Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 35 Entries. Wednesday, April 28 View Page We had a light frost this morning; I hope it is the last one of spring. Jacob and I started seeds last night. 994, 1135 and 1355 Bhaskaran, 1094 and 1237 Horton, and 623 McWilliams are our first choice pumpkins. The 623 is a cross of my previous personal bests. We started a 683* Horton green squash for something different. We also started one of Jacob's 547 McWilliams for my daughter Jessica, because she wants to grow some "pretty, orange" big pumpkins. We plan to set several on that plant. We also started 111 7/8 Lovelace and 114.5 Schnicker long gourds. We moved our long gourd trellis down the hill to the main pumpkin patch where they will get better air circulation. The trellis is re-designed to give them more growing room, so they hopefully don't suffer the same fungus problems we had the past 2 years. They are on a raised bed beside a drainage ditch, so hopefully they won't be affected if we get too much rain. Today we visited the college Jacob will be attending this fall, and he even picked up 2 scholarships. I wish I had that good of a college to go to 38 years ago. Once he gets to school, I will have to finish off his patch chores for the rest of the growing season. But he is already helping out with extra chores this spring to make up for it. On weekends when he isn't playing in the band for home football games, he can make the 2 hour drive back home to keep track of his babies. Saturday, May 1 View Page All but 2 seeds have sprouted so far: Scnicker gourd and Horton squash. Hopefully they will be up in a day or two. We got heavy rain and hail yesterday, but it didn't last too long. Forecast looks Ok except for a week from now: 35 in the AM which means frost in my valley. The pumpkins should be in the ground by then so I will need to round up boxes or buckets to cover them. Wednesday, May 5 View Page I built 4 wind shelters Monday evening and had to re-build them Tuesday evening in a gale and add one more. But now they will stand up to about anything short of a tornado. We set out 5 plants Tuesday evening with 2 more to go in Wednesday evening. Now we have to get ready for the frost Friday and Saturday. Monday, May 10 View Page The pumpkins all survived the freeze and are looking good. I was going to set out the first long gourd, but it is dying. I think my wife's cat got to it and mistook the pot for her litter box. No worry, there is still plenty of time. Looks like we are in for 3 or 4 dyas or rain again. April was nice but May sure has been cool, wet and windy. Tuesday, May 25 View Page Pumpkin plants are doing fine, but htat is about all. Only one long gourd growing so far after the cat killed one off. I might plant some seed direct in the garden now that it is real warm. I have had luck that way in the past. Watermelons aren't germinating either, so I guess I will just plant more jack-o-lanterns and small gourds. I gave the pumpkins another shot of garlic last evening, and so far no sign of bugs. I have the pumpkins weeded up close, but the rest of the patch is green now. I plan to get the tiller out this weekend and clean things up. Wednesday, May 26 View Page I did some cultivation around the outside of the wind shelters with the tiller last evening. The carb on the tiller started plugging up and I had a struggle getting it back up to the garage. Carb cleaing is on the schedule for the weekend. Also I will get out the sprayer and use glyphosate to wipe out the rest of the weeds. Hopefully I can get a drench of Merit and Aliette on the AG's this weekend. I will plant the jack o lanterns and decorative gourds and try direct seeding morelong gourds. The tomatoes and peppers will need to be hoed and fertilized. The AG's are slow growing due to the cold weather, but now that it warmed up I hope they will take off. Mowing and hauling clippings for mulch is on Jacob's agenda for the weekend. The long range forecast looks hot and dry, so we will likely use some more mulch to hold in the moisture and hold down the weeds. We also have to get the electric fence fired up, as I found deer tracks in the patch. We got a nice rain overnight. The gravel roads in the neighborhood are in terrible muddy condition now. This was the worst spring ever for frost boils. Thankfully our road is scheduled for paving in another year. I just hope they don't screw up the access to my pumpkin patch and timber with the road work. Now I can just drive right off the road and down to the patch. Wednesday, May 26 View Page I did some cultivation around the outside of the wind shelters with the tiller last evening. The carb on the tiller started plugging up and I had a struggle getting it back up to the garage. Carb cleaing is on the schedule for the weekend. Also I will get out the sprayer and use glyphosate to wipe out the rest of the weeds. Hopefully I can get a drench of Merit and Aliette on the AG's this weekend. I will plant the jack o lanterns and decorative gourds and try direct seeding morelong gourds. The tomatoes and peppers will need to be hoed and fertilized. The AG's are slow growing due to the cold weather, but now that it warmed up I hope they will take off. Mowing and hauling clippings for mulch is on