Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 50 Entries. Wednesday, May 23 View Page I just want to let anyone that cares know I'm still alive. I'm in the midst of training crazy hard for an upcoming Half Ironman June 16th. So my pumpkin season will start June 17th...in earnest....LOL. Swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, run 13.1 miles.....and hopefully all 3 very fast. Wednesday, May 23 View Page I'll add that my plants this year look better than they ever have since I started growing. Of course we are having a 2007ish beginning to the season weather wise. I've made 2 changes this year. One is a product addition (pictured here). It's not called "shake well before use." Monday, June 4 View Page My other change this year is drip irrigation. It's sure a fun toy and thanks to Dripworks for making it EASY for a rookie to install! Tuesday, June 19 View Page Well here's the finish of my Half Ironman. My 5 year old and I jogging in together (I think she was asking why I was running so slow). I had a tough day. It was windy, hot, wavy, rainy, muddy....etc... Time to take some time off...maybe a few more days...LOL. I spent more time training for this race than I do in the pumpkin patch and it shows...in the patch! Tuesday, June 19 View Page So how is the patch you ask. Well I've not taken a single picture this year. I sprayed my plants with round up about 3 weeks ago by accident and 2 of them are looking pretty bad. All 6 took some damage. I haven't burried a few of my plants for an unprecedented 8 days due to my race and rain. I did pollinate my first this morning, but it's too early to keep anything around here if you want to get it to shift out of 3rd gear. We'll see how things go. My patch looks nasty, but I hope to work my way back into things as the important part of the season is just starting. Thursday, June 28 View Page Still no pics. Due to my wife being a teacher she left with the kids for a week so maybe I can catch up in the patch. But she also took the camera! Thursday, June 28 View Page I have the earliest pollinations I've ever had. Not necessarily by choice, but the plants are choosing for me. I still will say June 20th is too early to pollinate a big pumpkin around here, but maybe I can prove myself wrong. Tuesday, July 10 View Page It was HOT last week. Thankfully I was gone most of the week so I didn't have to look at the frying leaves. I lost a bunch of vine tips on 1495, but I was gone so no pruning = lots of tertiaries taking over. Tuesday, July 10 View Page And did I say I swear I've never seen plants grow like this? A close estimate would be about 8' of vine growth / week right now. I believe I'll be completely out of room here in about 10 days. Terminated plants by D30 or so after pollination = foamers, but I only have so much patch! Tuesday, July 10 View Page Lastly I have 4 growing pumpkins on 4 plants. I'm just about organized for the stretch run. Mill fabric, sand, s-turns, automated drip irrigation. 4 remaining plants in terms of size / age: 1381 Checkon, 1657 Marsh, 1495 Stelts, 1276 Stevens. I killed the 1634 with round-up and my 1488 Marsh was sterile. Tuesday, July 10 View Page I need to add that at this point I think this year is WAY better than 2010. Unfortunately I'm not doing near as good of job as I did in 2010! Hopkins says it's his turn anyway. Wednesday, July 11 View Page New growing technique this year. All my swep forward vines on 1495 are now 3rd growth...lol. All secondary tips were burned so I removed about 2 wheel barrows of vines from that plant and went with all 3rds. That will set my plant back about a week, but I think it's actually a good thing. The pumpkin on 1495 looks great. Much like my 1468 and 1481 pumpkins. Wednesday, July 11 View Page 1381 hit D20 today. This is the first ever 6 lober I'm growing out. It weighs about the same as me :) Monday, July 23 View Page ABORT: I've heard of it happenening, but never seen it happen. Hopkins lost 1789 to a 250# abort. I just lost my 1381 Checkon at 350#. No warning, perfect plants, perfect vines....etc....they just quit and get soft. Can't really afford to lose any more...lol. Both of these pumpkins were growing fantastic when they stopped! 