Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 22 Entries. Thursday, March 14 View Page I need your help growers!!! Please go to www.bakeoff.com and vote for my recipe in the Pillsbury Bake Off. I'm a semi-finalist, and Pillsbury has posted their top 60 recipes, including mine: Chicken and Veggie Pesto Pastries! Only the top 33 vote-getting recipes will get to go to Las Vegas and compete for the million dollar grand prize! Please go to www.bakeoff.com and vote for Cindy Tobeck, from Olympia, WA. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! Tuesday, April 16 View Page Today the cover crop got rototilled! Next week, I'll till in my final amendments, compost and build the hoop houses. The cabbages have been growing under lights for some time now and look great. This year I am growing giant cabbages, AG's, a giant squash, giant tomatoes, giant watermelon, giant cantaloupe, long gourd, field pumpkins, and a marrow. I will be growing 3 pumpkins and a squash in my main patch and Rosalyn, my daughter, will be growing a pumpkin in the main patch as well. I will also be starting a new patch out in my horse pasture with 5 giant pumpkins specifically for a carver. Here is my main patch line-up: 1140 Finders, 1723 Marshall, 2009 Wallace, and the 895 Hester Squash. Rosalyn will be growing the 1140 Finders. Our goal this year is to be the first mother/daughter winners of the Washington State Fair! I will start a number of other plants for the carver patch including: 1676 Daletas, 1552 Sherwood, 902 Uhlmeyer, 1122 Emmons, 931 Marshall, 1788 Daletas, and 1462 Holland. All of these are Pacific NW seeds. Based on the phase of the moon, the 17th and 18th are VERY favorable days for starting seeds, so I will file and soak tomorrow, and put them into their pots on the 18th. Our club is starting a new competition this year to encourage people who grow on limited space, called the "10' x 10' Challenge", whereby growers are restricted to keep their entire plant entered in the competition in a 10x10 area (not including the fruit). The biggest one at the end of the year will get $100. So, I'm going to give that a try too. Should be interesting! I'll choose one of the Pac. NW seeds to be my 10x10 plant that I'll put in the corner of my main patch. This year I didn't start a plant extra early for the fair. My logic is that my 1723 Marshall that I took last year (produced the 1135 Tobeck) grew on a normal timeline. Although the early start sounds like a great idea, in the few years that I've been trying it, it hasn't produced the results I want. Wednesday, April 17 View Page Today the husband used a DEEP plow to improve my drainage in the main patch. Seeds are soaking for an hour in seaweed solution, then will sit overnight in moist paper towels in the oven with the light on. Tomorrow they go into their pots! I also started the 1461 Pugh and the 750 Hester squash. Wednesday, April 17 View Page Patch #2 getting plowed for the carver's pumpkins. Monday, September 9 View Page I haven't posted all year because I have been so busy preparing for the Canadian National Championships in Brandon, Manitoba. After a summer of horse showing, I was richly rewarded with two National Championships at the end of August! Monday, September 9 View Page Here we are in July at the Regional Championships... Monday, September 9 View Page We went to Kauai in June (before pollination) and I looked up Garry, another BP grower and visited his garden at his church! Monday, September 9 View Page Rosalyn started 2 plants: the 1140 Finders and the 1552 Sherwood. She liked the aggressive growth of the 1552, so that was her final selection. Here she is pollinating. She did her chosen pollination on June 30th and used pollen from my 1140 Finders. Monday, September 9 View Page 9 feet out on the main vine 1552 Sherwood x 1140 Finders Monday, September 9 View Page It was a good plant for her and grew steadily. This is at the end of August the day before Rosalyn broke her leg while roller skating. Monday, September 9 View Page You may be wondering what happened to my big prospect? I was growing the 1723 Marshall for the State Fair and it went down at the end of August to a stem split. My buddy Jack LaRue came out and weighed it for me. Too bad! It would have been a strong contender! Monday, September 9 View Page So, we got ready to take Rosalyn's pumpkin to the fair. It was so big, I don't think mine would've fit in the truck anyway! Monday, September 9 View Page Our bounty on Friday Septhember 6th at the Washington State Fair: Rosalyn's 1552 Sherwood, Her giant cabbage, my giant cabbage, and my field pumpkin from the 80 LaRue. Monday, September 9 View Page New WA state record for giant cabbage! Rosalyn and her 57 pounder. Mine was a close second with 55.5 pounds. Monday, September 9 View Page Even though I couldn't get my 1723 Marshall to the scale, I was very excited to learn that my 80 LaRue was now the 128 Tobeck and the new Washington State Record field pumpkin! 80 LaRue x 140 uow Barker. Monday, September 9 View Page The winner of the Junior division with her 1203 pounder! The new R. Tobeck 1203 (1552 Sherwood x 1140 Finders). As an bonus she set a new site record for junior growers! Monday, September 9 View Page Come by the Washington State Fair PNWGPG booth every Sunday and visit us! Monday, October 14 View Page Here is my 128 pound field pumpkin all carved up! It had a ton of seeds! Monday, October 14 View Page The last pumpkin of the patch getting loaded. View from my tractor seat. This is the '08 1462 Holland. Monday, October 14 View Page 1052 pounds, good enough for a 5th place and a nice little bit of prize money! So here is my year: The Hester squash was a bust and all fruits aborted. I'm done with squash! The 1723 Marshall developed a stem split right before the fair but grew to 1000+ lbs. before splitting through. The 1462 Holland was a steady grower, but a strong rainstorm collapsed the hoop house onto it, crushing a lot of the plant, but at least it made it to the scale for a 1052 pound pumpkin. The 1140 Finders got a lot of action as a pollinator this year, but the stump rotted and got cut out on the 4th of July, the same day I pollinated the fruit, but despite not having a stump, it grew a 980 pounder. It was my personal favorite, because of it's resiliency and the 980 pounder gave me a 3rd place at a weigh-off with some more prize money. I grew a 77 pound marrow (my first one)which won at the state fair! But my crowning achievement for 2013 will be my state record field pumpkin at 128.5 pounds! The queen of the pumpkin patch will be Rosalyn in 2013 with her 1552 Sherwood that grew her 1203 pounder, and her new state record cabbage at 57 pounds. Monday, October 14 View Page If you come to the Terminator Weigh-Off and Pumpkin Regatta in Tualatin, OR on the 19th, you will see me, Jack LaRue and Ron Barker make history on the lake... Wednesday, October 23 View Page Jack, Ron and I are the first ever to race FIELD pUMKINS in the regatta! We came in dead-last, but at least we looked cool doing it! Actually, we didn't come in dead last...our buddy John (aka Gladiator) rolled his 'kin and wound up in the lake. The entire hold of the viking ship was filled with 2 cargo nets FULL of field pumpkins. Added bonus: we won best costume!