Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 108 Entries. Tuesday, January 27 View Page OK. So it's really 11-17-03. My wife's birthday. And for her birthday I had the Catalpa Tree removed at long last. I really just wanted this information to appear in the 2004 Diary. Tuesday, January 27 View Page This hole in the tree canopy will give us another 1.5 - 2 hours of sun in the afternoon. Plus the tree's roots wont be competing with the Pumpkins any more. Friday, February 27 View Page Actually it's 11-25-03. The only surviving photo of Tommy tilling the patch. I accidentally deleted the good ones. First he dug 2 giant pits. One big enough for my wife's car. The other for my truck. LOL Tommy like to dig & I was stuck in traffic. Oh well. We filled the holes with 6 yards of fresh Cow Manure & 8 yards of compost that has been accumulating here over the past 9 years. Then he dumped the backhoe & mounted this 6' wide x 14" modified tiller. This thing is insane. Thanks Tom Wednesday, April 21 View Page This is an idea I stole from some one here. I think it will work much better than the margerine tubs we used last year that were too small. It's just a 6" diameter x 12" long section of Sewer & Drain pipe. Sliced down the middle & reattached using a small piano hinge. We used the die-grinder to knock off the screw tips that were intruding on the inside. I chose to tape the interior of the hinged side to prevent root entanglement. Monday, April 26 View Page 842 Eaton will soon occupy hole #1 Monday, April 26 View Page 805 Pukos will occupy hole #2. Tuesday, April 27 View Page Today is the day the 842 decided to pop. Tuesday, April 27 View Page Lest we should be concerned of manure pits as planting holes, this is our patch 4 hours after a 6+" rain event. To be sure, I dug a hole 24" deep & found only moderate moisture. No standing water at all. 8 yards of manure since last October. 12+ yards of leaves every year for 3 years. 1/2 yard bagged manure since January. 1000 lbs of SoilMaster 48 cubic feet of Peat Moss 28.8 cubic feet of ProMix BX since January 30 lbs of Sea Kelp Meal since April started etc This patch better drain well. Tuesday, April 27 View Page For sure these big fat Nightcrawlers enjoys our efforts. Every turn of the fork yields a couple of these fatties. Wednesday, April 28 View Page The 842 Eaton was first up. Thursday, April 29 View Page About 36 hours later than the 842, the 805 Pukos decided to pop today. Thursday, April 29 View Page Look closely in our greenhouse & you'll see the 845 Bobier cutting that (barely) survived winter here. Since we have only 2 heated cloches, I'll wait until mid-May to move this one out to the patch. By then many of these 1500 anuals & perennials will be in bloom & sold. I might be even be able to move around in here again. There are another 500 or so outside. Sunday, May 2 View Page Today was going to be the day I would finish & update readers on our new irrigation system. The drunken kid driving this Mitsubishi changed my plans. He hit Mom's Caddy going about 50 MPH. He never applied the brakes because he was inebriated & had passed out. Pathetic at any time but especially so at 7AM. Not a large car as Cadilacs go, this Coupe Deville still weighed 3300 lbs & was pushed over 40 feet while in Park & didn't stop until it hit my Ford F150. Don't drink & drive. My son was riding his skateboard in the driveway when this happened. Sunday, May 2 View Page Here is the 805 Pukos at Day 4. While this pot is 12" deep, the roots have already reached the bottom of the pot. Rather than chancing the root bound condition we had last year, this little bugger is going in today. Sunday, May 2 View Page 805 again. It's hard to imagine the roots have reahed down 12" in so little time. If I had another set of hands I'd have shared that image as well. But this pot is HEAVY & the plan is to minimize root system stress this year. Sunday, May 2 View Page First I removed the bottom of the pot which is taped in place. Then the entire hinged pot is buried. Note the plant is likely to grow away from the direction of the first true leaf. Therefore the pot is oriented with the second leaf aiming in the direction we want the plant to grow. Sunday, May 2 View Page I firm the soil around the pot. The last piece of tape which is nearest the top edge, is then removed. Sunday, May 2 View Page With the tape removed, I now gently open the pot slightly. Sunday, May 2 View Page The root mass is extensive enough at Day 4 to hold together without any help as I removed the pot which is now free of the plant. Sunday, May 2 View Page Rather than smashing the soil down, I slowly watered the 805 with collected rain water mixed with Root-Shield Trichoderma & ProMax with Kelp. This will inoculate the roots with beneficial bacteria to help fight soil borne pathogenic fungi. The kelp will ease the transplant stress & gently stimulate growth. Sunday, May 2 View Page The 842 Eaton was also planted today. Note the soil temperature is only 58*F in this mound today. If we don't see some warm weather this week I may have to run the