1381 was doing 30's / day the prior 5 days. Wednesday, July 25 View Page Here's my 1657 Marsh update. Found a split / oozing spot in the main, foaming stump, and vine borer within an inch of the pumpkin all within 24 hours...LOL. Friday, July 27 View Page OK time for my first pictures for 2012. This is literally the first time I've had the camera in the patch! Friday, July 27 View Page We had a visitor last night. I didn't see it, but I'm guessing it was large and black....and this is about 30 steps from my patch....lol. No tracks in the patch. Friday, July 27 View Page Oh that's a steel post burried about 4' in the ground. Friday, July 27 View Page 1657 Marsh pin cushion / svb trap. Disclaimer: Aero helmet may be manipulated on this and the following pumpkins in order for them to appear larger or smaller than actual size. The aero helmet certainly makes them look fast don't you think Russ? Pollinated with 1789 Wallace lost in the Hopkins patch at 200#. Friday, July 27 View Page 1495 DAVE Stelts. This plant is also a nice SVB trap. Of course as soon as I sprayed the patch last night it rained. Go figure. This one is somewhat lopsided due to a deformed segment in the flower. There's pressure on this plant since it's in the same growing area that grew 1810. Friday, July 27 View Page 1276 of mine. 444 Beachy x 1810. Pure genetic powerhouse. But can it deliver? This one's actually on a trained secondary due to grower stupidity (round up damage). Note the tight blossom due to removal of the nub. Friday, July 27 View Page Here's my aborted 1381. It's growing about -5# / day...LOL. Perfectly symetrical 6 lober. Man what could have been! It grew about 32# / day between D20 and D25 then quit. Tuesday, July 31 View Page I found the reason I lost my 1381 yesterday. For the first time I saw some yellowing leaves near the pumpkin on the main. That's the telltale sign of pythium for me. So my fault for not controlling disease. DARN. This is one of the most beautiful pumpkins I've ever cut open. It was nearly identical thickness everywhere. We found 14 SVB's in the plant while removing....LOL....that can't be good for my remaining 3 plants! Tuesday, July 31 View Page Dug 6 more SVB out of the 1276 today. Still some plant to check over. Tuesday, July 31 View Page And just so it's not all gloom and doom the damage these grubs are doing is not near my main vines, but rather about 6-8' away in almost all cases. And even the super fatties only damage about 1/3 of the vine. We all know plants with severely damaged secondaries and even damaged mains still grow whopper pumkpins. Or can... Wednesday, August 1 View Page Removed a half dozen or so SVB from 1495. I'm getting pretty good at it now! LOL. I've checked main vines over closely and see no sign of SVB there. Wednesday, August 1 View Page I also only have one "leaker" so far this year. I treated before it became a "foamer" and this is the first leaker I've had that hasn't slowed down the pumpkin. The weather right now is not ideal conditions for foamers so if I can make it another 10 days I should be in good shape! Tuesday, August 7 View Page Just returned from a beautiful 3 day vacation to Bayfield, WI. This is the 1495 Stelts getting BIG. I crunch numbers a LOT and based on past results this one's on pace to tape 1800+-. Tuesday, August 7 View Page So I bet you are wondering why the heck would I cut down leaves...LOL. Well between family, triathlon, life getting in the way I haven't been doing near enough to deserve the big one this year. Therefore Mother Nature took this one from me. My first BES in a a long time. We got 1.5" of rain the night before, but I don't blame the rain. Don't get me wrong I'm still trying, but man this one really really stings. It split on Kailey's 8th birthday...so that helped with the sting a little :) Friday, August 10 View Page Generally I don't waste my time with splitters, but this one was going to be real real big so I wanted some numbers. Here they are....OUCH: Friday, August 10 View Page Final OTT was 356 or 987#. Final weight was 1065# so 8% heavy to the new chart. D45 is tomorrow. Had it held gains (it showed no sign