Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 68 Entries. Wednesday, January 7 View Page Good luck to everyone in 2004. I'm posting my starting line up now in the hope that it will stop me from wearing those seeds out by planting time! Bring it on Friday, February 6 View Page This is my new pot design that I am going to use this year. The next few entries show how to make one. Friday, February 6 View Page First you have to find some light but stiff material,this one is cut from a sheet of plastic. You need to cut out four triangles these are 14" wide by 22" deep Friday, February 6 View Page For the next step I stacked up several sheets and nailed them to a piece of wood so I could cut them out in one go. Friday, February 6 View Page This is the cut out shape.This is a prototype and I found out when I put it together that it would be better if the lugs at the bottom end were an inch or two up from where they are on this one. Friday, February 6 View Page Last step is to cut out slits to allow the sections to interlock,two sides facing upwards and two down.I used an angle grinder but beware molten plastic welds to flesh! Friday, February 6 View Page Carry the pot around by holding the two sides with the slits facing upwards. You dig your planting hole then plant the seedling and pot together and pull the sides up out of the ground afterwards starting with the ones that have the slits facing downwards. Thursday, March 25 View Page Put some clear polythene down today I want to be sure that I have some dry soil to work with in a week or two when I heat treat some for use in my potting mix. Amendments to my 3000sq.ft. patch so far are, The contents of two barrels that I used to grow carrots in consisting of a mixture of seasand and local quarry sand from granite. 56lbs. Iron Sulphate to raise Iron and lower pH. 30lbs. Soot for N and black colour(soil warming). 5lbs.Earthworks soil conditioner granules(sister company to HumaTech in the U.S.A.)made from Leonardite which is high in fulvic and Humic acids. Not planning on adding anything else this year. Tuesday, March 30 View Page Did a little test on my 400w HPS lightbulbs to try and figure out if I needed to get a new one for this year. All of the bulbs had done 1000-2000 hrs. I used a light meter 2 ft. away from the bulb and these are the results. Phillips son t plus - 900 lux. Osram Planta - 1000 lux. Sylvania Growlux - 1250 lux. The first two on the list had been retired when I thought that growth under them was not as good as it was. The sylvania bulb has probably done slightly less hours and I'm now confident to go ahead with that bulb again this season,it will be interesting to see what readings I get from this bulb at the end of the season.The addition of reflective sides around the area below the bulb increased the reading to 1750 lux. Sunday, April 4 View Page My first contest this year is the UK Giant vegetable Championships at the Amateur Gardening show on 3/4/5 September so with this in mind I've made a start today with 266 Tomlin* and a 709 Raymont. The pic shows how I've supported the new square pots with a few bits of batten.They hold about 3.5 gallons and should allow the plants to be kept inside longer,about 8 days after germination which could be important at this time of the year. Sunday, April 4 View Page Same John Innes potting compost mix for me again,7 parts soil(pasteurised),3 parts peat,2 parts sand.I haven't added any fertiliser this time except calcium because of the high nutrient levels already in the soil once again sanded seeds and soaked in 0.035% Hydrogen Peroxide.New this year is the use of Biovam in the pic you can see a seed sitting on top of a teaspoonful I rinsed off the h2o2 before rolling the seed in a little more.The little terrors may stand a good chance of getting established in the heat treated soil. Temperature will be 80-85 f. Monday, April 12 View Page Eight days later and all looks well.This year I am also trying 120.8 Hunt Watermelon and a giant Cucumber they were started in 4" pots and potted up this morning Cukes only took 3 days to come up Watermelons took 6. Monday, April 12 View Page This is the root system on a spare cuke plant I'm pleased with it and won't be changing anything about the method for the next batch of seeds. Friday, April 16 View Page This is a sequence showing the new pot in action,it worked great.This is the 266 Tomlin plant its really flying 8 days old here should have gone out yesterday but the weather wasn't good enough. Saturday, April 17 View Page Started a second 709 Raymont to try and make sure I have a good one also started 1083.5 Johnson.Last year my earlier sowings (4.18) produced my best plants and later pollinations produced the heaviest pumpkins. Wednesday, April 21 View Page started 329 Wolf,871 Jeff Johnson and a 1074 Beauchemin and 642 Raymont both went in the third pot (I couldn't make up my mind). Monday, April 26 View Page You can't take any prisoners with two in a pot,the 642 on the left now stands alone. Tuesday, April 27 View Page 266* Tomlin plant. 