Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 135 Entries. Sunday, March 29 View Page Well, MVPZ is back for the year 2009!! We hope to do better than last year. This is a picture of our only pumpkin from 3 plants last year (2008). The weight was 461 pounds. Sunday, March 29 View Page A picture of the ONLY pumpkin to survive last year in the front yard. Sunday, March 29 View Page I planted some rye grass last fall. It got pretty tall. Sunday, March 29 View Page After looking at the height of the grass I knew I wouldn't be able to use my neighbors rototiller to till the stuff under. It's not a bad tiller but not big enough to do the job. We decided to either buy a tractor or this thing. Since a tractor would have been overkill and also waaaay too much money, this is our new rototiller. Sunday, March 29 View Page More important than the rototiller is somebody to operate the thing. My beautiful young bride decided the rain wasn't going to stop her from using the rototiller first. Sunday, March 29 View Page I don't know if she knew I was taking pictures or not. Probably won't be happy I posted them. Sunday, March 29 View Page What a nice cold rainy day. Might as well do some rototilling. Sunday, March 29 View Page Took some time off of rototilling and went to Las Vegas for my beautiful young brides birthday. We had a great time. I won't be saying how old(or young) she is. Sunday, March 29 View Page Another pic of Las Vegas. Saw 3 cirque de solei shows. Saw, KA, Mytere and Zumanity. All very good shows. Sunday, March 29 View Page One last picture of our trip. This is inside the Bellagio and their atrium. There were nice flowers and water features. Sunday, March 29 View Page I put some iron on the soil and did one last rototill of the patch. Now just have to wait for pumpkins!!! Sunday, March 29 View Page One other reason for needing a rototiller is because I decided to till up some field. I'm not sure of the dimensions but will soon. I'll put 2 pumpkins in the smaller patch and 4 to 6 in this patch. I want to up my chances to get a big one! Sunday, March 29 View Page I tilled up part of the patch 2 weeks ago and went over it in reverse mode. That really breaks up the clumps. I thought the patch wasn't quite big enough so I added some. I'll go over it again in 1-2 weeks. I didn't add any admendments to the soil and will just hope things work out. As far as I know, the land hasn't had anything planted on it except weeds. At least for the last 15 years. Sunday, March 29 View Page Now I just have to figure out how to water the new patch??? I have plenty of time to get some hose set up, although I haven't thought out a plan. Sunday, March 29 View Page I'm planning on planting watermelon here. I'm going to have 2 plants. I'd better read up on how to grow big watermelon. I'm hoping to get at least one of 100 pounds. It'll be great to go to a picnic with a 100 lb watermelon! I don't know if the big watermelon are very tasty but we'll find out. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Trying to figure out which seeds to use. Wednesday, April 22 View Page I read about a grower using a wipee warmer to germinate his seeds. Seemed like a good idea so I'm going to give it a try. Should test a few out a few weeks ago but I'll just give it a try without testing. What could go wrong??? Wednesday, April 22 View Page Here are the seeds after a few days. Some have germinated and some have not. The ones on top did better. I hope I didn't cook the ones nearer to the bottom. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Another picture of the germinated seeds. These are the watermelon seeds I'm planting. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Another picture. Zane and I planted these seeds on Monday the 20th. We didn't get any pictures though. The seeds which didn't germinate I put back into the warmer. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Here is a picture of Victoria and myself getting ready to run a 5K. Victoria did a great job and completed this in 29 minutes 0 seconds. It was a nice cold rainy April 11th morning. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Here are the rest of them once the sun came out. The others ran a 2 mile race. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Finishing the 2 miler. Suzanne pushing Zane and Piper running. Morgan is in front a bit. Zane sure looks to be real tired after watching the others run while he was being pushed. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Piper was a bit tired. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Easter morning. The kids all ready to go to church. Wednesday, April 22 View Page Zane posing in front of the seeds in pots. Now the seeds just have to grow! Saturday, May 9 View Page Some pumpkins have sprouted. Saturday, May 9 View Page The watermelon patch all ready to go. Saturday, May 9 View Page Rototilling the rye grass didn't keep some of it from sprouting again. Next year I'll have to remember to till later. Saturday, May 9 View Page A picture of the canna and where a bunch of sunflower seeds are planted. Saturday, May 9 View Page The big pumpkin patch. There are lots of weeds!! I will till this up because I can't stand weeds and don't have the patience to pull them all. Sunday, May 10 View Page It's transplant day. May 10th. Sunday, May 10 View Page Zane helping me. I'm not quite sure how swinging a golf club around helps but somehow it does. Sunday, May 10 View Page Picnic dinner on the front lawn. Wednesday, May 20 View Page Suzanne thought I should take a picture of the backyard maze. Wednesday, May 20 View Page Another picture of the current maze. I have had many mazes and the kids really like them. Thursday, May 21 View Page The pumpkins are coming along. I'll get the seed names next time as I don't have that information with me now. Thursday, May 21 View Page A picture of my tomatoes this year. I'm trying out a new spot so I hope it works out. Couldn't be worse than the spot last year (I hope). Thursday, May 21 View Page A different pumpkin--and Zane. Thursday, May 21 View Page This pumpkin was about dead after I transplanted it. Another lesson learned I didn't know I needed to learn. What happened is I planted the seed in a 3 gallon container thinking this would be a good idea--it wasn't. When I transplanted it, I broke a bunch of roots. Oh well, live and learn. Thursday, May 21 View Page I had a bunch of volunteers of pumpkins come up. I decided to let them go and see what happens. This will probably turn into a bad idea as I may get some cross pollunation from these and I think they are regular pumpkin plants. Thursday, May 21 View Page Another pumpkin--and Zane. Thursday, May 21 View Page 2 more tomatoes and some brocolli. Thursday, May 21 View Page A bigger picture of the patch. Thursday, May 21 View Page 2 more pumpkin plants in a different patch. We'll see how they do. I have 2 here and 4 in the bigger patch for a total of 6. I had wanted 8 total but oh well, maybe next year. Thursday, May 21 View Page Suzannes hostas are looking great. For some reason the ferns didn't come back this year?? Thursday, May 21 View Page One of the watermelon plants. It doesn't look like it's doing very well. Thursday, May 21 View Page The other watermelon plant. Doing much better than the other one. Monday, May 25 View Page Getting bigger. Monday, May 25 View Page I need to get the names of these plants. Monday, May 25 View Page This is the Messer 461 plant. Monday, May 25 View Page The volunteers are coming along. Monday, May 25 View Page We decided to add some other things to the garden since we had some extra space. I would have rather had a few more pumpkin plants but it didn't work out that way. We planted corn, radishes, beets, peas and carrots. I think that's it. In 2-3 weeks we'll plant another 2 rows of corn. Monday, May 25 View Page This is the plant which I thought I had killed. It didn't die and has in fact started to grow. I think I have lost any sign of a green thumb this year and have in fact replaced it with a brown or black thumb. All it seems I do is kill or try and kill plants of any type this year. Monday, May 25 View Page A picture of the kids. They are sprouting too. I don't know how much longer they will all be 1 head higher than the next one. Monday, May 25 View Page 2 other pumpkin plants. Doing alright. Monday, May 25 View Page Silly kids. Wednesday, May 27 View Page No picture on the last one...here it is. A picture of the kids. They are sprouting too. I don't know how much longer they will all be 1 head higher than the next one. Sunday, June 7 View Page I really need to get the names of the pumpkins but these are the 2 next to each other hopefully growing away from each other. Sunday, June 7 View Page Getting bigger. Sunday, June 7 View Page The tomatoes are getting bigger too, just not fast enough for me. I want tomatoes now. Sunday, June 7 View Page The Messer 461 is doing the best so far. It's way ahead of the others at this point. Sunday, June 7 View Page The volunteers are doing great. Almost better than the ones I'm doing my best to grow. I'm ignoring these things and don't even water them very ofter. Maybe there's a lesson here? Sunday, June 7 View Page The peas are coming up nicely. Our neighbors peas are about 20 times this size so we're a bit behind. We'll have to start earlier next year. Sunday, June 7 View Page I thought the grapes were growing so nice I had to take a picture. Our courtyard is looking nice too. It's so quiet and relaxing out there with all the flowers, strawberries and grapes. Sunday, June 7 View Page Would you believe a volunteer pumpkin in the watermelon patch? I don't even think this thing gets watered?? I'll see what happens with it. I'll put a drip hose to it too. So of course, if I start taking care of it it'll probably die. Sunday, June 7 View Page The smaller of the watermelon plants. Sunday, June 7 View Page The bigger watermelon plant. They're really starting to grow now. They grow waaaaay slower than the watermelon though. Thursday, June 11 View Page Another pumpkin doing well. Thursday, June 11 View Page Silly dog. Has her feet on the sliding door. Monday, June 15 View Page This is the better watermelon plant. It's finally starting to grow. Now if we could get some sun and not clouds, thunder and lightening that would be nice. Monday, June 15 View Page The smaller watermelon plant. Monday, June 15 View Page My volunteer pumpkin plant in the watermelon patch and I have no idea where this came from??? Monday, June 15 View Page Piper really wanted to take a picture of the sunflowers. I imagine because she planted the sunflowers. They are coming in nicely I have to admit. The Cannas is starting to finally grow too (it's the green plant on the right of the picture and in the far back too. Monday, June 15 View Page Ok, now to the pumpkins I did plant. The one on the left is the 1689 x 1631.5 plant. The one on the left is the Messer 461. They are both doing about the same-growing wise. Monday, June 15 View Page This is another Messer 461 plant. Not too bad. Starting to get a nice main vine. Monday, June 15 View Page The main vine here is starting nicely. Ths is the 1502 x 1502 plant. Monday, June 15 View Page Whoops I listed this picture incorrectly. This is the 1689 x 1631 plant. It's waaaay behind the others due to the fact it was basically deal a few weeks ago. It's looking good so far but hopefully there's time to get a big pumpkin from the plant. Monday, June 15 View Page This is the best plant by far. I have a great main vine and a lot of side vines. It's a Messer 461 too. I really wish I had a more varried line up but hey, I'll take what I get. Victoria took the picture. Maybe I'll send her out to take the pictures from now on??? Monday, June 15 View Page Victoria was nice enough to help pick the gazillions of weeds there are. Piper is a good weed picker too. Monday, June 15 View Page The brocolli Victoria planted are doing GREAT! Monday, June 22 View Page These 2 are looking good. They would be better if they were 1 plant but oh well. They are finally starting to send out some secondary vines--about time. Monday, June 22 View Page Looking good so far. Nice main vine and sending out some nice secondary vines. Not too big but not too bad either. Monday, June 22 View Page The best plant so far--still. The Messer461 is looking good. Way ahead of the others. I'd say about 1-2 weeks ahead of any of the others. Monday, June 22 View Page It's getting there. Not quite sending out the main vine too well but starting. Monday, June 22 View Page This one will always be last as it was almost dead a month ago. It's sending out a main vine so hopefully that will jump start it into really growing. It's about 3 weeks behind the leader. I hope we can still get a decent pumpkin from it. Time will tell. Monday, June 22 View Page The volunteer at the watermelon site. I don't think it will get very big but we'll see. In case anybody is wondering, I pulled the other volunteers at the other site. Monday, June 22 View Page The watermelon plant is going ok I think. I don't know? First time growing these things. It doesn't grow as fast as a pumpkin that's for sure. It looks to be getting a main vine though and is bigger than last week. We'll see what happens. Monday, June 22 View Page The other watermelon plant. I think I needed to start these things a bit earlier than I did. Oh well, chalk it up to not knowing what I was doing----again. Monday, June 22 View Page A nice picture of Zane doing what he does about 4 hours a day. Riding the 4-wheeler. Monday, July 6 View Page This is the 2 plant system. They aren't sending out side vines very well? Oh well. The plants aren't too big yet and I'll wait a week or so before deciding on a pumpkin. Monday, July 6 View Page The Messer 461. Looking good. Nice size plant. Good main vine and side vines. I have a pumpkin on the main vine but don't like it too much. I'll wait and see if I find a better one. I'm going to try and get my pumpkins from the main vine only. Monday, July 6 View Page Corn and peas looking good. I planted 2-3 weeks apart so we will have some at different times. I think next year we'll have 6 to 8 rows and smaller rows so we can have corn for a longer period. The corn and other plants were an afterthought though so next year we'll plan better (not). Monday, July 6 View Page Not too bad of a plant. Good pumpkin on the main vine. I'll have to start taking pictures of the pumpkins now and not the plants. I wish the plant was bigger but oh well. Monday, July 6 View Page This plant is a bit of a mess. I think I'm going to try and get 2 pumpkins from this plant. It has a main vine going south and a sort of main/secondary(?) vine going north. If it works out, I'll try and get a pumpkin from each vine. We'll see. Monday, July 6 View Page It may be time to do some research on growing watermelon. My motos operandi, or, "mo" is to try and grow something and when it doesn't go very well to then read up on what I was supposed to do in the first place. This plant isn't growing very fast but I have no idea is it's supposed to grow much bigger? Monday, July 6 View Page This watermelon is doing better. No watermelons yet but maybe soon?? I think I should have started these watermelon seeds sooner. Oh well, there's always next year. Then again, maybe we'll put a regular garden in this spot? Monday, July 6 View Page The kids were chasing me around and throwing water balloons at me. I convinced them to hold off while I had the camera. Although, they did get me a few times before I mentioned the camera thing. After I put the camera down I got soaked. Dang these kids are good water balloon throwers. Tuesday, July 7 View Page The kids decided to get Zane all armored up. Tuesday, July 7 View Page This is my plant which almost died. It's 2-3 weeks behind the others but trying real hard. I'll get a pumpkin from this plant but don't know if I'll run out of time to get a big one--not like I ever get big ones anyhow. Tuesday, July 7 View Page My little entrepreneurs. Putting in some hard work to make some money for a build a bear. Sunday, July 12 View Page The watermelon plant is looking great! Sunday, July 12 View Page The other watermelon plant. Not looking as good as the other one but it's not too bad I guess. Sunday, July 12 View Page The corn is growing nicely. Zane is behind it. Sunday, July 12 View Page A different angle on the corn. The corn is basically the only thing I've been able to grow well this year. Oh well, I guess that's what next year is for. Sunday, July 12 View Page A nice 5 lobe pumpkin. Not where I really like though. I'm hoping to get a better spot. This is on the Messer461 plant. Sunday, July 12 View Page The plant which is behind about 2 weeks. It's trying real hard to grow and is doing some nice catching up but I'll try and wait for 1-2 weeks to start a pumpkin in order to get the plant bigger. Sunday, July 12 View Page My plant I'm going to try and grow multiple pumpkins on. At this point the plant is a big mess and I haven't done a good job of arranging the vines or anything. Not sure what'll happen with this plant. Sunday, July 12 View Page Not a bad 5 lobe pumpkin. I like a pumpkin about 2 feet farther out though but it just got pollinated. We'll see. Sunday, July 12 View Page This tomato plant is very tall. Now if I could just get some tomatoes from it that would be nice. I've gotten a bunch of sun-gold tomatoes and early girls from other plants but not from this one. Maybe because it's so big? Sunday, July 12 View Page My 2 plants next to each other. Not the best place to plant as they get a bit of shade. They're not doing too bad and I'll look to pollinate a flower later in the week. Wednesday, July 15 View Page Tragedy has struck my best watermelon plant. Some moles have chewed through my vines. I've never seen moles, or signs of moles in this area of the yard before. I don't know if I'll be able to grow much of a watermelon on this plant now. Wednesday, July 15 View Page What is left of the plant. I hope they leave the rest of the plant alone, along with the other plant. Monday, August 3 View Page Piper next to one of the pumpkins. This is the best looking pumpkin I have. The plant right next to this one doesn't have any pumpkins on it. It did have some but they have rotted on the vine? This is the same thing which happened last year in the similar place. Must be something in the soil. Monday, August 3 View Page Zane trying to sit on the pumpkin. I haven't measured any of these pumpkins. Lazy I know, but there you go. Monday, August 3 View Page The pumpkin on the Messer461 plant. The plant itself is very big and robust. The pumpkin is not. Dang, oh well. In fact, The stem to the plant is on the bottom of the pumpkin. Not anywhere near where I want it to be. We went on vacation at the wrong time and I was hoping I'd get a better place to pollinate when we got back. Didn't happen that way so I'm stuck with this ugly thing. Monday, August 3 View Page This is the pumpkin on the plant which was about dead a few months ago. Pumpkin is looking good and I know it's a bit behind but it'll be alright I think. Maybe a 3-4 hundred pounder. We'll see. Monday, August 3 View Page The plant I'm sort of letting go. Not that I've been taking care of any of the others. Just feeling lazy this year and not doing any of the work necessary for a big pumpkin so I'll be happy with a personal best--which is 674 pounds. Monday, August 3 View Page Pretty soon--a few weeks, we'll have corn. We've already been feasting on sun-gold tomatoes, regular tomatoes, carrots, beets and peas for weeks. Our grapes will be ready too in a week or so. They are very good. Almost forgot the strawberries have been good for a few months. Yumm yum, it's tasty to go scavaging around the yard for food. Monday, August 3 View Page The only watermelon left. Those damn moles are slowly killing my watermelon vines. I keep finding chewed up vines. Hopefully the moles will stay clear of this vine. I can't get any other watermelons on this plant?? Monday, August 3 View Page The kids building a mountain and moat. Monday, August 3 View Page The dogs watching the kids. Waiting for them to leave so they can lie in the water to cool off. Monday, August 3 View Page Now the kids are wanting to destroy the mountain they built. I suppose that's why they built it--to destroy it. They did tell me they were going to leave it up for a long long time. That didn't last. