, and "obnoxious" pretty much sums me up in one word. lol. Wednesday, August 25 View Page just noticed a flower on the 5.58 timm x self with lined up green tubing that is flat and is over a quarter inch long. it is hard to tell if just 2 actual tubes on the end with inter connected green tissue adjoining them or more than 2. either way it is a really wide flower too and might be my fall weigh off tomato to get me back over 3 lbs again. the first one i got to take on the 14' tall gordon graham plant is just about 18" circ and is looking to start changing color here in a few days. big full round one that should go close to 2.5 i imagine when done. got a nice mater on each plant right now all still green and am letting another start on the gordon graham for the fall cuz this 18" is close to the picking in about a week. really hoping this long flat tuber flower on the 5.58 timm x self takes. the report of the 1147 comeback story pumpkin is a bust. the pumpkin dropped circ. gains right after day 15 and it is only 93" circ on day 31. no hopes for anything but a wierd big assed white pumpkin for someone's front door step. i have let that patch go to the weeds and terts and will get some weird shaped halloweenies as the terts grow up over the old leaves and weeds and then hang suspended first for a bit before the weight brings them down. you can get some nice weird pumpkins that sit straight up like a gourd this way and look good on the doorsteps. i pulled off the female petals off a nice 5 lober i saw by the fence this morning that is a few days old. it is always fun finding small weirdos hiding out in a jungle like an easter egg hunt when the leaves and weeds start dying off and reveal the freaks in a month or so. Saturday, August 28 View Page 4 weeks til milwaukee from this morning and April on the 873 naylor is still slowly growing at an average of 3.4 lbs per day over the last 11 and is sitting at estimated 982 lbs estimate with numbers 171.5-96-93 = 360.5" ott. it reminds me of my 1147 shenoha in many ways and hope it also goes 15.4% heavy or greater. it should end up close to the exact same size when all is said and done as the 1147 was etimated at 997. Saturday, August 28 View Page oops..that should have been 2.5 pounds per day over the last 11 for the 873 naylor pumpkin "april" sitting at 982 lbs estimate. i drenched the plants today with cal-mag and will hit with a heavier dose of 0-0-25 which i will put in 9 tsps for 4 gallons of water and also add 6 tsps of 3-18-18 along with fungicide, foliar fulvic, and insecticide and hit with the stihl fogger 4 gallons above canopy and 4 gallons below. with old age and slower rates of growth, i will do this once per week until the end now to try to encourage them not to shut down completely at any point. with low humidity direct sun and higher winds lately i have had to water 3 hours under the canopy every morning and then hit the plants with 2 hours overhead from 3-5 pm. the weeds are helping keep the soil from baking and drying out too quick. the work site is like the sahara and dust is real bad and the ground is giving up all that it has been pounded with all year with rain totals. keeping an eye on how fast clay soil dries with winds, temps and humidity has helped me all year this year with altering my watering to the conditional needs. we get some nice warmer weather back after some nights reaching only to mid 50s at night and high 70s in day. i picked this tomato on the right and had it officially weighed yesterday at pesche's garden center and it came in at 2.41 and is off the gordon graham plant. the only one not to blacken out on the blossom end all season. at least i beat that plant into finally giving up something. lol. thanks tom p. for the tomato blend drench mix and the cal-mag. this was put down today again in drench with additional seaweed around all 5 plants as i try for one more good one on each plant to finsih the year. the one one the left will get the seeds removed today to ferment and it was weighed officially at pesche's 8 days ago at 2.64 lbs and came off the ciesielski 09 seeds (5.58 timm x self) Sunday, August 29 View Page i got a nice picture in an email this morning from the Illinois Compost King....Ted Krueger...this morning. glad to see that 993 seed i gave him last winter went to good use. wow is this a beauty. i gave him a 993 and 1059 mcgill i bought in auction for the appreciation of his fine product i use every year. this one is sitting about 850 and so is his 1059 pumpkin sitting around 850. awesome job ted....beautiful pumpkin. the picture was this morning in full sun. he said it is a deep deep orange and the sun has it looking more red than orange in the pic with the sun hitting it on that side this morning. way to go teddy boy...way to go. here is ted's site for anyone smart enough to get this sh@t!!! http://www.compostmatters.com/organimix.asp Monday, August 30 View Page 199-110-103 = 412" ott or estimate of 1460 lbs. 5.8 lbs per day average over the last 8 days. hoping i can coast her into the 1500 pound estimate range over the next 33 days til picking time. still drenching every week with cal-mag, neptunes, and grandma enggy's humic acid combo and am hitting foliar of 3 parts 0-0-25 to one part 3-18-18 mixed with gandma enggy's foliar fulvic, quilt fungicide, and demand cs insecticide all mixed together. 4 gallons above the canopy, 4 gallons below for all 3 plants combined. been watering 3 hours every morning under canopy and 2 hours from 2-4 pm also with the 6' rain tower to cool patch borders composed of brown brick, asphalt and wood fence, to cool the soils, to cool the tarps over the pumpkin and add additional water on these last couple windy 94 and 92 degree days. the under canopy system is less effective with weeds, but still gets a nice even coverage and the over head finishes the job. i was very happy to see 3" circ growth over the past 8 days. my guess the next 8 days will bring 1.5 and maybe if warm weather holds up 2 more inches circ maybe as the pumpkin gets older. today it is 79 days old and has 33 days left to grow...or not grow. lol. grow clegg grow!!!!! Sunday, September 5 View Page clegg is 85 days old and coming to a stand still. 