Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 62 Entries. Monday, June 30 View Page I made the first pollination in my patch this morning. It was on my 746 Snyder at 10'6", it is 746 x self. Monday, July 14 View Page I haven't had time to get pics yet. I've been spending all the time I have working in the patch and I'm still not keeping up. I'll get some pics later as the fruit start to grow more. I have over 20 pollinations in now. Here are some of the ones I plan on keeping: 746 Snyder x self 1385 Jutras x self 1012 Hester x self 511 Zaychkowsky x 1173 Koch 1334 Daletas x 721 Larsen 1363 Werner x 1012 Hester 1159 Richards x 1385 Jutras 1055* Pitura x 1131* Timm 962.6 Pukos x 1159 Richards 721 Larsen x 1334 Daletas 802 Kurilich x 746 Snyder 1188 Krug x 1385 Jutras 1432 C-P x 1173 Koch Monday, July 14 View Page Some other notes from the patch: 1385 Jutras The 1385 Jutras suffered some sun damage last week. The tip of the main vine and two secondaries were fried. The main vines final length is 16'6". The two secondaries were out near the tip, both are under 3 feet in length. I plan to fill in the rest of the space they would normally be in with tertiary vines. There are two pumpkins set on this plants main. The first one is off to a great start, the second is at 15'. Other than the sun damage this plant seems to be strong. 1363 Werner The 1363 has only produced one mature male blossom. That one male didn't produce any pollen. It has produced quite a few female blossoms however. I'm not sure what has caused this if its anything other than a genetic thing. I'm sure the soil isn't lacking in K. The pollinations have seemed to take and I think this one could produce a nice fruit. 629 Snyder The 629 Snyder(1367 Rose x 125 Wolf) was one of the strongest plants out of the gate and was my fastest grower into June. It started to suffer alot of damage from the sun. In the past only one or two plants in my patch suffered UV damage. I usually just wrote those plants off as weaker plants. This season however most of my plants have suffered sun/UV damage, the 629 has been the hardest hit. This plants fruits are solid green when small. About the time the blossoms are ready to open they start to turn yellow/white but the green stays in the ribs. All three pollinations on this plant are green and white, it will be interesting to see how they turn out. My strongest plants to this point have been the 746 Snyder, 1012 Hester and 1385 Jutras, in no particular order. Of course growing salad is different than growing fruit. Were now to the point in the season where it gets real interesting. Every day is exciting. Monday, July 14 View Page The 511 Zaychkowsky so far has produced by far the longest fruits I've seen at this size. My 881* Beauchemin squash has gone flat vine and is basicly done. I'm going to let this one go or I may pull it. I got my sprinkler system set up last week, about a week too late to prevent the sun damage to my plants. This is the first season I've had a watering system, I think it should add some pounds to my PB, or result in a lot of blown up pumpkins. The weather for the first half of this season was not as warm and sunny as the two previous seasons. All my plants are about 3 to 4 feet behind where they were last season. I have put a lot more effort into this years crop, but it hasn't resulted in better plants so far. My pollinations were only a little behind last season, as far as the date goes. But they're all a few feet closer to the stump than last season. What needs to happen in the next two to three weeks is we need to get some good growing weather, including warm nights, so that the plants can get larger. If this doesn't happen I believe the pumpkins weights will not reach their potential. Right now the plants are slightly over half the size I want them to be, 25' x 35' when all the vines have been terminated. I want to get all the vines tips terminated by August 7th. Tuesday, July 15 View Page Finally a pic for my diary. This is my largest fruit right now. Its on my 746 Snyder and is a 746 x self. I have set up to keep this fruit. This isn't the one I had intended to keep but it just too nice for me to cut. The reason I didn't plan on keeping it is because its only 10'6" out on the main. Keeping this one may be a mistake, time will tell. I have high hopes for this ones shape and color. I wanted a longer fruit thinking it would have a greater weight potential. But this plant is only throwing round fruits. The 746 I grew last season threw some that were a little longer than this one. This pic was taken this morning, this fruit is at 