23 days ago it was just a seed. Friday, April 30 View Page Started a second 1083.5 Johnson and a 784.1 Duchezeau. Friday, May 7 View Page 266 Tomlin* plant at 33 days. May has had cold nights so far down in the low 40's you can see a soil warming cable around the base of the plant to help out it's only been there two days should've done that before. Friday, May 7 View Page These are the two 709 Raymont plants both look similar and also like the 513 White parent will probably keep the oldest one. Friday, May 7 View Page These are my younger plants that are out in the patch. 329 Wolf is 790 Daletas x 846 Calai not 790 x self as I had said previously. Sunday, May 9 View Page My daughter has given me(not true I had to pay 50p bag)5 bags of poultry manure so will spread that around the patch today.My nutrient policy this year is to avoid K as much as possible due to excess that has built up from 2 years heavy dressings of cow manure,back in the autumn I dumped 20 tons in the patch got it and my soil tested then loaded up the manure and carried it away again! Sunday, May 16 View Page Flight 709 leaving the runway(departure was delayed 3 days because of fog)destination the other side of the patch sometime in July.But is this plant about to crash. Sunday, May 16 View Page 329 Wolf plant,this time last year I was saying there had been no nights below 50 F this year it has been a case of none above probably averaged 43 F over the last 2 weeks. Sunday, May 16 View Page 784.1 Duchezeau plant off to a good start. Sunday, May 23 View Page Plastic city is slowly growing again. Sunday, May 23 View Page The 266 Tomlin* in its new house,now about 5ft.long by 8ft.wide 2 crossways splits in the main vine but its still just ok. Sunday, May 23 View Page 642.5 Raymont is currently the most forward of the 17th April bunch. Friday, May 28 View Page The makers of the liquid kelp product I use make a lot of spraying at the root initialisation stage and since I started burying vines yesterday I thought it would be a good time to start using the kelp. Today I used my first fungicide of the year Carbendazim (scotts spotless)on the 709 Raymont and also giant cucumbers,marrow and watermelon the 709 had stem rot last year so I'm not taking any chances with that one. It rained today for the first time this month up til now every day had been blazing sunshine with cool nights that have now just crept up to 50 F no frost here though so I guess I'm better off than many in Europe so far. Monday, May 31 View Page This is a pic of an older leaf from the 709 Raymont it doesn't look good about 6 leaves affected on this plant I'm thinking it is a virus but am loathed to pull the plant as it has a female flower coming at 10ft. Can anyone confirm what the problem is? In the top right you can just see some early symptoms on another leaf. Wednesday, June 2 View Page Our first look at the 1083.5 Johnson plant,33 days from sowing a bit lush looking but it has my longest ever vine at this age. Wednesday, June 2 View Page 871 Johnson plant at 43 days. Wednesday, June 2 View Page The plan here is to grow the watermelon on the floor and the cucumbers in the roof started these to early and screwed up the compost by using fine sand instead of coarse. Sunday, June 6 View Page Here is an early look at some of the female flowers now forming on my plants. Sunday, June 13 View Page Made my first pollination this morning,266*Tomlin x self. About 10ft from the stump 70 days after sowing which is my average no. of days for this distance this is pleasing considering the early 4th April start. It doesn't look much like a squash though!(Yellow) Monday, June 14 View Page Pollinated 709 Raymont x self today at about 12ft.out. My earlier fears of virus in this plant have now disappeared,the main vine is 17ft.long I will continue to hold off feeding plants for at least another 10 days when I should have some fruit measurements for comparision. Also made another 266* x self pollination today. Friday, June 18 View Page Pollinated 709 Raymont x self at 15 ft. Saturday, June 19 View Page Pollinated 266*Tomlin x self at 13ft. Thursday, July 15 View Page Disaster Strikes (many times and worse than usual). I don't know where to start,I will just say I'm not having a good growing year so far.The pic shows the 709 Raymont appropriately looking like a shipwreck towards the end of June we had a 50 year low centred over England which caused a lot of wind damage that spoilt things for my early pollinations the plants started to recover and then last week we had the worst July weather since 1969 with 65 mph. winds that spoilt things for all my pollinations. This was during haymaking time on the Farm and that coupled with the fact that I had 5 teeth pulled out meant that I had definately bitten off more than I could chew. Thursday, July 15 View Page This is the only fruit that is growing at all so far,it is 266 Tomlin x self and was 72 in.cir @ 30 days weighs about 100 lbs the tape measure is 4 ins. across. Will have to start again with some late pollinations on the other plants. Thursday, July 15 View Page On the non pumpkin side I lost my Watermelon