Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 58 Entries. Monday, March 10 View Page I'm pretty sure I read in the Canton Repository today that we are having the 7th snowiest winter in local history. Yay!!!! I love snow!! Monday, March 10 View Page On Saturday during dinner break, we walked down to the falls from the hotel. SUPER AWESOME! Can't really see much in the snow and mist but it was really neat. Monday, March 10 View Page By the Sunday morning, the snow had FINALLLLLLLY stopped! Monday, March 10 View Page What else can you say about a trip to Niagra in "the snowstorm of the year" ? WE HAD BUCKETS OF FUN !!!! Sunday, April 27 View Page Well I had a first !! 4 of 7 seeds germinated by the 27 hour mark. (Doing the baggie method like I do every year). Might have been before 24 hrs but who knows I wasnt home!! By time I woke up today it was 7 for 7 in 35 hours. yay. Lineup: 1689 Jutras 1385 Jutras 919 Richards 1062 Stelts 1363 Werner 1556 Werner Beachy Cross #50 (Tom will be proud this thing had the longest root at 27 hours....we'll see how this pans out!). Thursday, May 29 View Page just a personal weather note for future rememberance.... may 29th...34 degrees and frost!! WOWSERS!! everything is still alive but my backup plant (in it's pot still) is my 2nd largest. may put it in ground soon for fun. Friday, June 13 View Page WOA i am totally out of the loop when it comes to bigpumpkins.com. WHEN DID THE DIARIES BECOME BACKWARDS!!!!???? lol. totally confusing at first. haha. someone please clue me in and tell me when that happened. we're headed out west for a week. hope to see some snow. LOL. ok i mean i hope it doesnt snow when we are there. pray my mom isnt too stressed caring for our pumpkins and basically the whole farm (my grandparents are in switzerland the same week we are gone!! bad planning on our part haha). see you when we return!! Friday, June 13 View Page just for the record, i dont like the backwards diary thing. it's like reading a book backwards. not good. Sunday, June 22 View Page we're HOME!! wow is all i can say about the pacific northwest. we saw beaches, mountains, waterfalls, and 4 pumpkin patches. here is us on our way up to 7000 ft on mt rainier. hot snow!! the patch looked GREAT upon return. yay mom. too bad right now it is flooding and hail is falling. gosh darnit. Wednesday, June 25 View Page here's the patch on june 25th. so much for thinking cool weather kept us behind this year. everything that is opening now is at 12 or 13 ft and they are opening way earlier than normal. i am embarassed to say we pulled a tim parks and missed a polination (or 2 or 3). i feel like dying of embarassment now. so much for staying out the patch because of the mud!!!! oops. maybe we'll make the 2nd fruit the keepers. we'll see. Saturday, July 12 View Page i liked this pic. everything in the patch is filling up nicely!! we are doing some experimental pruning methods this year so i am excited to see how that turns out. actually we dont have any "traditional" christmas trees going; everything is a little different in it's own sense. this year since we were travelling out west, we decided to share plants and only do 7. WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!!! SHARE !??? everytime we worked in the patch together nick would end up yelling at me that everything i was doing was wrong (if you all doesnt know, he has grown a bigger pumpkin than me...howEVER, i've grown 2 over 1000 and he's only grown one). anyWHO. after me being frustrated to the point of no longer being able to take it, we split the plants. i was to the point of saying "wow if we are married after this season, then we will be married a long time because this is a true test". he was a totally jerk / grump to me!! i have the southern 3 and he has the northern 4. the southern 3 have better soil, but i have a gut feeling the northern 4 have the better genetics (felt this since day 1). we have a system of who will claim which when weighoff comes. we will see how this goes! Wednesday, July 16 View Page 1689 Jutras Wednesday, July 16 View Page 1556 Werner Thursday, July 17 View Page 1062 Stelts Thursday, July 17 View Page Beachy Cross #50 Thursday, July 17 View Page 1385 Jutras. This fruit is the longest fruit I've ever grown. Tuesday, July 22 View Page Tom Beachy got married this past weekend and the wedding was fantastic! Big congrats to them both!! On another note, I offically stayed home from a trip this week (south carolina) for pumpkin reasons. I cannot believe the day has come that I give up going places on my summer vacation for pumpkins. eeeeeh. Tuesday, July 22 View Page everything looks full.....leaving room for late season growth didnt seem to work because it seems the vegetation that wasnt removed took over. blech. Tuesday, July 22 View Page weird to see a rainbow in FRONT of the trees!!! normally it seems to end behind the trees. it ended in the patch on the left (seen here) and in the old patch on the far right (cant see in pic) Friday, July 25 View Page Dear Dr. Phil (I mean AbbyPappy), I am in love with a pumpkin that is not mine. I