Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 61 Entries. Wednesday, April 8 View Page Welcome to my 2015 diary! Well, I have been quiet this past winter and spring. This will be the first year in a long time that I am taking a year off and not growing a giant! Alright Chris, you better bring home the gold this year ok??? :) I'll be watching and rooting everyone on this year from the side line. Just a few photos of our family. The one time it did rain this winter here in san diego, we put the chains on and went up to the snow as a family. Wednesday, April 8 View Page Andrew is growing up, he is a year old now and kept doing face plants in the snow :-D Wednesday, April 8 View Page Andrew and mama enjoying the snow! Wednesday, April 8 View Page Joshua is now four and loves his brother a lot. There is always some screaming by someone when they get together lol. Wednesday, April 8 View Page Papa got Joshua to get under the tree and then push it so it dumped snow all over him :) I know you east coast guys see it all the time, but it's actually fun for us since we never see snow but a couple times a year. Wednesday, April 8 View Page Me and Joshua wanted to grow some tomatoes and zuchini in our backyard. It is not ideal for growing with only 4 hours of light a day, but we will give it a try for fun. You can see a few left over goodies in the hole from last years patch. I'm thinking azos tomato plants might be aggressive lol. Wednesday, April 8 View Page here's a shot of our little yard! Wednesday, April 8 View Page Joshua is excited, he has already named all 6 tomato plants. I picked up 6 organic plants from home depot, all different varieties. His names for the plants are as follows. Caleb, Lily, atwo (pronounced ah-two), lost (hopefully it is not prophetic) colao (pronounced ko-lah-o) and lauto (pronounced la-u-toe). I have no idea how he got these names, but he is writing them down. We only had one casualty during transplant where Joshua ripped half the roots off of one plant trying to lift it out of the pot:) It might suffer for a little bit. Although Joshua has picked them names, he has not assigned the names to each plant yet. He will make name tags soon. I know which one I would name lost! lol But he will pick. Zuchini plants will be started by seed soon. Saturday, May 16 View Page here is the garden a few weeks later, it is really growing fast for just 4 hours of light a day! lol Looks like I nuked them pretty good with goodies. all organic of course. Saturday, May 16 View Page my zuchini plant has 7 or 8 zuchini popping out everywhere:) Saturday, May 16 View Page we even have some clusters of tomatoes on a few plants already! Saturday, May 16 View Page Joshua enjoys watering the garden when it needs it! Saturday, May 16 View Page the wife's pepper plant is growing peppers already with a lot of flowers coming on. I sprayed micro's tonight on all plants. Myself and Joshua are thinking od growing a giant tomatoe, why not? lol We heard of so cals bet with kc kevin, we have no clue how to grow one, but we might try soon! Thursday, June 11 View Page family went on vacation to the sequioa national forest. You guys think you grow big stuff back east? lol We got everyone beat on the largest trees in the world. My wife standing next to a average speciman, not even the biggest. Thursday, June 11 View Page we found the famous tree you can drive through! Amazing God's creation is! Thursday, June 11 View Page the trees are between 1000 to 3500 years old. The only way they die is to fall over with their shallow roots as you see here. Thursday, June 11 View Page mainly sight seeing, but threw the pole for an hour at a creek for two trout. Beautfiul country! Thursday, June 11 View Page the whole gang! It was 48 to 55 degrees every day in June, brrrr. Thursday, June 11 View Page our family is blessed and growing up, general grant tree in back ground for photo! Joshua's garden is flourishing, will post photos soon, my other camera has good pictures but they won't download yet. Thursday, June 25 View Page what's the rake for buddy? Thursday, June 25 View Page I'm raking away the leaves and pulling weeds papa! For what buddy? Thursday, June 25 View Page You even got your little bro to help out? :) That's awesome Joshua. But you didn't tell me what is going on? Thursday, June 25 View Page I'll give you a hint papa. See what I am pointing at? Thursday, June 25 View Page tomatoes! Oh, I get it. Looks like Joshua is taking the challenge pretty seriously. We have made a bet with Chris and Kevin, our northen southern cali friends on who can grow the biggest tomato. We are preparing to start seeds this week sometime. We are using the end of the empty pumpkin patch which is resting this year. It's pretty good soil, but darn dry right now. Should be real fun. Thursday, June 25 View Page