Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 4 Entries. Wednesday, April 28 View Page Seeds have been filed with the ceremonial emory board and are soaking in the special sauce. They will go into the potting mix tonight. I'm starting a bunch because I don't want to have to do any later and some of them are pretty old. The list is: 690 Sproule 968 Sproule 526 Michalec 673 Michalec 476* Michalec 716* Michalec 840 Parks 1024 Mombert 849 Marchand 1467 Perham 908 Roof I have four of the 673 going and plan to give most of them away. I'll be putting 8 plants in the patch and have no idea which ones they will be, it all depends on what germinates. Sunday, May 16 View Page The plants finally made it into the patch today, much later than usual. Circumstances, weather, work, etc. prevented me from getting the tilling finished until Friday. Germination troubles made significant changes to my planned line-up. Even some of my second plantings failed and it's hard to say why, as some of the first batch germinated in the same conditions as the others that failed. Even the second planting had troubles. Maybe the bad luck I have avoided in the past when starting seeds caught up with me all at once. At any rate, her is the line-up. 673 Michalec X 2 I don't usually double plant but I started 4 of these planning to give some away, which I did, but ended up keeping two because others failed. 716* Michalec is the only green representative this year, it's the only one that germinated. 1467 Perham I would have been really bummed if that one failed. 755 Mombert 03 uow this was a later planted backup since the 1024 failed to germinate 943 Dixon 09 another late planted backup that I got as part of the PNWGPG seed package. I saw that pumpkin at the Puyallup fair early last September and it looked just like a smaller version of Jake VanKootens 1536.5 so maybe I'll get a big long white pumpkin from it. 830.5 Roof is another late backup from the PNWGPG package. The 908 Roof failed to germinate for me so this one is taking it's place. It's the same cross as the 1725 Harp and will probably not get planted as much as that one so it will be interesting to see how it does compared to all those 1725's being grown out there this year. More to follow when there's something to report. No cloches up at this time and I may or may not get to that. I went without them last year but weather was different. If it turns back to cold an wet I may take the time to do it even though they'll probably only be up for a few weeks. Tuesday, June 15 View Page My season ended in May this year. Unusually cold wet weather, (it was unusually cold, it's usually wet), kept the plants slow growing early in the month and I did not want to put up my cloches because of windy storms predicted right after I planted. The wind came with an endless string of storms. Along with that came slugs. At least I think they were slugs. They could have been slimey legless vegetarian dachshunds. I swear the one I speared while it was taking a last bite through the stem of my 1467 Perham plant snarled and snapped at me. I've been at this game too long to be making rookie mistakes like not putting out slug bait right away, but I couldn't find it on the shelf in the garage and forgot about picking some up until it was too late. I started a couple more 673's and stuck them out there last weekend, but I entertain no hope of having anything other than a modest yard ornament for Halloween. Friday, September 24 View Page The patch was a dismal failure this year, I have one misshapen basketball sized immature pumpkin and am lucky to have that as I threw in the towel early on this year. I will be attending some of the local weighoffs and supporting my fellow pumpkin heads. Good luck to all. I hope all your pumpkins make it to their contests. I think it's better to lose your season early on than put all the effort in and have it fall apart right at the finish line.