15 days today. Thursday, July 17 View Page The second pollination on the 1385 Jutras aborted. So I have setup to keep the first fruit at 10'6". This plant hasn't worked out like I had hoped. The plant itself is now one of my smallest and I'm only going to have 15 secondaries behind the fruit. I will train the 5 or 6 secondaries before the fruit to grow forward and fill in as much space as it can. The plant seems healthy but it aborted the second fruit and is now slow to grow vines. Right now the fruit is growing well but I believe it will fade. Thursday, July 17 View Page The 1012 Hester is my largest plant. I have set up to keep the fruit at 11'. I'd like it to be further out, but it has 21 secondaries behind it, which I believe is enough. It is the slowest at growing fruit of all my plants so far. I believe this is becuase it has the most secondaries behind it of all my fruits that have hit 10 days so far and more energy is going into the growth of the vines right now. Thursday, July 17 View Page My 629 Snyder is still getting some leaf burn after I installed the sprinklers. This plant hasn't gotten any care for a couple of weeks now. Despite this the fruit is growing at a good rate. I'm going to try to get caught up to it over the weekend. I have 2 fruit sets remaining one it. One is 629 x 1012 Hester, the other is 629 x 1385 Jutras. Thursday, July 17 View Page The 746 Snyder plant is doing well and the fruit is growing nicely. The 1334 Daletas and 1363 Werner are both doing well and look like they have had successful pollinations. Both plants are a little undersized but other than that both seem to be doing great. I have a few more pollinations done that I intend to keep, they are: 806 McKie x self 1131* Timm x 1055* Pitura 899.5 Snyder x 511 Eddy Z 1188 Krug x sib 1173 Koch x self The only plants I haven't got a main vine set on yet are the 614 Gerry, its a couple days away yet, and my 381 Snyder that went into the ground very late. I haven't done any pollinations on secondaries on any of my plants yet, but I will. I'm thinkng of doing a pumpkin x squash cross on a secondary of my 629. When the fruits are small they're all green. I thought it was going to throw squash early on. The green slowly fades and the fruits turn all white around day 10 however. Its hard to say what these will look like in the end. Sunday, July 20 View Page Here is a pic of the fruit on my 746 at day 20, Sunday the 20th. It is growing well and the plant is healthy. This is my "Great Orange Hope" LOL Monday, July 21 View Page This is the fruit on my 629. It was a slow growing fruit at first but it has turned it on the last few days. Monday, July 21 View Page Here is the fruit on my 1385 Jutras. It is a good steady grower so far. The 1385 plant is on the small side. I expect this fruit will stall later in the season. Monday, July 21 View Page My top plants in the patch in no particular order are: 1385 Jutras, 629 Snyder, 746 Snyder, 1334 Daletas, 1363 Werner, 511 Eddy Z, 721 Larsen, 962.6 Pukos and the 1012 Hester. The 1055 Pitura is my top squash, but that isn't saying alot. LOL My "giant" watermelon plants are smaller than my regular watermelons at this point. They might be giants some day, but I'm not going to hold my breath on it. I believe the 1012 is going to by my top producer in the end, it has been a great plant up to this point and the young fruit has a perfect shape for a big pumpkin. A couple weeks ago I thought it was going to be the 1385 but it hasn't done much in the past couple weeks and that plant needs to grow more to produce something big. The 1363 and 1334 were the slow ones early but have picked it up nicely in the last 2 weeks. So far most of my plants are producing fuits with good shapes. The two that stand out are the 511 and 1363. These two have the two ugliest fruits I've seen to this point. Since they don't give you any extra pounds for beauty thats okay. LOL I'll eventually get pics of all of the plants later in the season. Monday, July 21 View Page I caught my first SVB of the season on Saturday. This is only the second SVB I've ever found in my patch. One last season, one so far this season. I hope the Talstar and Merit prevent any possible damage. If it didn't lay any eggs before I found it, it missed its chance, it won't be laying any now. Friday, July 25 View Page 746 Snyder day 25. Friday, July 25 View Page 629 Snyder Still ghostly white with light blue/green stripes in the ribs. Friday, July 25 View Page Here is the fruit on my 1385 Jutras. Friday, July 25 View Page The weather this week wasn't good for growing pumpkins, cool, way too much