our back yard tomatoes with limited sun did pretty well with my fert program. Just having issues with tomato worms eating about 20 percent of them! Thursday, June 25 View Page our biggest tomato ever grown!!!! Hope it makes it with out being eaten. Joshua loves his garden soooo much.... Thursday, June 25 View Page he sleeps with his veggies!!! I took a shot after he fell asleep. Now all of you grown up guys and gals laughing, I bet a few of you slept with pumpkins when younger too :-D Sunday, June 28 View Page started giant maters tonight with Joshua. We'll keep our seed choices a secret for now, but I think we did alright. Thank you Mr. McCoy for your generous gift to us. We don't know what we are doing but we are going to have fun for sure! We started in small plastic cups, I figure I can put them in bigger pots or transplant later. Plus I have no big pots as of now :-D Sunday, June 28 View Page Heavenly Father, I am saddened this day for our country. Our leadership has abandoned your Word and your wisdom for the family and marriage. We have exhanged your truth of marriage that is self evident for a deception and a lie in the name of equality. Renew a revival in our land O Lord, for we are in desperate need of You once again. I pray for changed hearts in our country's leadership, to restore your precepts and ways in our government. May you give boldness in love and humilty to the brothers and sisters in our country who stand for your truth in marriage. May they be a light in a dark world, not being afraid to let their light shine for others to see. We give you all glory, praise and honor. Amen. Thursday, July 2 View Page our giant tomato seeds are off to a rough start. We left them in their small pots made from plastic cups on the drive way when I left for work. My wife came home a little later and found a bunch of crows attacking the pots!!! lol In all my years leaving out seeds and pots, never seen this before. I think one seed was lost for sure, other two seemed ok. I kind of poked around on the other two, and man it is hard to find a small seed in the dirt! At the very least, not much yet happening with the other seeds. Hoping they germinate or we might be in tomato trouble just trying to start! :) Wednesday, July 8 View Page meet the Maccoy twins! Joshua and myself figured if you are gonna have a friendly little contest with some good growers and great friends, especially with our water restrictions, we might as well grow the biggest seed you can find, the 8.4 Maccoy. By grace, the seeds survived the crow attack somehow and I put them in larger pots. Wednesday, July 8 View Page JOshua snapped this photo of me when I was thinking, "I wonder how you grow a giant tomato?" lol Wednesday, July 8 View Page Andrew has become guite interested in our backyard maters. He sneaks into the plants and grabs a green tomato almost everyday! lol. I have lost quite a few maters!!! On the bright side, he LOVES the garden, even more than Joshua I think. Wednesday, July 8 View Page I caught him doing his tomato stare behind the plants just waiting for his moment... Wednesday, July 8 View Page He's going for it! Andrew, stop!!!!! lol Wednesday, July 8 View Page Joshua cleaned out the squash after they were done producing their fruit, he loved the plants! Wednesday, July 8 View Page well since we are not growing a giant pumpkin this year, we'll post a few older pictures here or there in our diary so we don't get too bored. Maybe we can be pumpkins again Joshua! Alright Chris and Kevin, game is on for maters! Pray Joshua, since we don't have a clue what we are doin! Tuesday, July 14 View Page Well Joshua, Mr. Chris says he has some secrets for a big mater from Mr Dan in a pot! Ouch, lol. That's not good, we need all of the help we can get. Mr Kevin is strangely silent on his maters, so no new info there yet. Our maters are slowly growing, never grown one from seed before so it is all new for us. BTW, Chris your 1000 square foot plant is HUGE and looks great. Me and Joshua visited Vince, he's got a fruit growing already too. We are enjoying the year off from the competition and all of the hard work:) Ok Joshua, time to start hitting the maters with some good stuff and see if we can get some more secret infor from Mr Dan too! lol Friday, July 17 View Page ok, since we have nothing to do with pumpkins, we put up the first ever giant tomato hut!!! I am using a piece of 40% shade cloth, not quite sure of the tomato heat tolerance, but I think 40 will be good for our smoking hot august and september coming up. Joshua took the photo! Andrew is excited:) Friday, July 17 View Page big brother strangling little brother infront of the tomato hut! Friday, July 17 View Page JOshua peeking inside the tomato hut! hhhhmmm, spacious! The shade cloth covers 400 sq foot, so I had to drape it a few places