Jacob's agenda for the weekend. The long range forecast looks hot and dry, so we will likely use some more mulch to hold in the moisture and hold down the weeds. We also have to get the electric fence fired up, as I found deer tracks in the patch. We got a nice rain overnight. The gravel roads in the neighborhood are in terrible muddy condition now. This was the worst spring ever for frost boils. Thankfully our road is scheduled for paving in another year. I just hope they don't screw up the access to my pumpkin patch and timber with the road work. Now I can just drive right off the road and down to the patch. Tuesday, June 1 View Page The pumpkins all got a close weeding over the weekend. Then we tilled a safe distance away to kill more weeds and sprayed the rest of the weeds with glyphosate. Jacob started watering as a couple were showing some heat stress. No cucumber beetles, the garlic is working. Rain is due tonight, so I will give them a shot of Merit and let the rain water it in. So far the best looking plant is the 547 McWilliams. One of those was our fastest starter last year. Monday, June 7 View Page Other than a couple cold weeks in mid May, the weather has been favorable. Plenty of rain but not too much, and we have missed the high winds and hail. Main vines are starting to run finally. Hopefully they will get back to normal sie in a couple weeks. Still the leading plant is the 547 McWilliams. We may have to change our thinking on using this for a bunch of pretty orange pumpkins ad go for one big one on this plants. The plants need some weeding again tonight. One long gourd is going, the Schnicker state record. Still waiting for the seeds I planted directly in the patch to pop up. Thursday, June 10 View Page We found a big problem with the 994 Bhaskaran last night. The main is about 80% cracked off about 1" above the ground. It is still growing and starting to set out roots from the vine. We hope it will hang on long enough to get more vine roots to get a pumpkin. It is way too late for a backup. If it doesn't make it we will plant a cover crop for the rest of the summer. 547 McWilliams is still the fastest growing plant and in about the poorest spot in the patch. Friday, June 11 View Page A windstorm hit in the afternoon on Thursday. Damage was limited to a couple of snapped leaf stems. The 994 is still hanging on and the 547 is growing like crazy. The plants got their first shot of Aliette Thursday evening. I had to use a tight stream on the sprayer so I didn't have to get too close and compact the wet soil. We have had a lot of smaller rains. Not enough to drown things but enough to get the root rot problems started without the preventative fungicide. Friday, June 11 View Page I forgot to mention that some of the direct seeded long gourds have finally popped up. They are getting a late start but we will see how they do this year. Monday, June 21 View Page We had 2 major windstorms Friday. Both had heavy rain and 60 mph winds. I haven't had the courage to go look at the pumpkins, but from a distance they seem to be OK. Garden is a sea of mud, so walking around would only worsen the damage. Being down on the creek bottom and sheltered by the hills and trees helped the plants survive. Plus we were able to get out on Thursday evening to weed and bury vines to help hold them down. Tuesday, June 22 View Page I got up the nerve to check the pumpkins Monday evening, and they were in good condition, considering the bad weather. So are the weeds. I gave all the plants a shot of Merit. The rain will get it worked into the soil. Another shot of Aliette is planned if we cang et a few hours without rain. It looks like it might be dry enough to do some weeding by the weekend, but another big storm is heading in this morning. Sunday, June 27 View Page We got a slight break in the rains. Thursday evening we were able to do some weeding and vine burying. Friday we ran the tiller farther away from the plants to incorporate a bunch of weeds killed by glyphosate. The 547 McWilliams is no longer the lead plant. It is in the lowest part of thepatch and is now trailing the rest. 1355 Bhaskaran is the best looking so far. The 994 is doing well despite the nearly severed stump and groundhog damage. Several plants have females that will be opening soon. Sounds like we may get cool dry weather for polination. That would be nice, as we have nearly 10" of rain so far for June. Monday, June 28 View Page First polination was this morning, next one will be tomorrow. The cooler weather is here, just like I ordered it. The plants are quite a bit ahead of what they were 2 years ago when I grew my personal best, so I am hopeful that Jacob and I both can crack the 1000# barrier. But after last year I know that it can all go away in a day. Thursday, July 1 View Page The weather has been beautiful for the start of polination. Lows in upper 50's highs in upper 70's, and lots of sun. The patch is fianlly dried out and we have gotten an upper hand on the weeds. It looks like the first pumpkin we polinated aborted, but that plant has more on the way. After a June with close to 12 inches of rain, we have to be thankful that we didn't get flooded out. Wednesday, July 7 View Page We are getting near the end of pollination