3/4" ott in a week is like 1 lb a day. lol. i do notice more bulging sections that are not on the widest points and are not getting picked up in ott measurements. there is one on the left stem side shoulder very similar to tundra dan's 991 last year and i am seeing some overall filling out of the existing bulges noticed by a whitening of the skin on those areas due to slight surface cracking that turns the orangish areas lighter color and then whitish as they grow. but overall, the last 2 nights of cold temps will most likely be the end all of growth. a record low of 46 last nite here in Joliet for sept. 4th and cold the night before too. 2 blankets and a tarp where on clegg last night until it got back up to over 60 degrees this morning. that is when i decided to throw the tape on her. 199.25-110.5-103 was my reading today. now that doesn't mean it definately grew or not...those could just be differences in place of measuring. either way today in the nice cool morning air i took my time and used probvably 12 pieces of duct tape around her for the circumference and also tried multiple places side by side and stem to blossom to find exactly the widest and longest points of the pumpkin for accuracy. 412.75 is what i got. the illinois record is 1468 and i am sitting dead nuts on it with 28 days of sitting time. gonna need a little heavy to offset the minor weight loss over the next 28 days when it does officially stop taking in the juices. gonna be an exciting weigh off and no matter what it goes...light...heavy...record...no record....it has been one fun hot sticky sweaty summer that i will never forget. Monday, September 6 View Page i just went back and re-read my diaries from the past 2 years and realized there have been times that i have thought they have stalled and were stalling at late age but kept slowly growing and put on up to 50 more pounds when i initially said they were done. in each case i did add more late drenches of K at higher doses for a kick and a spell of warm weather helped and continued watering was done to give them a nudge or kick in the butt a little. with today going up to 85 and a nice week of weather predicted, i brought out the boot to kick em a bit. the boot consisted of 3-18-18, 0-0-25, neptunes seaweed and fish and cal-mag. every spot along the main was drenched nicely and all spots that have healthy enough leaves to produce were drenched. a total of 12 watering cans total throughout the entire plant. then i used a hose without a nozzle and used my thumb to direct a larger amount of water in all these areas under the canopy to thoroughly incorporate all these goodies deep enough to all the roots and to help disperse laterally a bit from the areas i could reach with my 6' pouring tube held up to the end of my capless 2 gallon watering cans. now i am running the overhead sprinkler to also help saturate the ground and move those goodies throughout the soil around the entire root system and then not water for 2 days to let all the nutrients get soaked up into the plant as it pulls out the remaining moisture from this good watering. then back to 2 hours a nite under canopy watering only as the cooler soil, cooler temps and less foliage will require less watering. i am also hitting with co2 tonight and will hit with that every 5 days. i am not going to measure for 2 weeks and will continue treating the pumpkins the same. hopefully this will continue growth at least at a snails pace...but any growth is better than no growth. Monday, September 6 View Page Good girl April. hey Meat...your girl here on your 873 naylor 2009 plant just went over the 4 digit estimate mark. NICE!!!!! i have been waiting to measure in hopes by today she would clear 1000 and she measures out at 173-96.5-94 = 363.5 ott or estimated 1006 lbs. that is just under 3 lbs per day on day 84 for the last 9 days. got a good look at her cantaloping skin today and it made me smile to see how ugly she is getting. nice meat. less than 3 weeks and we will see how heavy she goes brother. i am out of batteries and it is a cloudy day. i will take pics soon meat on a sunny day from all angles. Monday, September 6 View Page last of the big girls off the mater plants. the one to the left is 17" around off a big zac and the other is the nicely shaped brutus magnus tomatoes and this one at 16". i let them get a little riper than normal on the vine as they were not going to be killer size. i will just leave them as estimates with the measurements on the label because all i want them for is seeds for the gtg and for my self for next year. i will start a lot of brutus magnus plants just for my mom and her neighbor's cuz they all love the shape and size of the brutus magnus tomatoes. they all look like perfect mini pumpkins. they want them for eaters and i will obliege. i will mostly try my 5.58 timm x self x self seeds from my 3.08 shenoha and 2.64 shenoha next year and maybe get some new seeds from some big'ns grown this year from growers on bp.com and maybe try some harp genetics too. same for next year, 5 plants. i already have a nice system set up in that corner and will ammend it more than i did this year where needed in that back corner with heavy on gypsum and calcite calcium along with everything else the pumpkins get. it won't be long before i start gathering 75-100 brown yard bags of maple leaves to chop up the first week the patch dries out once the clearing begins october 4th for next year. time to start gearing up on some fall kelp, cornmeal, and i will spray a bottle of aerify plus on each planting spot after all the shredded maple leaves get tilled in so the kelp, humic acid, and molasses in the aerify plus help re-feed the disturbed colony and get them eating those leaves and the soil loosener gets down deep before the winter. all the rest of the ammendments like last year will get repeated in the spring. gonna take a soil test this fall for the first time in 4 years. i have been working on soil structure and now will start do dial it in for better balance. i knew i had plenty of everything needed and then some, but the balancing act must come into play. Monday, September 6 View Page kelp meal, corn meal, and aerify plus products along with 25 lbs of a 75% rye/25% hairy vetch cover crops seeds have been ordered to be here next week to start the fall prep process on oct 4th. i ordered enough of each of these products for spring applications too to go along with my other goodies detailed in my spring ammendments to be purchased with my tax return money next year. i will have my buddy Ray clean the patch