plant to Fusarium wilt a while back just when it was starting to look good. The giant cucumbers have been the bright spot of the season so far and have been easier to grow than I imagined they taste good too! Thursday, July 22 View Page Marrows don't seem to mind the dull weather we are having at the moment this one is 149 ott. The plant was a backup for the 871 Johnson and would have been culled but for the storm damage to the Pumpkin.I've trained the plant into the cover the watermelon was under theres another young Marrow in there. Monday, September 6 View Page The U.K. Giant vegetable championships have been held this past weekend. I managed to salvage something from this season and took first place with this 399 Raymont. It was grown on the 871 Johnson which is producing good shaped solid pale orange fruit for me no hint of double or flat vines either from these 735 Pukos x self & 846 Calai genetics.This one was 15% heavy and self pollinated. Monday, September 6 View Page David Thomas took 2nd and 3rd places with 264 and 259lbs. This is Madeline with the 3rd placed fruit. Monday, September 6 View Page Peter Tomlin took 1st and 2nd with 280 (on right) and 247lbs. in the Squash class. Monday, September 6 View Page Star of the show this year was Ian Neales 148lb Watermelon a new British record. Monday, September 6 View Page My Cucumber weighed 18.5lbs and took third place behind world record holder Alf Cobb's two fruit which were 21.8 and 21.5lbs. Monday, September 6 View Page I didn't think that there were any more fruit doing much but after hacking about in the jungle for a while I found this one on my 642 Raymont plant,pollinated on 20th July it is 642(125 Chambers x 1083.5 Johnson)x 1083.5 Johnson. 18 feet out on the main vine. This plant was a xmas tree but is now flag style as I drove the tractor down one side getting out the 399! Monday, September 27 View Page First place at Malvern went to Joe Hallam with 464lbs. Well done Joe! Monday, September 27 View Page I took along my 399 which lost just 14lbs after sitting on the lawn for 3 weeks. Third place was Richard Walters with 287lbs. Monday, September 27 View Page George also won the Cabbage class with this 86 pounder. Monday, September 27 View Page There was a good entry of Marrows at the show,heaviest is bottom left grown by Kevin and Gareth Fortey and weighed 103lbs. Monday, September 27 View Page Ian Stott with his Marrow. Monday, September 27 View Page Peter Glazebrook had a nice Onion there 12lb 8.5ozs. Thursday, October 14 View Page The 2nd UK Monster Pumpkin Challenge was held today at the Van Hage Garden co. in Hertfordshire. First place went to James O Hanlon and Liam Cupit with a new British record weight of 912lbs. This was grown in a glasshouse at Hesketh Bank in the North West of England.Mark O Hanlon is pictured with the fruit which weighed somewhere in the region of 20% heavy. More pics at www.HeskethBank.com. It will also be at the Mere Brow weigh off in Lancashire on Saturday. Congratulations to James,Liam and Mark. Thursday, October 14 View Page This is Ian with the 819 Paton fruit which broke the record 12 days ago in Hampshire. Congratulations to Ian for that achievement. It lost just 9lbs in that time and was placed second today at 810lbs. Thursday, October 14 View Page James and Liam also took third with 637lbs. Thursday, October 14 View Page Joe Hallam came 4th with 618lbs which is a new personal best for him. Thursday, October 14 View Page Jimmy Reid came 5th with 550lbs unfortunately he left before I got a photo but it was a pretty orange pumpkin. Then there was me with 430lbs grown on my 642.5. Thursday, October 14 View Page Trevor Wilson 382lbs. As you can see it rained all morning. Thursday, October 14 View Page Tom came back with a bigger one this year. Thursday, October 14 View Page Frances Hallam sent along her Squash for display it weighed 378lbs this is Peter with it. It was a real treat to see two British records in one day.We had a good time and were well looked after by the Earthworks/Gardening Express/Van Hage team see you all again next year guys. Monday, October 25 View Page Heres a couple of fruit grown on terciaries on the 709 Raymont plant long smooth skinned with light ribbing very similar to the parent,one fruit out of 5 had stem rot which was the reason for the dmg status of the 709. Monday, October 25 View Page This one is off the 329 Wolf wedge shaped and good colour. Wednesday, October 27 View Page Fourth was George Rogers with 277lb. This one was grown on my 791 was good shape and heavy. Friday, November 12 View Page Another growing year begins.My no fert or manure experiment is over this years weeds were pretty weedy about 3ft tall compared to previous 7ft superweeds so the cow manure is back 20 tonnes of it with 50lbs of bonemeal dusted on top. Thursday, December 30 View Page One loose end to tie up,back on 30th March I posted readings from various 400w HPS bulbs after another 1000 hrs use the Sylvania growlux was still reading 1250 lux so that one definately is brightest of the bunch. Good luck to all next year. Mark