Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 32 Entries. Tuesday, May 4 View Page I planted two 1348 Hester 07 plants out in the patch this evening(back to back). Thursday, May 6 View Page I planted the following two plants out in the west patch this evening: 492.5 Gerhardt 08 1110 Wallace 06 These were planted back-to-back, with about a 5' space in between them. I'm holding off on planting my back up plants, as Fri. and Sat. nights could bring freezing temps. Four plants are enough to worry about for now. In summary, my main plants for 2010 are: two 1348 Hester 07(1370 Rose X 1068 Wallace) plants one 492.5 Gerhardt 08 (670 Daigle X 603.5 Muller) plant one 1110 Wallace 06 (1370 Rose X 1068 Wallace) plant Sunday, May 16 View Page Today I finally got my backup plants planted out in the patch. All three backups are grown from the 492.5 Gerhardt 08 seed. Each of the two 1348 Hester plants and the 492.5 Gerhardt plant have backups now at the opposite end of their allotted patch space. I'm not going to have a backup for the 1110 Wallace plant. If I have to pull that plant for any reason, I'll seed that area in a cover crop. Friday, May 21 View Page I planted three 492.5 Gerhardt 08(670 Daigle X 603.5 Muller) plants out at my brothers place, which is about 5 miles from where I live. I planted one at each end of the patch, and one in the middle, as a backup. I'm guessing each of the two competition spots has about 400-500 sq. ft. of space. I really like the color potential of the 492.5, so I wanted to give it a run this year. In addition to the plants at my brother's place, I have a competition plant of it at home, and used it for all three of my backup plants. All 7 of the 7 seeds I started of it germinated. Tuesday, May 25 View Page I had a close call last night, about 2 A.M. A strong wind blew through the area. I was awake at the time, and went out to find three of the hoophouses had blown off the plants. Thankfully the wind only lasted a brief time. I was able to put the hoophouses back over the plants. None of the plants were damaged. Friday, May 28 View Page This evening I took the hoops off my four main plants, so I could run the overhead sprinkler over them, and give them a good soaking. I started using sticks to gradually train the vines on these plants to make a smooth transition to the ground(hopefully). Hoops are back over them now. The plants are looking good so far. Monday, June 7 View Page Today at noon I measured the mainvines on my four competition plants. 1348 Hester(south) 51" 1348 Hester(north) 43" 492.5 Gerhardt 32" 1110 Wallace 30" They are all safely on the ground. I haven't noticed any double or mutant vine tendencies on any of my plants. I checked on the three 492.5 Gerhardt plants out at my brother's place. They all look very healthy. None of the vines are on the ground yet, but it shouldn't be long. I hadn't checked these plants since I planted them. I was very pleasantly surprised by how good they looked. Wednesday, July 7 View Page I've done a few pollinations in the past few days. More to come soon. Two planned for tomorrow. All four of my plants have been slow in growing out secondaries. Some of the early secondaries were weak, or didn't grow out. Secondary growth seems to have taken off nicely this past week. Maybe the nice soaking rains we've gotten have kicked them into gear. The mainvine growth on all four of my plants seems good. Of the two 1348 Hester plants I've got growing, the north plant has a yellower vine, so I'm using males from this plant to pollinate the 1110 Wallace and the 492.5 Gerhardt. We'll see if yellower vine = oranger pumpkin in this case. Friday, July 16 View Page Day 10 for the following two pumpkins: 1348 Hester(north plant)...circ.= 27.25". It's crossed with the 1110 Wallace. 1348 Hester(south plant)...circ. 17.25". It's open pollinated. No cuke beetles noticed hear, or at my brother's place, so far this season. Tuesday, July 20 View Page This past Saturday afternoon, my garden suffered significant hail damage. The pumpkins I had on the plants have a lot of dents on them, and the leaves have a lot of damage. I'm going to give them some time to see how they respond, before deciding if I want to keep them going. I went out to my brother's place(5 miles away), and his two 492.5 Gerhardt plants are doing great(no hail). The soil in his patch is an easy to work with black dirt, which the pumpkin plants seem to love. There are pumpkin sets on each plant, with the largest ones at almost bowling ball size. Tuesday, July 20 View Page Day 14 for the pumpkin on the 1348 Hester(north)...circ.= 43". This pumpkin grew about 3.5" in circ. the past day. Still chugging along after the hail damage. It's a whitish or very light yellow color. With the hail marks it looks kind of like a round hunk of swiss cheese. Saturday, July 24 View Page I went out to my brother's patch this evening. I got the patch caught up with pruning, vine burying, etc. Things look good out there. 