of all foliage and weeds and remove all low volume sprinkler heads and clean the patch immediately after the weigh offs to allow it to dry to get to work on it quickly. i have a feeling with the august low rain amounts, the leaves should drop a little earlier this year. we will find the maple leaves in joliet that drop first and gather them to shred immediately and til when i can depending on rain in october. i would like to be done shredding leaves and tilling and adding ammendments around oct 15th. at least 25 bags of shredded maple leaves for each of the 3 spots. i am glad i have a day like this to relax and get my game plan set for the fall so now i can just enjoy the weigh offs and attack the patch when they are over. Ray is still out of work so i will put him to work with fall prep while i am at work. i will let him enjoy bundling vines and weeds for the garbage man and do the tedious work of the watering system breakdown. Ray is my go to guy in the spring for moving my compost too. God Bless capitalism at its finest. lol. and yes...i am a little lazy too when it comes to those jobs. been there and done it solo many years, and as the back gets older...the pockets get deeper. lol. Wednesday, September 8 View Page just found out i will be working every saturday this fall and 10 hour shifts as my project is gearing up at getting everything done before winter and we have 9 buildings in progress, the parking lot, and 2 new buildings also just starting this week all on the same site. unfortunately, this means i will not get to go to milwaukee. maybe next year. oh well, work comes first especially as i also have to save cash for the winter months ahead when things slow down. saturdays are overtime and besides that, our client doesn't trust anyone else doing subgrade testing at this critical stage as we get closer to final grading and paving. all this just got dropped on me today. so now i will bring April to weigh as an exhibition pumpkin to bengston's and then drop her off in front of bobby's tap that night. on the bright side, i get to show tyson naylor, Meat, the first pumpkin someone has grown off of one of his seeds. that will be cool. and just another big'n for the Monster's of the Midway line up. glad to have RTI on board as a sponsor. awesome products and we will put that banner high for all to see. the weigh off preparations are going good and i am starting to feel the anxiety starting to slowly build day by day. or maybe that is just heartburn from the burrito with extra hot sauce i had at lunch today. lol. and the tension grows and the pumpkin dreams have started....i love this time of year. Tuesday, September 14 View Page creeping along baby...creeping along. more bulging in areas not covered by the tape in the mid-center shoulders and upper outside shoulder corners and the continued whitening of the salmon skin across the top due to surface skin cracking and some more greening and cantoloping stem side is still happening. the largest circumference is down lower parellel to the ground. so with these visual growth signs, today i decided to throw on the tape and see what if anything is doing in the past 9 days and it is not my imagination. 200-110.5-103.5 = 414 ott or 1481 lbs estimate today on day 94 for clegg with 18 days left til picking, hopefully with the small number of original beat up leaves left and a few new ones still popping up that i will be able to keep the creeping growth going and maybe see another inch ott. the circ was an 1/8 of an inch over the 200" mark but too small to add to the calculation so i rounded down rather than up. what ever it does now will not be much if anything, but i will keep watering it as if it is still growing all the way to picking and loading day. glad to have george j. over saturday to see clegg first hand after we had a weigh off preparation meeting. it was funny how as he walked up through the path to the pumpkin he goes, "ya know you have a dead mouse here right next to the pumpkin." lol. yep the d-con is working, but it didn't make me feel any easier knowing that they are out there. i felt around all sides of the fruit and no soft spots or mouse holes or burrowing holes. but just another thing to get the mind spinning this close to the end. lol. Monday, October 4 View Page surreal day. even though i was bouncing around like a nervous jack rabbit coordinating the weigh off to my best ability and still having fun...i managed to get 2 new personal bests today. as christy and JT would say..."sweet"!!!! and sweet it was...as in ken sweet!! a privileage and honor to see his world record tying bohemeth less than 1 mile from where i grew up as a kid. awesome pumpkin bigger than i dreamed they could ever get, and his 1605 was damn cool to see too on the scale today too. great people from all over the midwest came today to compete and have fun....thanks to joe platte and congrats on his 1420...we were the first 2 there this morning and himself and the michigan boys took over and helped us out big time with advise and technical help...thank you...it means a lot to us. also loved meeting the godfather...cool cat....and john hopkins and chris stevens were as good as people as they come and was great having them at our event. i walked by someone who looked like nick harp...and it was nick harp...lol. it was a weird day to have these fellow growers i have only seen online in pictures and meet them live....i liked it. lol. very cool people. very cool day. Monday, October 4 View Page and the gpc page for our weigh off is whacked a bit on my numbers. here they are...my sound exhibition pumpkin was actually 364" ott estimated at 1010 lbs and went 1209 lbs and 19.6% heavy. i do believe the 873 naylor 2009 might see some dirt in 2011 for those heavy lovers out there. the two 24% heavy parents in the cross did what they do. wow, what a heavy pumpkin! and the 991 went right to the charts and was 1493 lbs and was estimated at 1481 and was 414" ott by my records. these will be the numbers i give to the aggc. both my pumpkins were on heavy cushions and tough to get ott measurements at the weigh off, and i am not doubting the judgement of the measuring committee at our weigh off. but i want the most accurate measurement as possible and these following numbers will be submitted to the aggc by myself. the 1209 shenoha 2010 was 19.6% heavy...thanks again meat....it was an honor to