rain(6") and not much sun. All of my pumpkins grew much slower this week than the previous week. Tuesday it was 62F at 2 in the afternoon and wednesday it was 67F at 2 in the afternoon. The overnight lows droped 20 degrees from last week. The 746 hit the 25 day mark today, it is the oldest in my patch. The 629 is at 23 days and the 1385 is at 22 days in the photos from today. The plants aren't showing any signs of problems right now. I hope it stays that way. I'll be hitting them with some fungicides this weekend along with Talstar. This weeks weather wasn't good for growing pumpkins but it was prime conditions for disease. I'll try to get pics of the 1334, 1012 and 1363 up soon. They're all between 14 and 20 days old. Wednesday, July 30 View Page 746 Snyder aka The Great Orange Hope at day 30. Looking good so far, I hope it stays healthy and finishes well. Wednesday, July 30 View Page 629 Snyder fruit on July 30th. It is the largest in my patch right now. Wednesday, July 30 View Page 1385 Jutras Wednesday, July 30 View Page 1012 Hester fruit day 25, July 30th. Wednesday, July 30 View Page 1334 Daletas fruit at day 21 on July 30th. Wednesday, July 30 View Page This is Captain Ahab with his White Whale!!! Captain Ahab is portrayed by my nephew Zane. The White Whale is portrayed by the 629 Snyder. Wednesday, July 30 View Page Super Fugly, the fruit on the 1363 Werner aborted at 20 days. I removed it and the plant is left with a fruit on the main that is only 12 days old. I don't usually keep backup fruits that long, I'm glad I did in this case. The 12 day old fruit is already taking on some of the shape of the previous one however. Friday, August 1 View Page I finally have giant watermelons on the vine! I pollinated two on the main this week and removed a couple females off secondaries. Friday, August 1 View Page Squash update. It looks like the only plant I'm going to get a squash off of this season is the 1055 Pitura, assuming it makes it. The 1055's fruit was a later set but its growing well right now, its only about 50 lbs. The 1131 Timm has aborted two so far. I have another opening in a couple days I'll try it again and we'll see if this one sticks. My other squash plants I started have all turned freak. The 881 Beauchemin turned into a big ribbon vine, its only about 6' long. I haven't pulled this one but it probably won't produce a fruit. I use it as my test plant to try out new sprays on to see how it reacts, so far I haven't killed it. Monday, August 4 View Page 746 Snyder at Day 35 You can see that she's "sweating" a little. A few cracks have developed in the ribs, that is where the sap is coming from. I don't think it will hurt how she looks in the end much, if it doesn't get any worse. I guess if I were putting on twenty-some pounds a day I'd be sweating too. LOL Monday, August 4 View Page 629 Snyder Still the biggest in my patch and it doesn't look like it wants to give that spot up. I'm surprised how well this fruit is growing with the condition of the plant. I've been expecting the 1385 and 1012 to out grow this one but it just isn't happening, not yet anyway. I'm very happy with how this fruit is growing. I hope it can keep it going for a while. Monday, August 4 View Page 1385 Jutras its growing slowly. They say slow and steady wins the race. Let hope so. I don't think this one is going to be setting any records. Monday, August 4 View Page 1012 Hester This one is growing at a good pace and it has a nice plant behind it, probably the nicest plant in my patch. Monday, August 4 View Page 1334 Daletas This one is a later pollination than the others above, but it is trying hard to catch up and is growing really well. Monday, August 4 View Page Super Fugly Too!!! aka 1363 Werner This one may be uglier than the one that aborted. If this fruit makes it, it will be the ugliest pumpkin I've ever grown, by a mile. It has a good sized plant behind it, lets see what happens. Thursday, August 7 View Page The weather has taken a turn for the worse again and the forecast for next 10 days looks even worse. Lots of cool wet days in the forecast with daytime highs in the 60's. This is early August? I picked the wrong year to put out my best effort to this point. Last week at this time I thought hitting the 1000 estimated pound mark wasn't going to be a problem. Now I'm not so sure. Most of the plants daily gains have dropped off the last few days and I believe if we get the weather as forecasted they'll drop even more. The only plant making good gains has been the 1012 Hester. Which makes me wonder what it would be doing if it were ten degrees warmer, day