stare lovingly at this fruit all day and all night I dream of it's beauty. I aquired the seed, chose to plant it, and was saddened when I got told to plant it in the not-so-fertile north end of the patch. NORTH END. And now, that means it is not even mine. :( Tuesday, August 5 View Page well nick took off for south carolina again leaving me at home to mess things up. haha. i'm nursing a stem crack / split / mess on my 1385 jutras. i am hoping it makes it 3 more weeks for our local fair. i have made the decision to stop weeding that plant as of today. haha. Tuesday, August 5 View Page #50 beachy had a stellar growth rate when averaged over the last 6 days. other than the crappy shape, it has been a good experience growing this plant!! (and tom is not even paying me to say that). Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1062 stelts is going to have an UGLY color!!!! when looking at lbs / day growth over the last 6 days, i like this one so far too :) Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1363 werner was our back up we were only growing with a main before the fruit and then secondaries after the fruit. that may have contributed to it's downfall!! nick thinks this is blossom end rot ? i cut it off today (the pumpkin) and we will try to get small pumpkins to sell off of the rest of the plant. Tuesday, August 5 View Page the newest love of my life: 919 richards. this will be SOO PRETTY !!!!!! but that is why i chose to grow it :) Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1556 werner is still the biggest in the patch if my memory serves me right (but it is the oldest). the color is turning gross, but i still like the shape a lot. Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1689 jutras. looking not like i expected it too. i think this one will be really pretty! Friday, August 15 View Page just returned home from a week at cross country camp (year 5 for me!). is it just a coincidence that all pumpkin tragedies occur while i am at camp? i only have 1 pumpkin left. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH tear sob moan cry and i honestly thought my 1062 stelts was going to be my biggest ever. no joke. it was going to be huge. GIANT. and now i can see into the cavity. i am going to go cry and most importantly sleep away my sorrows (100+ kids can wear you down quick lol). plus i figure we have a higher "hours per plant" ratio than ever this year (easily triple other years) so that is why this is so hard. Saturday, August 16 View Page well i am feeling a little bit better because although i can see the innerds of my 1062 stelts, it is still growing 33 lbs/day post split. we plan on leaving it go until it stops and then weighing it for fun. it estimates at 930 lbs today. my best ever was 930 lbs on august 24th and it is august 16th today so that is amazing! the 1385 jutras which is also split (split like 3 weeks ago LOL) is still growing but only estimates at 703 lbs. it is putting on 19 lbs/day. it will make someone a great pumpkin boat let me tell you. great boat shape. we will leave it until it stops too. nick's 1556 werner hasnt grown in a whole week so we will take it out of the patch tomorrow and weigh it. it estimates at 600 lbs. Sunday, August 17 View Page 50 beachy. this pic is for tom!! my biggest pumpkin now. Sunday, August 17 View Page this pic is for all the experts out there. this strange root-like growth was completely inside the stalk of the leaf. what the heck is it!!?? it wasnt the only one either! please email your thoughts to me :) Sunday, August 17 View Page after EXTENSIVE surgery, the 1385 jutras is muuuuuch better. :) and the split doesnt go all the way through!! (60 % sure at least). yay. Sunday, August 17 View Page in case you thought i was exagerating about being able to see the insides of my 1062 stelts. LOL. wow. Sunday, August 17 View Page i told you it was going to be GIANT. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Sunday, August 17 View Page 1689 jutras is getting a pretty color!! Wednesday, August 20 View Page today the 1062 stelts hit day 50 and also now estimates over 1000. yay. but i have a feeling it is starting to slow up and get closer to the end of its run. grow baby grow!! Sunday, August 24 View Page weighed the 1062 stelts today. it was 1046.5 !! so i am happy i broke 1000 even though it is split. we cut it and will take it to a local fair (no rules about splits or anything but then again the winning $$ prize is only 20 bucks. will that pay for gas?). Tuesday, August 26 View Page they did a nice job at the fair making it look nice. LOL. Tuesday, August 26 View Page 1046.5 C. Harp 2008 DMG (picked on day 54) and it's open pollinated so dont even think about asking for seeds. haha i embarass myself. Monday, September 15 View Page Well I got home tonight and Nick gave me one of those "I have super bad news but dont know how to tell you" type of intro's to the conversation. So of course my heart dropped because I always fear the worst. Plus he had just gotten off the phone with his mom so bad news couldve come via that. I said "well it depends on what