prove out your seed. now time for bed...very late and i am more than a little loaded. lol. i love giant pumpkin growers...and i love giant pumpkins....life is damn good! Monday, October 4 View Page pulled this pic off the joliet herald online website today. it's a smaller pic that i am gonna get a hard copy from the paper framed. the announcer in the pic is my best friend from high school dan flanangan who was our mcee. what a day!!! Monday, October 4 View Page lol. i googled "shazzy" just to see if my nickname was mentioned in one of the interviews i did yesterday when the reporters asked, who is "shazzy" and why do they keep chanting his name? lol. yep i had a cheering section of about 60 or so people come to the weigh off yesterday. so after googling "shazzy", this is what popped up in the urban dictionary. lol. i might have to get a shazzy t shirt or a shazzy trucker hat. funny thing is my nickname "shazzy" was given to me when i was 15 years old playing middle linebacker in high school many moons ago. very weird...but i have been called worse things so i will take it. lol. http://www.urbandictionary.com/products.php?term=shazzy&defid=3881702 Monday, October 4 View Page IGPGA innagural Monsters of the Midway Weigh Off group shot before the weigh off Monday, October 4 View Page here is the other half the circle with the 1725 sweet 2010 4 pumpkins from the front one in the pic and next to it mostly blocked out is the 1605 sweet 2010. Monday, October 4 View Page growers talking pre weigh off Monday, October 4 View Page the 1493 shenoha 2010 with the ring left on cuz rope was too far underneath so i just left it on til we weighed it. to left of the 1493 is the 1209 shenoha 2010. the shazzydome helped me produce 2702 lbs of pumpkins from the 2 keeper plants started in it. nice! Monday, October 4 View Page and i didn't take any more pics yesterday as i have sets of pics coming from at least 10 different friends from all day. my pics were taken at my first break after hustling around from 7:30 to 11 am pre weigh off to set up. then i took these pics and threw down some budweisers with the boys tailgating. fun stuff. i kept going back to fill up orange plastic cups full of beer for Dan "Flanny" Flanagan the mcee who was the idiot we needed him to be. goof ball. he did good. i will post some more pics when i get them, but today was a full day off work to lounge, eat, and relax. watched chapter 8 of East Bound and Down and laughed my ass and re-lived the fun from yesterday in my brain. then i got out in the sun, stretched my legs, played with the dog, and harvested the gourds. didn't i already say me and my dog oreo are out of our gourds!!!!!!!!!!!! lol. Saturday, October 9 View Page things have settled back down and the hoopalla has come to rest. what an exciting week of shazzy pub on every major chicago tv network news, a story and pic in the sun times paper, and our local paper the joliet herald front page and nice story. pretty cool stuff. took some pics today of the pumpkin i intend to grow a seed from if viable. the 1209 shenoha 2010. with this pumpkin going 20% heavy and crossed with the 414" shell genetics from the 991 plant that produced my 1493, this cross could do some nice things. my intention is to cross into this cross some super shell genetics like the 1725 has produced. this will hopefully add a more rounder shape to go with the huge 200 + " circ and hopefully the heavy gene will remain dominant too. get a 420" ott at close to 20% heavy equal 1855 lbs. so what the hell, i will give the 1209 shenoha 2010 a run in 2011 and see what it does. a 1209, 991, 1725 line up would be nice. 1209 x 1725, 1725 x 1209, 991 x 1209. yep the mind is spinning already. 2011 has begun!!!!!!! Saturday, October 9 View Page side view of "April" grown off the 873 naylor 2009 (1147 shenoha 2008 x 1119 mcmullen) now known as the 1209 shenoha 2010. was estimated 1010 lbs and went 20% heavy. Saturday, October 9 View Page this year in my prime honey hole i grew a 364 ott pumpkin that went 20% heavy. in the same exact spot last year i grew the 1385 that produced my 1173 shenoha 2009 that went 13% light and was 403" ott. a 39" difference in ott and the 1209 went 36 lbs heavier. with the 873 naylor 2009 weighing 24% heavy and it's pollinator plant produced a 24% heavy, i had a strong feeling the heavy genes would carry over. i had dreamed of 20%, but would have been very happy at 15% heavy or better as expected. i talked with chris stevens at our weigh off about the first 4" of dense orange flesh in the 1041 genes like nothing i have ever seen before. like comparing a 4" cube of bass wood and a 4" cube of oak. density. wall thickness is one thing, but that dense stringy flesh i believe is a genetic characteristic of some lines. i have used a soil measuring device measures pounds per square feet. it is not made for this usage but i can gauge some pumpkin flesh and compare to others at different inch intervals from the outside surface inward. the heavier percent pumpkins have higher psf resistance further into the center and the first for inches of the 1147 shenoha were very firm, dense and darker orange. you can see what i mean in this pic. http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=98952 Saturday, October 9 View Page and my diary would not be complete with out a picture of Toga Tom, one of bobby's tap barflies who walks by my house on his way to get a six pac every morning and every morning my dog oreo wakes up the neighborhood barking at him. he calls oreo the bitch. lol. good oreo!!!! so here is Toga Tom today yelling TOGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sunday, October 10 View Page this morning while going for some left over pizza, i noticed a smile on the fat face of little shazzy in this old family photo that i have on my fridge. i seen that stupid grin somewhere before recently.... Sunday, October 10 View Page ....yep, that is where i saw it. same dumb smile on me after officially weighing the 1493 shenoha 2010. lol. this picture was in the chicago suntimes on page 8 and on the front page of the joliet herald with the headline across the whole page in huge letters "SQUASHED". very cool article and bob okon did a fantastic write up. http://heraldnews.suntimes.com/photos/galleries/1721012-418/pumpkin-shenoha-record-pumpkins-event.html Sunday, October 10 View Page fall mornings like today reminded me of a prayer i wrote for one of my best friends' wedding way back before i started growing giant pumpkins. he asked me to right something about the fall. "Autumn" Let us give praise to Autumn. When the Changing of the Guard is marked by both Beauty and Bounty. Truly a season of Thanksgiving" amen to that! the patch work was stalled until tomorrow due to Da Bears game, football all day and night, and the fact its going up to 88 degrees today. did i say autumn? wtf? you can see in this pic this morning that the first phase of fall prep is almost completed. the whitish powder and ammendments can be seen next to the tilled black soil. 120 lbs of gypsum, 50 pounds of kelp meal, and 50 pounds of fine agricultural corn meal has been applied to each of the 3 planting spots that are 37' x 21' or 777 sq ft and one extra bag of gypsum for more calcium on tomato row that also gets the same ammendments as the pumpkins cuz its adjoining to the number 1 spot. that maple tree across the street is dropping leaves already. i should have at least 10 bags from my immediate close neighbors maples by next sunday and will go hit all the older established areas of the west side and collect all week long. the deep till today and tomorrow is getting the soil fluffed to accept the shredded leaves. the restricter bar is off the tiller and it is slowly being allowed to go down all the way until the nose is pointing up before moving another 6". this takes time. each spot will get 25 bags of tall brown bags shredded fine and incorporated into this already deep tilled fluff. Sunday, October 10 View Page then the deep spading will be done next week after the shredded leaves are incorporated to break the hard pan 18" deep, to aerate and lift the soil creating some more air pockets to help the leaves break down faster. this is a pic of the deepspader from last year. i will pay my friend gabe 200 bucks to break his back for 8 hours and deep spade every foot of the entire patch. his 26 year old back is much more suitable for the job than mine. lol. this is not your typical broadfork georgie boy. i am sure you would still do this yourself, but after 30 minutes of deepspading you would have one of your laborers on the job all of a sudden for sure. dan flangan, the mcee at our weigh off, said it looked easy last year. then he tried it and changed his tune big time. lol. and anyways, 100 bucks of the 200 came from your pocket for that bet we made. nice!. lol. this deep spader weighs officially 32 pounds and is a lot harder to remove out of the ground again and again more than anything in the process. if i had a small tractor and subsoiler, that would be great. but instead i have gabe. he is a my mule. lol. after that the 25 lbs of cover crop seeds (75% rye/25% hairy vetch) will go down and then one quart of aerify plus will be sprayed on each 777 sg ft spot and then watered in for 8 hours with my 6' tall rain tower sprinkler. i want that aerify plus soil loosener and kelp and molasses and humic acid as deep as they can go and also coating the shredded leaves in the soil to help feed the microorganisms and activate the system a bit. i went heavier on cover crop seeds with 25 lbs just to give a better chance in filling in the gaps that i had in some places last year and due to the later application in the fall. Sunday, October 10 View Page to me the greatest success of the season is not what i accomplished individually, but what we have accomplished as a club. we have come along way since that first igpga meeting in georgie boy's kitchen. and i am proud to call all these growers i have met these years my good friends. george janowiak, gene mcmullen, al kopp and his daughter alanna, greg sliwka, ted krueger, judy barenie, tom mcilvaine, chuck huddle, rich and mike deck, greg dulski, chris hernandez. and new comers the past 2 or 3 years like tyson naylor, brian kochanny, jerry bandura, and ron miller and mike webb. and this year brings more like debbie runkle, joe adkins, tim smid, brad bomba, dan flanagan and family and bob vanesec. i am sure i am mising someone and sorry if i did. but we are the future of giant pumpkin growing in illinois. and what this Monsters of the Midway event did was bring more publicity to the hobby here in illinois than i ever imagined. this is what it is all about. to share the passion and get other people involved at keeping this hobby in the public eye and watch it grow here in illinois. pumpkins come and go every year and records will always be broken. but the friendships, comraderie, and fun is what we as a club will concentrate on and to help illinois and all growers grower bigger pumpkins in the process and to get as many newbies hooked as we can. and for all those who wish to attend next year from out of state...we say welcome to illinois!!!!! grow them big, haul them here, and let the chips fall where they may. i want to say thank you to ken sweet, chris stevens, john hopkins, joe platte, and wade wittenburg for coming such long distances to help make our weigh off the success that it was. so thanks igpga members and thanks you out of state guys. and i was proud as hell to stand at the podium with these 2 guys. i am coming at you both next year. lol. bring it on!!!! Wednesday, October 13 View Page 1605 Sweet 2010 stem side at Bengtson's today. ken, i took these 3 pics incase you needed some aggc good pics on a pallet on a sunny day. can you say ridiculous genetics? Wednesday, October 13 View Page 1605 Sweet 2010 side view at Bengtson's Pumpkin Farm. Wednesday, October 13 View Page 1605 Sweet 2010 blossom view. i loved watching the kids freak out once they figured out they were real. real BIG that is!!! lol. Wednesday, October 13 View Page you can see that the 1493 shenoha 2010 is easily accessible by the little ones. lol. feet print galore but she is still holding firm. i have the bengtson's on cell phone notice at any sign of softness on either kin for immediate seed extraction by myself and george j. we will get every last seed out for you ken, you can count on that. it was great sitting back and just watching kids enjoy the freaks of nature.....no one thinks they are real at first. lol. Wednesday, October 13 View Page perfect spot to sit. lol. this is just a random kid kicking back on the 1493 boat. nick harp said this is one would make a nice floater. one of these days... Wednesday, October 13 View Page might as well get the mom and dad on there too...i think there is room... lol. Wednesday, October 13 View Page damn clegg...you are one wide ass mofo!!!! Wednesday, October 13 View Page another gratuitous shot of ole' Clegg. damn Clegg, it was good to see ya again today. i missed ya. lol. Wednesday, October 13 View Page da bengtsons shined ole' Clegg up real good. for all you old enough to remember the 2 wild and crazy guys from saturday night live, then you will get the fact that Clegg likes to show off his bulges...lol...he got plenty of them...lol. Sunday, October 17 View Page i just got this picture from mama shaz. she is officially a member of the joe platte fan club. lol. my mom got to bengtson's early after church that sunday morning while we were setting up. she found an ear to talk in to and it happened to be joe's. lol. yep, joe got a taste first hand where i got a lot of my genetics from. she called me and told me she had this picture made into a hard copy and is going to mail it to him. she said he was the nicest guy and joe told me later that he appreciated the conversation that morning. she is a character. this is joe with his 1420 Platte 2010 at bengtson's farm. with it going 9 percent heavy and ken's 1605 going 15% heavy, that 1303 sweet seed will see more dirt this year for sure. thanks for making it to the show joe and helping out with the scale...we appreciated your long drive to help make the innagural Monsters of the Midway Weigh Off the success that it was. hope to see ya again next year and congrats on the killer year!!! Thursday, October 21 View Page fall patch prep is done. each of the three 700 sq ft plots got 50 pounds of cornmeal, 50 pounds of kelp meal, 120 pounds of gypsum, and 25 bags of fine shredded leaves were thoroughly tilled in deep. then after the deepspading was completed today to break up the hardpan 18" deep, one quart of aerify plus (contains kelp, humic acid, molasses and a soil loosener) was slowly soaked into all the loosened fluffy deep spaded soil with a hose end applicator. then i put down the winter rye and hairy vetch cover crop seeds and then topped it off with annual rye grass seed and leaf raked the whole patch to help disperse the seed more evenly and bury some in the process. now the 6' tall rain tower sprinkler will run for 8 hours tonight to help the aerify plus find its way deep into the subsoil cracks after coating all that leaf litter. also the sprinkler will help to get the cover crop seeds soaked for germination. supposed to get some rain this weekend too which would be nice. been dry as a bone and the trees could use it going into winter. the sprinkler covers the whole patch nicely when there is no wind like tonight. a full moon over the patch at dusk was a nice way to finish off the work and put the soil to rest until spring. Sunday, October 24 View Page i was walking through the solarium last night after coming home from bobby's tap all liquored up and i came across these five gourds telling dirty jokes. you can't even imagine how "blue" their comedy can get. dirty dirty dirty mouthed birds, especially that little one....lol. these crazy foul (pun intended) mouthed gourds are out of their..................................minds. lol. Sunday, October 24 View Page the good people at buyactivatedcharcoal.com are sending me 150 pounds of free "charcoal green biochar plus" after hearing of my success this year. awesome!!! i will put down 50 pounds in each 700 sq ft plot along with 100 pounds of zeolite per plot. i just found some nice priced zeolite on line, but the shipping becomes the costly part. oh well, merry x mas early to me. lol. http://www.agorganics.com/products/ZEOMAX-Zeolite-Turf-Aid-50-lb/13/665.html i am still working on my soil structure by adding these 2 products to help increase the cec and also to add microscopic tunnels and caves for all the beneficials to call home. the science behind the surface area within these microspcopic particles is silly. Sunday, October 24 View Page forgot to mention that these products will be incorporated in the spring at the time i put down the 15 yards of organimix compost along with all the other spring time goodies. a nice warm and sunny 70 degree day after some good rains yesterday shuld get those cover crop seeds popping soon. Saturday, October 30 View Page 1209 Shenoha 2010 seeds drying on a house screen in the basement. i got a fan circulating the air nicely near the seeds. i guess the nine 991 flowers i used to pollinate it along with the 6 lobed fruit did the trick. 795 good solid plumpers. nice. this 20% heavy x 414" ott wide and long shape producing pollinating plant hopefully will be the 1st step of 3 for my hopeful breeding strategy over the next couple years. i will pick up a back up 1725 at auction to go along with the one i got from its mama and hopefully a 1209 x 1725 can be made in 2011. this will hopefully then be the combo of heavy, long and wide, and super big ott shell and rounder shape into the mix. then in 2012, i will introduce a separate monster heavy x monster big cross. soomething similar to the 1605 sweet 2010. hopefully the 1605 seeds are healthy and plentiful for ken because this cross has the potential to see 1900 in my eyes. a 1605 pound 15% heavy pumpkin that is crossed with pollen from a plant that produced a 438" ott shell......do the math!!!!!!!!!! lol. never mind i will do it for you. the aggc calculator says a 438" pumpkin ott at 15% would equal 2016 pounds. that is how the one ton mark will get toppled. Monday, November 1 View Page 605 seeds from the 1493 shenoha 2010 (991 urena x self) are drying in the basement. i imagine by the time i check them all and drop test i think i should still have 500 nice ones. the illinois giant pumpkin growers association will have both the 1209 and 1493 seeds on sale after the are done drying. they will be very reasonable. both crosses will be sold for 2 seeds for $10. all proceeds will go towards the igpga monsters of the midway weigh off prize money. we will be requiring that purchasers supply us a self addressed stamped bubble pack along with the money so all we have to do is drop in the packs and send on the way and not have to pay for the bubbles and postage. it's a fair price for some nice crosses, and for 20 bucks and a self addressed stamped bubble pack, a grower could have 2 of each the 1209 and 1493 shenoha seeds for their collection. we feel this is reasonable and anything to help the club and the weigh off is cool by me. i will post in my diary when the seed sale starts after they are done drying and anyone interested in this offer can email me at [email protected] if you have any questions. i will start a list as of tonight and 200 of each will go to first come first serve. they will be sold only in packs of 2, so there will be 100 packs of each cross with 2 seeds in the envelopes available starting now. the crosses again are--- #1 cross---1209 shenoha 2010 that went 20% heavy. it is the 873 naylor x the 991 urena pollintor plant that produced the 1493. the 873 is not listed on the aggc but it is the 1147 shenoha x 1119 mcmullen and both the 873 pumpkin and 1119 pollinator plant's pumpkins went 24% heavy. #2 cross. 1493 shenoha 2010. 991 urena x self if you email me in regards to this, please title the email "SEED SALE REQUEST" so i can put you on the list and then tell me specifically which ones and how many packets you need. remember, 2 seeds per packet for each at 10 bucks per packet. thanks from the igpga. Saturday, November 6 View Page 20 degrees this morning. brrrrrr. first hard freeze of the fall. since i just put down the cover crop 16 days ago and the sprouts are still somewhat immature, i threw on the sprinkler last night at 10 pm when it was still 33 degrees. i left it on til early this morning about 5 am. the ice coating that slowly devloped on top of the saturated soil overnight should have protected the immature roots from freezing and also stop some soil expansion from the freeze by insulating the soil surface. the winter rye was of no concern due to its hardiness. but i want the hairy vetch, which sprouted 4 or 5 days after the rye and is still very immature, to have a better chance of get substantiated. also the final annual rye topping is not as hardy as the winter rye and the the small srouts coated with ice should help to insulate it from the 20 degree temps and give it a better chance of getting a good strong root base over the next week of above normal temps in the 60s. you can see in the pic how much ice formed around the sprinkler itself, but all that green vegetation to the right also has a nice coating too and the fence has icicles and is coated and shining bright now in the morning sun. should be a nice week of weather for the cover crop and hoping to get some more decent roots formed and some thicker foliage prior to the the continual nightly freezes right around the corner. the sprinkler and hoses will put away tonight and now the patch work has officially ended for the season. time to hunker down for the winter with dart league action, euchre, texas hold em, pro football, college basketball soon, and hopefully our stanley cup holding blackhawks can find their rhythm with all the new personnel changes. a little snow skiing, fall fishing, then ice fishing, some seed auctions and winter meetings, then the superbowl, march madness...and boom...i will start the tomato plants in mid march and the season begins all over again. Friday, November 12 View Page it has been in the high 60s and low 70s all week and sunny for the most part all week long. caught some crappie the other day after work and am enjoying t-shirt weather in the middle of november. the cover crop is also enjoying the temps. here is a pic of the combo of winter rye, annual rye, and hairy vetch. the hairy vetch sprouts survived the hard freeze shown in the last post and has since substantiated itself nicely amongst the grasses. i am very happy with the quality of the 75% winter rye 25% hairy vetch combo from High Mowing Seed Co. http://www.highmowingseeds.com/organic-seeds-rye-hairy-vetch-mix.html they sprouted quickly and are strong plants. the rye grasses should buffer and protect the vetch all winter. here is what the description of the seed said. "The vetch fixes nitrogen while the rye adds organic matter and acts as a nurse crop for the vetch, providing it with support and protecting the less hardy vetch from winter damage. Regrows vigorously in the spring." i liked the sound of that when choosing a seed. and the annual rye grass i through on top was to try to fill in the gaps. i broadcasted at separate times the same day so as to try not to have bare spots when hand broadcasting. it worked pretty good and although the annual rye is not as hardy as the winter rye, i think this lush mix of all 3 will do the trick. you can see all 3 ...the hairy vetch with the multiple small leaves, the thinner annual rye grass, and the thicker winter rye. Friday, November 12 View Page here is a pic of the cover crop at twilight with the sprinkler going. its been real dry lately and i water it twice a week if no rain. not the best pic but the overall coverage is good with not many missing splotches. i am happy the nice weather has kicked it in gear to get the roots as deep as possible before multiple hard freezes and the actual frost layer penetrating into the ground. getting those winter rye roots deep into the hardpan and clay zone at 20" deep will help that area increase in organic matter and soil activity at that transitional zone and tap into all those nutrients that are locked up down deep as well. Monday, November 15 View Page howard dill i think would be proud of this picture. this is my buddy and fellow illinois grower ted "the compost king" krueger and 2 pumpkins on the same 993 vincent mcgill plant in 2010. ted is standing by 1010 krueger 2010 and the other one is the 929 krueger 2010. almost one ton of orange on one plant....wow! both are crossed with the 988 janowiak which produces flaming bright shiney orange pumpkins like this one but also has the power of the 1450 wallace in it too. the 988 janowiak is the 670 daigle x 1450 wallace. pictures of the 988 can be seen on the aggc. way to go ted!!!!! seeds from both of these pumpkins will soon be available in our IGPGA seed sale along with 988 Janowiak's and another one grown off the 1059 mcgill that was 1082 lbs estimate and sound but never officially weighed as he donated it to a horticultural show before getting an official weight. the 1082 pic will be on the next post. Monday, November 15 View Page here is a pic of the 929 krueger 2010 (993 vincent mcgill x 988 janowiak) up front and to the left and the 1082 krueger 2010 est. (1059 vincent mcgill x 988)in the back to the right. big bright orange shiney genetics with the 1450 wallace mixed in on the 988 side (670 daigle x 1450) wallace). Monday, November 15 View Page here is the stump of the 988 janowiak pollinating plant used for ted's 1010, 929, and 1082 est. pumpkins. damn those 1450 stump size and huge vine genetics are unreal!!!! Monday, November 15 View Page here is a pic of teddy's 1082 Krueger 2010 est. (1059 vincent mcgill x 988 janowiak) in the patch being carefully watched over and guarded by that wolf in the background. lol. Monday, November 15 View Page and here is the 1010 krueger 2010 (993 vincent mcgill x 988 janowiak). what a beauty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so for all you orange lovers out there, watch out for the posting next week on the seed auction section of the message board. it will be marked IGPGA SEED SALE and all 3 of these crosses will be sold in packs of 2 seeds per pack for $10 (5 bucks a seed) along with the 988 janowiak and other great Illinois crosses from the past several years too. we appreciate everyone's generosity in helping us raise money for the Monster of the Midway Weigh-Off prize money. again these seeds will be sold at such reasonable prices as we will be asking purchasers to provide their own self addressed stamped bubble (or equivlant amount of money for postage for those growers outside the usa. Saturday, November 20 View Page http://heraldnews.suntimes.com/news/crime/2419614-418/police-arrested-county-booked-jail.html keeping it real here in joliet...urban growing baby!!!! Thursday, November 25 View Page i woke up this morning and took some pics of the cover crop after some nice soaking rains finally for a change. now it is time for the deep freeze of winter and i am happy to see nice green color with nice growth and pretty good coverage. thanks again georgie boy for the pumpkin pie you gave me yesterday for the family, too bad it never made it that long. lol. this morning i ate the whole thing for breakfast. damn good too! lol. now its time for the big dinner as i go to mama and papa shaz's to go glutton down and watch some football. Tuesday, November 30 View Page LET'S GROW TWO!!!! lol. yep i asked my dad to bring a copy of the Joliet Herald with him when he was invited to watch a blackhawks game with ernie banks. ernie and my dad are the 2 most unlikely people in the world to end up being good friends, but the game of golf brought them together about 15 years ago here at a golf course 5 minutes from where i grew up...Cog Hill C.C. my dad's passion about golf and designing clubs equals to or exceeds my passion for growing giant pumpkins. he designs putters, shafts, golf club testing equipment, loft/lie adjusting machines, and laser tracking testing equipment for analyzing the real Pros putting strokes. his accommplishments in golf engineering and mechanical engineering as a whole gives him the extreme advantage over myself in the amount of obsessive compulsive energy devoted to a single passion. golf never caught on in my blood...i can play..but have little patience and expect way too much from myself. i tend to make myself nuts on the course, or should i say...more nuts...lol. little to no room for error in the game of golf. so anyways, i thought it was cool to have an original signature on a weird piece of my own history that i will have framed. funny thing is if that i hate the cubs. lol. go whitesox 2011!!!!!! Sunday, December 5 View Page lovely time of year. i was looking out the window and seeing in the back right hand corner where tomato row will hopefully get me a new personal best over 3.08 lbs. and then what to plant in the shazzydome which will be positioned a little left of center in this pic again 6 weeks prior to transplanting to get the soil food web into high gear and all those corn seed maggots hatched early. after more thought at what has the best chances for me to possibly hit 1600 pounds in 2010, i have chosen the 1725 harp, the 1605 sweet, and my 1209 shenoha. the 1725 will hopefully be the pollinator for both the 1605 [(15% heavy pumpkin) x 438" ott producing plant] and the 1209 [(20%) heavy pumpkin x 414" ott producing plant. my idea is to strengther the BIG ott genetics from the 1725 into both for the quest of the best combo of BIG ott and "heavy-to-the charts-genetics". hopefully the 1725 will be pollinated with the 1209 and hopefully the SUPER BIG x (heavy x big) might help that combo line up better. i am not sure if it easier to start with heavy and add big, or more successful to start with Big and cross into it heavy like the 898. i figure i will try both ways. next year i already have planned as a pollinator being the 1286.5 daletas. i picked up one in auction last night and will get another this year for a backup. with it going 23% heavy and having its pollinating plant go 23% heavy for 2 large pumpkins is a incredible. the 873 that grew my 1209 was 24% x 24% and it carried over to 20%. this gives me high hopes for what the 1286.5 will do. i am not sure, but i do beileve for pumpkins of that size (1200+), i have never seen such high heavier than the charts percentages on both sides than the 1286.5 daletas. yes the wheels keep spinning and the gazinta games continue... Friday, December 24 View Page after a little christmas twist of fate, i have changed my 2011 line up. it will now be the 1161, 1605 and 1725 harp if they all sprout. thanks georgie boy. a will hold off trying my 1209 until 2012. i will grow 2 of the 1209s as back ups and one 1493 as backup in 2011 to see how they do up to the 5' stage as far as health, vigor, and to make sure they do not throw doubles. and if they somehow make the cut this year like the 873 naylor did, then i will have fun proving them out. but with some good fortune, i have decided to grow the 1161 again. hopefully this time i will get one set on the main and give that chris stevens kid and that mr. sweet character from michigan a run for the money at the Monsters of the Midway weigh off in 2011. lol. look out though....georgie boy is growing an 1161 too i think. hoping for some very good things from illinois this year and wish every one a merry christmas and happy new year. 2010 was a year i will never forget and i met some great folks and had more fun than one human being should be allowed to have in a year. lol. peace, love, and grow them obnoxiously BIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!