time. Most plants have at least 2 fruit pollinated, but the 547 is falling way behind. All but one flower has been 4 lobes this year. We are letting a few secondary flowers open pollinate as backups, but they will come off if we get something good going on the main vine. Last week the weather was great: upper 70's sunny, low humidity. This week it is low 80's very high humidity and frequent rains. This is turning into a very wet year, again. It looks like I need to give them another shot of Alliette as conditions are right for root problems to start in. I have already started terminating some secondary vines where plants are trying to grow into each other. It seems that every plant grew the main about 40 degrees off from where I wanted them to go, and they headed for each other. But thye are much bigger than in past years and will have the whole patch filled in just a couple weeks. If we don't get flooded, the deer and ground hogs stay away, and disease problems don't show up, we could have a very special year Sunday, July 11 View Page First photo from the McWilliams rice paddy (pumpkin patch). Still getting rain. This is the 1355 Bhaskaran and one of the pumpkins set on the main. It is looking remarkably good considering the wet conditions. In the background is the 144.5 Schnicker long gourd on the trellis and the 57 McWilliams just geting started on the trellis. Sunday, July 11 View Page This is the healed over stump split on the 994 Bhaskaran. The main grew straight up and when it went down it made about a 90% split. With just a little bit of stump feeding it, it has grown very well. Just before I took this picture I found the first cucumber beetle of the season. It did not survive the encounter. Hopefully the Merit does its job until the rains quit and I can get more garlic spread. Sunday, July 11 View Page Long fruit on the 1094. All the females on this plant have the elongated shape. When we get bright hot sun, about every 3rd day, some of the new leaves get a little wilty. Probably because they aren't used to the sun and the roots haven't developed below them. The loder leaves look great. The long gourd is getting more of the brown fungus from all of the wetness. I have used Daconil and Aliette on it and need to spray again. Thursday, July 22 View Page I spent 3 miserable days in a Denver hospital with gall stones and pancreatitis. Now I am heading home for gall bladder surgery. At least pumpkins arfe in good hands with Jacob watching them. Just upset it messed up my work trainina and wife's vacation. Sunday, July 25 View Page We used Thursday and Friday as travel days back from Denver. The docs wanted me to take frequent breaks so I didn't get blood clots, and I wanted Lu Ann to get in a little shopping to salvage something of her messed up vacation. I had a bad night Friday and went to the Cedar Rapids hospital on Saturdsy. The admited me, got me on IV antibiotics and this morning they took out my gall bladder. I am back home feeling much better. Jacob's pumpkin report: vines are growing out of control so he did a bunch of pruning. Some pumpkins are pushing 200#: at that rate we couyld get something huge if Mother Nature cooperates. A couple turning into birdbaths. He has been packing sand to try to keep them from turning over, but no help. It will be a couple weeks before I can do anything in the patch so it up to Jacob for a while more. The storm that caused all the Iowa flooding damaged our electric fence. But Jacob got it fixed and only damage was a couple of ground hog chewed leaves. At least we didn't get flooded yet. But I know a lot of people who got hammered by the Lake Delhi blowout and a lot more who are going to get hit by near record flooding on the Wapsi. So despite all my problems, I thank God for all the blessings. Tuesday, July 27 View Page With the help of a walking stick and Jacob along to steady me I was finally able to check the patch after 10 days. The growth of some of the pumpkins startled me. Our best is estimated 242#, adding on around 22# a day in my absence. At just 10# average the rest of the season it will be a new personal best, and if it keeps up the 22# average we could give the rest of the growers some good competition. We have several others that could easily top 1000# if things cooperate. But we also know how fast that can change. I'm on a 10# lifting restriction until Auguat 8, so Jacob gets to keep the chores a while longer. The gall bladder pain is gone, so now I just have to deal with the recovery and the dizziness the pain pills cause. We found the first cucumber beetle infestation of the year. They had gotten a garlic treatment just 10 days ago. They will get more garlic, plus I will have Jacob use an insecticide spray too. I don't like letting him handle chemicals, but we will take all the precautions. Monday, August 2 View Page Pumpkins are doing better than I am. I'm having a very slow recovery from my illness and surgery. 1237 Horton is the best pumpkin so far, 11 days ahead of my previous personal best. 1355 Bhaskaran looks to be a huge birdbath. 