heaters. Saturday, May 8 View Page The 805 Pukos after it got a weak solution of Neptune's Harvest Fish & Seaweed. We had several nights this week that dipped under 40F. These guys would prefer warmer so we ran the heat lamps. These help but growth is still slow. Sunday, May 9 View Page These are Toro's Maxijet 15GPH low volume 0* trajectory misting nozzles. These can replace the nozzle in a Toro 570 pop-up or they can be installed in the fixed Shrub Risers we have here. There is no reason to incur the expense or complexity of a pop-up sprinkler if we don't need to. Since we're irrigation with an undergound drip system this year, we can use the same risers from last years system to cool the patch with mist. Sunday, May 9 View Page Here are the misters during their system test. Note I also installed a silt fence as a wind break this weekend. Keeping these tight to the plants help create a nice warm micro-climate around the young plants. Sunday, May 9 View Page Here is the dtail of the Maxijet in use. Initially these nozzles leaked badly where they enter the nozzle body. Some Teflon tape corrected the leakage. But I can't help but wonder why these weren't engineered with a compression gasket in the first place. Look forward to the digital time delayed irrigation controller with low voltage thermostat in the near future. The intent is to have these come on at a preset temperature (85F?) & then only for 10-20 second intervals. Sunday, May 16 View Page My arch rival & nemesis, the Gray Squirrel. The second one today. I have taken an oath to remove all gray Squirrels from this part of the world to safer havens elsewhere. No other pest has caused me more pumpkin losses in years past. Sunday, May 16 View Page The 842 Eaton at Day 20. Since it appears to be trying to land the wrong way, I'll gently mound some soil next to the main to influence it's direction. Sunday, May 16 View Page 805 Pukos at Day 19. Sunday, May 16 View Page 845 Bobier cutting was planted today. I started to sever this plant from it's "other half" 3 weeks ago. I completed the cut last week. And still the root system was very small. The stressed look is left over from the treatment of an Aphid infestation in our greenhouse. Astro alone once followed by Astro + Merit controlled the Aphids very well. But the young growth on this cutting was none too thrilled about it. This plant concerns me. The root system was practically nonexistent. White & healthy looking for sure. Just very small. Saturday, May 29 View Page 805 Pukos at Day 30. Vigorous plant. Saturday, May 29 View Page 842 Eaton at Day 31. No signs of a Flat Vine on this 842 as yet. Like many growers of this plant, we're experiencing slower growth on the 842. Monday, May 31 View Page 24 hours of growth on the 842 Eaton. About 1.25 inches. Monday, May 31 View Page 24 hours of growth on the 805 Pukos. About 3.5 inches. This one is down & running. Let the race begin! Monday, May 31 View Page Wind damage to the 805 Pukos this morning. The missing leaf was the largest & first leaf. It was measured post-mortem at 19.5" across. It got dusted with either Benomyl or Captan since I can't remember which was in the duster. Losing this leaf won't mean much since it would have eventually been removed anyway to keep the crown area free & clear. Just for kicks, I laid a tape measure next to it. From crown base to tip, it measures 51 inches. We didn't see this kind of vine length until the third week of June last year. Sunday, June 6 View Page Here is fellow CT Giant Pumpkin & Squash Grower Dave Garrell helping to place a riser for our ultra sophisticated misting/cooling system. We could let on what makes this system so special. But then our clubs trained Attack Squash Viner Borers would have to be dispatched & then things get so ugly. Better to just keep this item quiet for now. Wednesday, June 9 View Page This plant at Dave's was had doubled a few weeks ago. When it fasciated, he let it run a few days. It split by itself & Dave chose to cut off the weaker of the two tips. Look at it now. Sweet. Wednesday, June 9 View Page Our Secret Misting system does utilize some common off the shelf irrigation components that anyone can purchase & assemble themselves if......... Wednesday, June 9 View Page they have all the right tools to assemble the components properly. Can you imagine I used to work like this for a living? Never again. Saturday, June 12 View Page We've been growing some flowers in our greenhouse this year. Several thousand to be exact. They are very pretty & the extra money is nice but.......... Saturday, June 12 View Page I've now got flowers all over the place. If we don't sell the last of these pretty soon........... Saturday, June 12 View Page .....my poor son Stephen might never get use his wagon. To make matters worse........ Saturday, June 12 View Page ........it's going to take some work to re-masulinize this Jim Dandy tractor. This shouldn't even happen......... Saturday, June 12 View Page ........to a Dog. This is my faithful friend Duke. No better patch guardian ever lived. Saturday, June 12 View Page Now for some patch updates. This is a 330 gallon "mini-bulk" fertilizer tank. I sell these full to various Tree & Lawn Care Companies. We can refill them from tankers if the customer has 3 empty at one time. Else we just ship more prefilled tanks individually. Thus the fate of used tanks becomes an issue. This is one such example of an unwanted tank. I cleaned it out & now we collect rain water from the garage roof. If all goes well & I like working this way, it will be quite simple to tie the back side of our house into this system as well. We'll see how it goes though. Saturday, June 12 View Page 842 Eaton. No flat or double vines here. This plant is fairly slow, but trouble free & consistent. What a pleasure to grow so far. Saturday, June 12 View Page 842 main vine is creeping along & has made 8 feet. Saturday, June 12 View Page The first female on the 842 Eaton. At 8 feet I might pollinate this beauty just to say we did. But this wouldn't be far enough out for a first choice. Saturday, June 12 View Page 805 Pukos is about 9.5 feet in this image. Secondary vines are growing like mad. Saturday, June 12 View Page There are several females forming on secondaries. But the 805's first main vine female is here at about 7 feet. Saturday, June 12 View Page The second main vine female on the 805 is out here at about 9.5 feet. This one could be a keeper. It would be nice to see a late June fruit set this year. Monday, June 21 View Page 842 Eaton update. I'm not thrilled with the look of the newest leaves. The first (oldest) secondaries now spread about 20 feet across from side to side. But the youngest leaves are very small & don't appear to be expanding. Monday, June 21 View Page Here is the 845 Bobier cutting. Difficult to see in this image are the secondary vines which grow straight up into the air. Monday, June 21 View Page Here is the first female on the 845 cutting. It still appears greenish. But not so green in this late afternoon sun. This is it for tonight. The darn media card is full. Grow Well! Tuesday, June 22 View Page There have been numerous posts lately about various ugly leaves & queries as to what the cure might be. This is 24 hour old fertilizer damage. Notice the salts are drawing water OUT of the plant & the leaf edge is the first area to show symptoms. Lot's of people get confused when they see damaged leaves & usually reach for the cure in a bottle. Extreme heavy watering & copious amounts of Gypsum saved this plant. But the leaves that looked this bad after 24 hours were lost for good. Tuesday, June 22 View Page Here is another shot of damaged leaves. This one isn't fertilizer though. This is Daconil that was sprayed at the low rate early in the morning. Why all this damage? It got warm rather quickly. People wonder why I hate Daconil. This is why. By the time the grower realized what was going on & got water on the plant, these leaves were already toast. Notice that the new growth visible past the damaged leaves is perfectly normal? Because those leaves weren't treated being as the were very young & this isn't a disease. Cool image huh? Tuesday, June 22 View Page Back to the patch. Here is our 845 Bobier cutting again. This is the secondary vine that was trying to grow straight up at a 180 from the main. I'm using sticks to try & bring it back down. Monday, June 28 View Page 842 Eaton female at 12 feet. This one will open in the morning so the clothes clip will exclude insects until I drag my butt out into the patch. Tuesday, June 29 View Page 8AM: Pollinated the first female on the 842 Eaton 12 feet out with 3 males from the 805 Pukos. A nice 5 lober. Pics later. Tuesday, June 29 View Page I picked 3 of these last night from the 805 Pukos. They spent the night in a vase up high where stupid house cats can't chew them or knock them over. Tuesday, June 29 View Page Here we are removing the petals. Tuesday, June 29 View Page Here she is! Five lobes, twelve feet out. If I weren't happily married.... Tuesday, June 29 View Page Now its time for a cigarette. Tuesday, June 29 View Page 842 Eaton x 805 Pukos......This is the best placement in the patch. So here's hoping. Thursday, July 22 View Page This hideous "Elegant Stinkhorn" Mushroom (Mutinus elegans) showed up in the front lawn this morning. Thursday, July 22 View Page Boy did this thing stink! Thanks to Glenn (THE BORER) for remembering the name! Thursday, July 22 View Page OK. Now for a long overdo patch update. After several bad pollinations & a couple aborts, we finally have a main set fruit on the 842 Eaton. This is E5 pollinated on 7-10-04 so this is day 12. Taping at 30"C. A small stem stress crack was discovered this morning. Thursday, July 22 View Page This is E4 pollinated by self 7-8-04 on a secondary vine. I've culled about 10 secondary fruit from the 842, but this one I think I'll keep for seeds. This one hasn't been taped. Thursday, July 22 View Page Detail of the stem crack on E4. Because of the crack's location at a critical location, I decided to dust it with Captan. If it doesn't dry up on it's own, I'll have to set up a fan. Thursday, July 22 View Page One of several new key stops on the upcoming 2004 CT Giant Squash & Pumpkin Growers Assoc Summer Spy Tour. Now that we've organized as an official group, the new members just keep rolling in. So don't miss this rare opportunity & cancle all those silly aniversary & vacation plans & commit to attending the Spy Tour before it's too late. Wednesday, July 28 View Page Now for a glimpse into the Giant Squash & Pumpkin Growers of CT 2004 Spy Tour. This little hotty will be found in the exclusive & top secret patch that will play first host to the "2004 Tour de Spy" ........9AM first stop on Saturday August 14th, 2004....... By coveted invitation only. Wednesday, July 28 View Page You have to attend to get the details on this one too. Taping somewhere north of XXX Lbs. Wednesday, July 28 View Page We found this monstrosity on our 2004 Tour de Spy preview today. Any ideas? Sunday, August 1 View Page This is E5 on our 842 Eaton. It was pollinated with the 845 Bobier on 7-10-04 so today it is day # 22 & she's taping at about 64". I am concerned about all the bleeding from within the ribs. Are my concerns valid? We've had other fruit leak closer to the stem before without incident. I've had many leak from the stem & never treated or lost any of them. But I don't ever recall one leaking from within the ribs. Opinions please. Sunday, August 1 View Page Here is a close up detail of E5's "leaks". Sunday, August 1 View Page E5 blossom end. We've never had a dinner plate blossom end like this before. I know that fat bottomed girls make the rockin' world go round but.....YIKES! Sunday, August 1 View Page OK genetics fans. This fruit is on the main of our 845 Bobier cutting (Garrell '03). When Dave grew it last summer it was all he could do to find even half this stem. But every fruit on this plant is exhibitting long stems this year. Dave even warned me that this cutting was "problematic & short stemmed". Knowing this might have scared some growers away from this particular genetic set. And who could have blamed them. Sunday, August 1 View Page Another fat stemmed 845 Bobier fruit. This is on a secondary for genetics. Sunday, August 1 View Page Another fat stemmed 845 Bobier fruit. This is on a secondary for genetics. Sunday, August 1 View Page Long Gourds. 90, 89.5, & 94 Koch '03. We got a very late start with these. How late is too late for fruit set on Long Gourds? We have many White flowered males every night about sundown. But so far no females. Sunday, August 15 View Page It's time for an update. Here is E5 (842Eaton x 845 Bobier) on day 36. It is taping around 90"C here which is way behind plan. Hard to see in this image is a half inch wound below the stem where she has been splitting in a radial patern during growth spurts. Most healed on their own, though this one developed a dime sized soft spot. Captan & a fan seems to have stopped the rot. This is the thickest part of a pumpkin so perhaps we'll be OK. Sunday, August 15 View Page E4 (842 Eaton x self) on day 38. This fruit is growing on about 3 feet of severed secondary just for the seeds. She skowed way down once seperated from the main, but even so, she's still making at least an inch a day without fail. Just for kicks I decided to dial up the fertility along this section of vine & will take regular measurements to gauge the result. Seen here about 88"C. Sunday, August 15 View Page This is B1 that was pollinated on July 24 (845 Bobier x 842 Eaton) on day 22 at 78". This cutting was just going to be a pollen donor. But with the failure of our 805 Pukos came the sudden realization of unused patch space. So the 845 Bobier cutting was trained to jump over the main vine of the 842 Eaton. The resulting train wreck of vines has yielded this late set fruit. She's out about 18-20' on the main. Saturday, August 28 View Page Time for E5 to show off her crack. Despite numerous small cracks, this ugly fruit continues to heal & make very small gains. Saturday, August 28 View Page If it weren't for the cracks, E5 would be a nice looking pumpkin. E5 is grown on 842 Eaton this is day 49 about 250 lbs. I haven't been pushing her since seeing these splits. Saturday, August 28 View Page E5 does have a nice butt at least. Saturday, August 28 View Page Newer to the patch is B-One. White as a bone too. B-One was pollinated on the 845 Bobier cutting July 24th (kinda late) so today is day 34. Taped tonight at 222" or about 229 lbs. The only desirable thing about B-One is the fact she's still growing. Youth is fleeting however so Bone better get moving. Saturday, August 28 View Page Bone isn't all white. In fact we can see a bit of green starting to show at the stem end. Saturday, August 28 View Page Another fruit on an 845 Bobier cutting also showing the green stem end. This is a very late open pollination being grown for a friend. Jeez, with friends like me who needs enemies eh? Wednesday, September 29 View Page Gareth & Alun Jones made it into Stratford, CT today after over 12,500 miles of their amazing journey. Wednesday, September 29 View Page With very little left to see in CT patches, we took off for Dave Garrell's place & crashed his scene. Wednesday, September 29 View Page Gareth, David & Alun at Dave's seawall looking out over Long Island Sound. We saw Glenn Andrews tending his remote patch but he couldn't hear us yelling over the dying hurricane winds. Wednesday, September 29 View Page We did find this nice 525 Est Garrell '04 on Dave's front porch. (723 Bobier x 846 Calai) Nice color for a 723 eh? Thursday, September 30 View Page Now it's time for the soil test results. If we compare April with September, we can see that AG's are heavy Calcium & Potassium feeders. Looking back to April, we can also see that our Magnesium levels were too high as a result of using dolomitic Limestone to correct what was a pH of 4.8 back in 1995 when this patch was started. This had a negative impact on the Calcium:Magnesium ratio that I have battled for years. We're finally out of the woods. This year I was more meticulous in the use of fertilizers & inseason adjustments. Manganese was supplied by foliar applications so despite the soil deficiency, tissue results never wavered. Despite having access to foliar "band-aids", I'll seek to correct these values in the steps ahead. Friday, October 1 View Page First I'll apply some Sulphate of Potash. Most of us are familiar with the 0-0-50 version from what this was manufactured. But to the 0-0-50 base, my company adds Iron & Manganese Sucrate. This lowers the Potassium content by almost half. We want to apply 2 lbs of K per 1000 square feet. So 2/.28 = 7.14 lbs per 1000 sq ft. This material then also meets part of our Manganese & Iron needs by delivering nearly .5 lbs of much needed Mn. Friday, October 1 View Page Since the efficiency factor of soil applied micronutrients is poor, we need more micronutrients than simple math would imply. The old metal Oxide fertilizers have been improved from less than 2% solubility to over 14% solubility by the creation of Sucrates. This product is how we can finish the correction of micronutrients. For those concerned, the raw materials are from American Minerals & are not the result of Mine tailings. Therefore the toxic metals we so often find in tailings are not a problem here. Friday, October 1 View Page Micronutrient package for the last entry. Friday, October 1 View Page Since the soil pH is holding at 6.8, we don't need Lime. But with a Ca:Mg ratio of 7.25:1, we would like to add more Calcium. Here's how. Gyspum will supply Calcium without altering the pH or adding more magnesium. This is critical especially after adding Potash which will also alter the Base Saturation Ratios. Friday, October 1 View Page Before these amendments go down, I have some cleaning up to do. Friday, October 1 View Page Once the vines are out of the way, the quickest & most accurate way to apply granules is with a pneumatic tired commercial spreader. I got this Stainless framed spreader 18 years ago & it will easily outlive me. Friday, October 1 View Page Basal crown of our 842 Eaton. I might have blown up all the fruit on this plant, but at least the roots remained healthy. Friday, October 1 View Page This is the closest thing to a Basal crown that appeared on our 845 Bobier cutting. Friday, October 1 View Page I've never bothered to plant Winter Rye as a cover crop before this year. Cover crops are important on the Plains where winter winds steal & precipitation might steal a farmers precious topsoil. But when growing in suburbia between 2 single family homes I always held the position that this was unnecessary. Perhaps I've been wrong. Friday, October 1 View Page Winter Rye spread on amended, tilled & raked patch. Of course once this comes up I can't drop my last grass clippings or mulched leaves onto the oatch without damaging the Rye......so I'm back to thinking this effort is a waste of time for suburban gardeners. The leaves & grass clipping would have saved the soil & added to it at the same time.....sigh. ;o) Friday, October 8 View Page Shade has been a persistant issue in our patch & this heady Norway Maple is the biggest contributor. This veiw is looking due East. So the morning sun is missing until at least 9:30-10AM depending on the time of year. Friday, October 8 View Page It's not easy to remove a perfectly healthy tree but we have many more so here she goes. Note the "vintage" equipment my tree guy is using. His extremely low overhead save me a fortune. Plus he doesn't live far from here so I know where to find him if something did go wrong. Yes, he has insurance. Friday, October 8 View Page A 26 year old chipper with a Chrysler 318 that has serious ignition syetem issues. I had to fix the thing so he could use it. LOL This is perhaps the most dangerous chipper I've ever used in my life with open throat & no hydraulic feed. Anyone who ever got hung up in a limb would never have time to consider the err of their ways. Friday, October 8 View Page The noise from the chipper was deafening so ear protection for my son wasn't an option. Mike & LJ thought otherwise. To each their own. Sunday, October 10 View Page Looking East again but this time without the Maple tree.