to make it smaller. We plan to add a little surprise into the hut soon, Joshua and Andrew will be growing one more item under the hut, should be fun. Waiting for seeds to arrive! Friday, July 17 View Page our two 8.4 maccoy's, now under shade cloth but not transferred into soil yet! Soon:) We have no idea what we are doing or when we are doing it, but gonna be fun. lol Wednesday, July 29 View Page don't look Chris, there is a pumpkin in the fredricks' patch! lol Ok, so it's in a small pot, not in dirt, and it is a normal pumpkin for pies and carvings, hoping to get 20 lbs. This is Joshua's plant, he's hoping for best color at pumpkinmania :) Wednesday, July 29 View Page this is Andrews' speciman! :) Wednesday, July 29 View Page Ok Gentleman, namely Mr Chris and Mr Kevin, meet your competition. Plant one, 8.4 Maccoy growing quickly in our warm days. Next... Wednesday, July 29 View Page Plant 2, 8.4 Maccoy as well. How do I plan on growing a monster? Let a 4 year old and a 1 year old toughen them up. So far they have had dirt thrown on them 2 times, had fingers poked in ground around roots, and had water dumped on them out of bucket taking out a layer of dirt around roots! lol I think they look pretty good for the beatin so far, cross your fingers they make it. Toughen a plant up and it gets tough right??? :-D Wednesday, July 29 View Page side view. I put up some rebarb to hold up the vine, I also put in the tomato ring, though I could use it to help support a sling when tomato needs it. Wednesday, July 29 View Page so you know I have no secrets to grow a 5 lber like mr Chris, here is my regiment. My soil is pretty rich in organic matter and nutrients, so I am taking my pumpkin philosophy, give it some good organic balanced nutrition and let it do it's thing. The spray n grow ferts I have come to respect, it is really good stuff. I foliar and drench once a week. Wednesday, July 29 View Page It's go time, right Andrew!! Let's do it papa. Sunday, August 16 View Page been extremely hot lately, I think we were somewhere between 105 to 110 on saturday, just 105 or so today. lol I have one mega bloom starting to open on one of the 8.4 maccoys, but not sure if it will take in this heat and it's my only one on the whole plant. Tomato plants are growing alright, but not having the greatest luck with flowers up to this point on one of the plants, the other topped out on the main into all branches, just dead ended, so let a sucker take over the new main, put the plant behind. Might be tough to even get a tomato to polinate in August! lol pictures soon. Thursday, August 20 View Page 8.4 maccoy, my tallest plant, but all flowers seem to be small on this plant. First time grower, so my biggest flower on plant is... Thursday, August 20 View Page is this guy. Not sure if it is a megabloom, but my only hope! lol Thursday, August 20 View Page 8.4 number two, aka shorty, the main just stopped at one point, so I took sucker and made it new main, but new growth is curled and looks strange, not growing too fast on top. Only flower on this plant is huge, will it polinate????? Thursday, August 20 View Page never had many pedals on it, again, strange for me. Vine to side is the sucker that took over the new main. Even stem on flower is real thick. Thursday, August 20 View Page had two pumpkins, one plant look sick and yellow, so pulled it from pot. This is other one. We will see if it gets a fruit, potting soil is probably not the best and pot is small! lol Any advice or tips from tomato guys would be appreciated! Tuesday, December 8 View Page ok, testing our diary, sorry for the long delay. Here is our tomato, stop growing on day 36 from extreme heat over 100. It was fun for a first try out of season. Wednesday, December 9 View Page since my diary has skipped a few months, we ended up with a 19.5 inch tomato, which joshua dropped before the photo hehe. It was fun. we went to the sierras in september, what a blessing and beautiful place. As always, we fished a lot! Wednesday, December 9 View Page the wife and the boys up at Lake Mary by Mammoth! How beautiful is the scenery! What a beautiful family I have been blessed with, I am humbled. Wednesday, December 9 View Page we took the trip up to pumpkinmania to root on our frineds. This was Joshua's favorite part, the pumpkin canon!!!!!!!! Chris aka socal took first by 9 lbs over vince, aka gourdzilla! Wednesday, December 9 View Page I caught the two of them discussing things before the weigh off. Chris was doing some kind of freaky sign language secret stuff with Vince, I was trying to interpret from a distance, but was unable to translate. lol Wednesday, December 9 View Page some nice orange fruit at the competition this year. As for next year, I am contemplating growing again, but we will see what the Good Lord brings next year and allows me to do.