994 is going to be a large orange wheel. The weeds are a real problem for the slower plants, since all the rain prevented a lot of weeding time. Despite the continuing monsoon season, we are well pleased with how the plants are doing. We need to get a couple tarps set up over the best pumpkins this week. For now they have white sheets for covers. The fungus problem is still causing problems for the long gourds despite the use of 2 fungicides. I think we just need a whole lot less rain for them to thrive here. Thursday, August 5 View Page Things are finally starting to go downhill. The 1355 birdbath grew severely over the stem and main vine, causing tremendous pressure. In an effort to releive the pressure I tried to cut off the end of the main, but hit the wrong spot and severed the pumpkin off the main. Oh well, I probably was doomed anyway. The 1237 Horton is slowing way down. I have found numberous vine blowouts. I think the tremendous moisture is causing this. Some of the other pumpkins are still hanging in. The 1094 is becoming a birdbath and needs a tarp to keep the blossom end dry. The 994 will be a bright orange wheel. My 623 is doing remarkably well considering it is in about the poorest soil in the patch. The fungus is spreading on the 114.5 Schnicker long gourd. Finally we have one gourd going but it is already getting brown spots. The 57 McWilliams gourd plant does not seem to have as much fungus, but it isn't as old either. Thursday, August 12 View Page The rain won't quit, and now it is beastly hot. Pumpkin growth has slowed some. The 1237 Horton stopped growing for a week now. I think a vine borer got to it. All the rain prevented timely insecticide applications and gave the bugs a chance. The 1355 HBhaskaran that I thought I killed is still growing about 14# per day. There is a little vine after it that must be feeding it some. I will let another pumpkin grow on that plant, as it will have around 60 days to grow before weighoff. Our best prospects now appear to be the 1135 Bhaskaran and 623 McWilliams. I think they have potential to go over 1000# and 800# if nothing else goes wrong. We have one long gourd that is growing quite well despite all the fungus problems. Thursday, September 16 View Page The pumpkins have stopped growing. We are just hoping for cool weather so they last until the weighoff. If Jacob's pumpkin holds up he will easily shatter his personal best. It has perfect orange color and great genetics. It just suffered with all the wet weather, weeds and the poorest soil in the patch. My best this year will be around 300# less than my personal best if it makes it to weighoff. The plants that had good pumpkins go bad were just let go, so we will have a big crop of 100# to 300# for giant jack-o-lanterns We son't have a long gourd this year. One plant never set a gourd, and the other set just one that started rotting early at over 85". Good luck to everyone at the weighoffs. Wednesday, September 29 View Page Our best pumpkin for the year. Estimated 700# bright orange birdbath. We just hope it holds up as it quit growing about 3 weeks ago. Good luck to everyone at the weighoffs. Monday, October 4 View Page tTe best day of the year is over, and we had a great time. Jacob's pumpkin went 21% over the chart, weighing in at 866.5. A new personal best for him, and it beats my best too. He took 3rd for Jones County growers, 18th over all and won a plaque and $130. Competition is really getting strong. 2 years ago my 841 was 1st in the county and 8th overall. My pumpkin also went 21% over the chart, weighing 633#. I'm just glad I didn't break the springs on the truck. And I ended up selling my pumpkin to make a couple bucks. The biggest thrill of the day came from the Pumpkin Recipe contest. They started a new Hall of Fame Award and my daughter Jessica was the first winner. She has been entering the contest for many ears and Saturday she was grinning from ear to ear. I will post pictures in the next few days. Wednesday, October 6 View Page We loaded Jacob's pumpkin first since it was the heaviest. I had friends helping make sure it got on the truck in one piece. My smaller pumpkin is behind, next to go on the truck. Wednesday, October 6 View Page Both pumpkins on the 2 wheel drive truck. That is a steep hill to climb, but with a lot of weight in the back for traction it isn't a problem. I thought I had around 1200# of pumpkins, but found out Saturday morning that it was 1500#. That is a lot of weight for a 15 year old F150. Wednesday, October 6 View Page Some VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE at the Anamosa Pumpkinfest. Jill and John Parham of J&P Cycles are one of our great sponsors. In the middle is Pumpkin Master John Dirks, who has been getting the pumpkins on the scale for as long as I can remember. Wednesday, October 6 View Page With the help of the Anamosa Wrestling team, the Pumpkin Master takes 12 year old Obie Wagner's pumpkin to the scale. Wednesday, October 6 View Page Predictions for next year: look for some huge pumpkins from the local Anamosa growers. Dave Sunlin and Dave Zimmerman seem to have the system down pat, and Jacob and I aren't far behind. Vince Yario gets a new personal best every year. Obie Wagner is getting a new patch with better sunlight, great soil and good water access. We had another 12 year old grower bring in a pumpkin over 600# on her first attempt. And Richard Stivers is due to shatter the Iowa long gourd record too.