and night. I plan on pollinating another fruit on the 1131* Timm tomorrow with the 1055* Pitura. So far they've all aborted. Hopefully this one will stick long enough for me to get some seeds from it. The fruit on the 1055* is still growing and seems to be doing okay. But it has a blossom end problem, its only around 150 lbs and its the only squash I have on the vine now. Friday, August 8 View Page Here is a pic of my little squash on the 1055* Pitura(848 x self). It is way behind my pumpkins for its day and overall. Its crossed with the 1131* Timm(848 x self). Hopefully it holds up and I get my first greenie to the scales. Friday, August 8 View Page Here is a shot of row #1 with the 1012 Hester plant in the foreground and the 746 Snyder in the background. Neither are the largest in the patch but the 1012 is putting up the best daily numbers now. The 1012 plant is about 650 sqft. Most of the 650 sqft is behind the fruit. The only plant growth out past the fruit is the main vine and one secondary. The main is probably some where in the 35-40 foot range, its hard to say what the exact length is with the S-curve in it. You can see in the pic how the secondaries behind the fruit have been trained to grow forward past the fruit. There is some tertiary growth on this plant but not much, its mostly secondaries. Friday, August 8 View Page Here is a pic of Row #1 from the opposite end with the 746 Snyder plant up front. Saturday, August 9 View Page 746 Snyder day 40. This is going to be the first 746 to have rough skin. It has roughed up quite a bit in the last week. This was my hope for the "perfect" giant pumpkin. Its not going to happen but I think its still going to be a nice pumpkin. I think I'll grow two 746's next year. Saturday, August 9 View Page 1385 Jutras This one is still putting up decent numbers for the weather. Its currently the third largest in the patch. Saturday, August 9 View Page 1012 Hester This one is still reeling in the pack ahead of him. It has put up the best numbers in the cold weather but nothing big. Saturday, August 9 View Page 1334 Daletas After putting up some really good early numbers this one has slowed. But so has everything else in the patch. The 1334 I grew last season was short and tall, this one is long and low. Will it go heavy too? Monday, August 11 View Page 629 Snyder Still the biggest in the patch, but its not liking the cool rainy days and cold over night lows in the upper 40's. Monday, August 11 View Page The weather has been worse than I ever imagined it would be in the first half of August. This is normally the dog days of summer. Not this year. Today at 10 AM it was still only 58F. Last night it was down into the upper 40's again. The pumpkins have all slowed way down. Most are averaging in the upper teens to lower twentys in pounds per day. Last week they were doing upper 20's and lower 30's. The 10 day forecast doesn't show a day over 76F and not a single night in the 60's. And it shows lots of cloud cover and more rain still to come. I had two of my smaller pumpkins "pop" over the weekend. I believe this was due to the cold nights and wet ground. The skin ruptured out in the middle of the flesh, the blossom and stem ends look fine. The two that split were the 1159 Richards x 1385 Jutras and the 1188 Krug x 1385 Jutras. I'm going to leave them on to see if they'll make it long enough to get seeds out of them. This is the first time I've every had any split like this. Strange year, I hope it doesnt' get worse. Maybe it will turn around. Thursday, August 14 View Page 746 Snyder Thursday, August 14 View Page 629 Snyder Still the biggest in the patch. Thursday, August 14 View Page 1385 Jutras Thursday, August 14 View Page 1012 Hester Now the third largest in the patch. It has surpassed the 1385 Jutras to take the number 3 spot. I don't think there is any turning back for this one. I believe this one will reel in the 746. Will it have time to reel in the 629? Stay tunned.............. Thursday, August 14 View Page 1334 Daletas Thursday, August 14 View Page Here is a bit of a problem with the 1012 Hester. I've had these cracks occur at the back of fruits before but these are the largest I've seen at this point. This is the largest one on the fruit, it is about a half inch deep right now. In other patch news my 1055* Pitura continues to grow slow and steady, if I get a squash over 500 lbs to take to a weigh-off I'll be pleased. The second fruit on the 1363 Werner, Super Fugly Too, has aborted. I will remove it tomorrow, tape it and weigh it just to satisfy my own curiosity. I think its around 100 lbs, but I haven't