category of life it is in and how much % it will affect me". Health, or home, or work? I sited the examples of if my mom had cancer and was going to die as 200%, him losing his job 90 %, bad news on the sewer / windows / driveway projects as 50 %, etc. So it turned out that my 50 beachy split and collapsed on itself today. THAT WAS ALL?!! Minor problem. I guess it helped that today I found out Dairy Queen's pumpkin blizzards are back. So today was going to be a good day no matter what. That fact alone eased my pain. I will eat one tomorrow. Monday, September 15 View Page But blizzards aside, I am very sad we wont get a weight on that thing. I was pumped for the possiblity (small one) of having 5 of our 6 pumpkins over 1000. that wouldve been SWEEEEEEET. oh well back to thinking we suck at growing. Tuesday, September 16 View Page here is the last pic this evening before the #50 beachy was removed to the woods. its final estimate was 994 lbs. after some extensive autopsy work (involving a shovel and tractor LOL), nick determined that it split through underneath (probably long long ago) and we couldnt see it until it got super rotten and started collapsing. so it is very ironic that the only pumpkin growing on my side still is the one i thought i had lost first (1385 jutras). Tuesday, September 16 View Page so we moved my 1046.5 to the forrest tonight too while we were at it. good thing because one more week and i think it wouldve been stinKYYYY!!! Monday, September 29 View Page this is something i've never seen and will most likely never see again so i will soak it up. i'm only varsity and those guys are all pro so i just got lucky to have shown up on the right day this weekend to have gotten 2nd. yay. Monday, September 29 View Page everyone at hilgers. fun day. Monday, September 29 View Page 1081.5 C Harp 2008 Monday, September 29 View Page matchies wore the same shirt Monday, September 29 View Page only in indiana do they make pumkins with 4500 bales of straw. woa. Monday, September 29 View Page yep indiana is God's Country. WAIT THAT SUNRISE AND FARM IS IN OHIO!! but i'm in indiana taking the pic from kelly's looking across state-line road ( after so many yrs i still am impressed with this ). Monday, September 29 View Page and that would be just one of the trains that barrel through all day and all night. Monday, September 29 View Page we missed the action in new bremen (cross country and mowing on saturday too late) but got to see the ingenious design those guys down there came up with. impressive. Monday, September 29 View Page parked overnight. an s-10 can carry a 1000 lb pumpkin for a 4 hour journey. well it is story time. i thought my 1385 jutras split long long ago. so long ago you can probably find me whining about it in my diary. well way back a long time ago i ripped half the plant out and vowed not to weed it again for the rest of the summer. then we stopped watering it for 3 weeks. then i end up with a personal best. lesson learned. dont rip out plants until you remove the pumpkin. and dont shut the water off. but looking back, maybe that saved me from blowing it up like i did the other two. no one will ever know. Saturday, October 4 View Page Stark County Girl Growers are da bomb !!! :) Monday, October 13 View Page i GUESS i should congratulate my husband for getting a new PB this year. just remember the post where i said i 'thought' he got the better genetics when we split the patch in half. HAHA. j/kidding. he worked REALLY hard this year and deserves to break 1200. 1203 N. Harp 2008. it is a 1689 Jutras selfed (I definitely did not miss polination on that one!). PS if i havent mentioned this before, i feel that if my 1062 stelts wouldnt have split i wouldve had biggest in the patch by a mile. LOLOLOL. luv ya nick. Monday, October 13 View Page i like oakland nursery because i can see my sis who goes to OSU, i can see barbie klinker, i can get balloon animal pumpkins, i can eat good food, free t-shirt, and i can watch nick do AWESOME again!! he got 3rd with this pumpkin. 1049.5 N. Harp 2008. 919 Richards selfed. i chose to grow the 919 richards (i picked out all seeds this year) because of columbus. they really reward orange!! we knew it prob would end up light but wanted to risk it because i thought it would be the pretty pretty shiny orange. it ended up a nice orange but not the shiny needed to win people's choice. but congrats to jerry!! Monday, October 13 View Page yay nick!!! Wednesday, October 29 View Page nick's 1203 at the fort wayne zoo. YAY !!! thanks to barbie for the pic :) Tuesday, December 23 View Page anyone who has the ability to watch The Weather Channel can tell you this year had crazy weather. but this was the coolest thing i've ever seen: Dippin Dots Snow!!! i've seen hail, sleet, ice balls, freeing rain, snow chunks, but NOTHING LIKE DIPPIN DOTS SNOW!! (ok i know there is a technical word but who cares). it had the coolest texture EVER! it was in early december one day. 2008 was sure awesome. bring on '09. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL PUMPKIN FRIENDS AND TO ALL A GOODNIGHT!!!!