of slowing) it would have taped 1100 or a bit more. For me a good one gains about 500# after D45. Mediocre 400, 1810 did 600 (on the tape). So had this one done very well as it showed every sign of doing it would have taped about 1700 at the end and weighed 8% or 1836. OUCH The cut view is right through the blossom split. It wasn't exactly thin. Of course this is pumpkin growing so lots of other things could have happened, but it was a perfect plant, no stump issues / no vine issues....DARN! Monday, August 20 View Page Well I've been covering my pumpkins the last few nights due to lows near 40. Who'd thought I needed to cover my plants on August 20th? Last night I had a low of 35.8...YIKES that's close. Fruit growth is very reflective of the cold nights. Ouch. Wednesday, August 22 View Page For future reference we did in fact have spotty frost here the 19th. Thursday, August 23 View Page Here's the latest on 1657 Marsh. It's rather large (well over 1000), but unfortunately I think expectations are now tracking ahead of the growth curve. Darn it. Thursday, August 23 View Page Here's my own 1276. This appears that it's going to be a REALLY nice looking pumpkin. This one's also over 1000. This one also appears that it may go quite heavy. That's why it's 1/2 1810 I guess. Tuesday, September 11 View Page Amber's first day of school. Tuesday, September 11 View Page Kailey's first day with her pumpkin. Mosiac virus at its best! Tuesday, September 11 View Page We did a bit with WCCO (ABC) news today at the Hopkins patch. Here's news anchor Angela Davis and her reaction to John's fake snake as she approached his biggest pumpkin on the 1476. Tuesday, September 11 View Page The picture with Amber I'd estimate that pumpkin to tape about 250# more than Kevin's 1488. Wednesday, September 12 View Page Where's the plant you ask? Well it was getting so big I thought I better cut off the plant to slow it down. LOL. Something like that anyway. Tuesday, September 18 View Page 32.9 on my thermometer last night. For once that's a good thing as I'm trying to keep my pumpkin as cool as possible. It may only need to survive another 4 days. Friday, September 21 View Page Well I have the pumkpin loaded on a pallet. Heading to Chippewa Falls in the morning. First year event will be a good time. Sunday, September 23 View Page 23 last night, but for once that's a GOOD thing...lol. Sunday, September 23 View Page Also had my last Tri for the season today. It went well as AJ and I both won. For next year I really need to decide if I want to do Triathlon or grow pumkpins. Both didn't go too good for the pumkpins. Yes the bike ride was COLD this morning. Monday, October 1 View Page Here's a shot of John's 1476 Hopkins. 1605 Sweet x 1468. THE ROCK 2 I think this one should at least be right up there for WI state champ. Monday, October 1 View Page 1276 Pallet Pumpkin Still holding in there Thursday, October 11 View Page This is easily my best accomplishment of the season. Our club directors decided to add a little color to our event :) So since I haven't had a pumpkin patch to take my attention the last month I have been spending my time on a couple projects. Here's one of them. The new SCGA leader board. White erase on the right and past champs on the left. The SCGA logo in the middle. This bad boy is about 9 feet wide and over 6 feet tall. Not sure how I'll get it to the weigh-off! Thanks to my handy growing partner John Hopkins and my wife Amy for all the help! Thursday, October 11 View Page And yes my pallet pumpkin made it solid at least to be loaded on the trailer. It sits next to the ROCK 2 that "tapes" only about 1250 :) Sunday, October 14 View Page Weighed my 1276 yesterday at Stillwater. Official weight 1190. Weight in patch a month earlier was 1218. So almost exactly one pound a day loss. Sunday, October 14 View Page Oh and John's 1476 weighed 1444. That taped 1250 or so...lol. I thought John had a real good shot to be 2012 state champ and I was close :) He missed out by 18#. Congrats to John Barlow (new PB), Hopkins, and Caleb (new PB). We weighed #1-3 in WI yesterday, #1 in MN (Scott Steil 1450 new PB), and #1 in SD (Kevin "grower of the year" Marsh.