been taping it regularly. There is a third fruit on the main about a week old that is an open pollination. I'm not sure how far out it is, but I'm guessing its over 35 foot. Its going to have alot of plant behind it, if it lives, it will be fun to see what happens in whats left of the season. Wednesday, August 20 View Page The 746 blossom end split on Sunday August 17th. I caught the split very early, it was less than an 1/8th inch, but it went all the way in. I sealed it off quickly and she's still on the vine growing well for now. I uncovered the split today and found that it hasn't gotten much bigger in the 3 days since. I lost my 899.5 Snyder x 511 Eddy Z fruit to a small soft spot that I didn't take seriously enough. I cut it open to harvest some seeds today and found the rot had spread quite a bit. The fruit was thick even on the blossom end with no internal flaws. It looks like this one would've gone well over the charts too. I didn't take the time to tape it or weigh it, it was somewhere around 300 estimated pounds, it was a late pollination. I lost my only giant watermelon on Sunday as well. The end went soft. No giant watermelons this season. All my other plants seem to be doing okay. The 629 is still the biggest, the 1012 Hester is the second largest and out growing everything else right now. I still have a decent sized fruit on my 1385 Jutras plant and the fruit on my 1334 Daletas plant. My squash on the 1055* Pitura is still growing too. Hopefully I can keep all the fruits I have left healthy until the weigh-offs are over. Tuesday, August 26 View Page 629 Snyder Tuesday, August 26 View Page 1012 Hester Wednesday, September 3 View Page The 1012 Hester is now the largest pumpkin in the patch. The 1012 and 629 Snyder are both still growing. The 1012 did 19 lbs/day for the last week of August. But about 40% of the 1012 plant dropped dead over the weekend. The plant seemed to be perfectly healthy up until saturday. I'm not sure what the cause is. We got 3 inches of rain last week in about a 24 hour period from thursday into friday. This makes me think it could be soil bourne or it could be as simple as bacterial wilt. I hope it makes it the 5 weeks we have until the weigh-off. Friday, September 12 View Page I picked my 746 Snyder fruit that blossom end split thursday. Here it is still on the plant before being picked. Friday, September 12 View Page Hauling it out of the patch. Friday, September 12 View Page Side shot of the 746 fruit. I failed to mention that is my Dad hauling it out of the patch in the above photo in the '49 Chevy. Friday, September 12 View Page Here is a pic of myself and the 925 Snyder DMG. Final tape was 884 lbs. Final weight was 925 lbs on a certified scale. +4.6% right on the high side of the chart. Tuesday, September 23 View Page I lost the fruit on my 1012 Hester plant. A small soft spot that had dried up started to ooze again yesterday. I decided to see what was going on and found it rotted a small hole straight back into the cavity. After I opened the hole up about a half gallon of bad smelling rotten pumpkin juice ran out. Its final estimated weight was 1112 lbs. It was weighed on a certified scale at 1071 lbs. 3.69% under the estimated weight. I had intended on taking the 1012's fruit to Altoona. I now plan on taking the 1385 Jutras fruit to Altoona and the fruit on my 629 Snyder to Longwood Gardens. If something happens to one of those two I won't be taking a fruit to one of the weigh-offs. Monday, October 6 View Page Here is a pic from Altoona saturday. From right to left is the 830 of Ryan Bernecky (746 Snyder x self), 855 of Todd and Chris Horner (746 Snyder x 846 Horner), 387.5 Bernecky (746 Snyder x self) and I believe the 4th one is James Carson's 268 grown on the 1191 Zunino that won the prettiest pumpkin award. I took my fruit from the 1385 Jutras to Altoona saturday. It weighed in at 991 lbs. I taped it at 926.5 +7.0% That was good enough for 6th place. I forgot to get a pic of it at the event. Maybe someone else did, LOL. Tuesday, October 7 View Page Here is a pic of the 991 Snyder(1385 x self) at Altoona. This pic was sent to me by Joe Urgolites. Thanks Joe! Tuesday, October 7 View Page It was very dark at the weigh-off. LOL Or maybe I screwed up attaching the pic. Lets try again. Wednesday, October 15 View Page Top 5 growers at Longwood, from left to right: Tom Morgan - 5th place - 881 lbs Dave Hilstolsky - 3rd place - 1049.5 lbs Karri Hilstolsky - 1st place - 1272 lbs Kevin Snyder - 2nd place - 1072 lbs Craig Lembke - 4th place - 947 lbs Dave also grew the 1st place squash weighing in at 986.5 lbs.