492.5 Gerhardt(east) plant: The keeper pumpkin is 42.5" circ. this evening. I started the culling process on two other pumpkins on the mainvine. One is a little larger than the keeper(two nodes closer to the basal crown), but a little less desirable shape IMO. The other one, further down the main is around 30" circ. I'm guessing. I cut half way through the stem on both of them. 492.5 Gerhard(west) plant: The two largest on the main are 40" and 26" circ. The larger one has a shape that could be a problem later on. There is a healed-over mainvine split(across the grain) before the 26" one. I haven't made a choice yet, but am leaning toward the smaller one, even considering the vine split, as it has a nicer shape so far. It should be fun measuring the pumpkins out there every few days. I'm still not sure if I'll keep any of my pumpkins going at home, considering the hail damage. They are still plugging along. Monday, July 26 View Page Day 20 for the pumpkin on the 1348 Hester north plant. Circ. = 67.75" Tuesday, July 27 View Page At my brother's place: 492.5 Gerhardt east pumpkin 56" circ. 492.5 Gerhardt west pumpkin 39.5" circ. The west plant is down to one pumpkin. The east plant has three pumpkins on the main. The middle one is the chosen keeper. I cut halfway through the largest pumpkin's stem to start the culling process. There's another pumpkin further down the main, for insurance(about 20" circ. I'm guessing). Both keeper pumpkins grew over 4" circ./day the past 3 days. I'm happy with this, considering they have(or had) other pumpkins on the plants during that period. These pumpkins are all open-pollinated. I don't know the pollination dates on them. Wednesday, July 28 View Page day 22 for the 1348 Hester north pumpkin. Circ.= 75.5". Thursday, July 29 View Page At my brother's: 492.5 Gerhardt east plant. Circ.=67" 492.5 Gerhardt west plant. Circ.=48" Monday, August 2 View Page Day 27 for the 1348 Hester(north) pumpkin. Circ.= 89.75". At my brothers: 492.5 Gerhardt(east): Circ.= 84.5". This pumpkin is a long oval shape. 492.5 Gerhardt(west): Has two pumpkins on the main, with circumferences of 66.5" and 45". The smaller pumpkin looks to have a little nicer shape and a longer stem. I want to choose the keeper real soon. They both are fairly round at the stem end, and taper to almost a point at the blossom end. I plan on posting pictures sometime in the next two weeks or so. Thursday, August 5 View Page My last diary entry should be Aug. 5. At my brother's: 492.5 Gerhardt(east)...circ.= 95.5" 492.5 Gerhardt(west)...circ.= 81.5" Sunday, August 8 View Page At my brother's: His plants and pumpkins suffered some hail damage yesterday. Not too bad though. The leaves have a few holes, and the pumpkins have a some minor nics. It shouldn't affect pumpkin growth much, if at all, I'm hoping. 492.5 Gerhardt(east)...circ.= 105" 492.5 Gerhardt(west)...circ.= 96" Tuesday, November 30 View Page It's about time I update my 2010 diary. The following pumpkins grown on the 1348 Hester(two plants) and the 1110 Wallace were cut off sometime in Sept. as they weren't growing much at that point, due to the hail damage, and neglect on my part, IMO. .You can see the hail marks on the pumpkins. Tuesday, November 30 View Page This pumpkin was grown on the 1348 Hester north plant. I'm guessing this pumpkin, the other one I grew on the 1348 Hester, and the pumpkin I grew on the 1110 Wallace, were somewhere between 300-400 lbs. roughly. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Here's another pic of the pumpkin I grew on the 1348 Hester north plant. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Here's the pumpkin I grew on the 1348 Hester south plant. It ended with darker orange color than the pumpkin on the 1348 Hester north plant(somewhat early harvest date on these, so they both could have colored up a little more maybe). The vines on the north plant had yellow vines, so I expected it to be better colored than the pumpkin on the south plant. It didn't pan out in this case. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Another pic of the pumpkin grown on the 1348 Hester south plant. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Here's a pic of the pumpkin I grew on the 1110 Wallace. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Here's a pumpkin I was growing on the 492.5 Gerhardt plant. I don't know how old this pumpkin was when I cut it(quite young). It was wheel-shaped. It's starting to show some nice color. I'm guessing it was about 100 lbs. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Here's the two pumpkins I grew on the 492.5 Gerhardt plants at my brother's place. The one on the left is the one that got weighed and ended at 856 lbs. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Another shot. The one on the right is the 856 Wallace 10. The pumpkins had minor hail marks. These pumpkins did well IMO, considering the were planted on May 21 with no cold frames. Only early wind protection. Sometime, I'm guessing when the pumpkins were around 40-50 days old, a wind storm knocked 1/3 to 1/2 of the leaves down. Both pumpkins were nice and solid looking from the outside. Tuesday, November 30 View Page A pic of the 856 Wallace 10 at the Delano weighoff. It placed 4th. Tuesday, November 30 View Page Another pic of the 856 Wallace 10. Nice color and shape IMO. When I cut this pumpkin open, it had nice wall thickness all around. Near the blossom end it was about 6" thick. Tuesday, November 30 View Page At the weighoff, another grower and I, quickly did the OTT measurements on the 856. I don't recall the numbers(and didn't write them down), but I think it was estimated at around 780 lbs....not sure though. That's the only time I did the OTT measurements on it, unfortunately:-( Sunday, December 5 View Page Day 30 for the pumpkin on the 1348 Hester(north)....circ.= 96". Day 28 for the pumpkin on the 1110 Wallace...circ.= 78.5" There's a pumpkin growing on the main of the 492.5 Gerhardt plant, that's 19.5" circ. No hail damage on it. I may go with this one for a nice "porch sitter". Maybe it'll make 500+ lbs. if all goes well. There are a number of other sets on the sidevines, that I will gradually cull out in the next few days. All sets on this plant are open-pollinated.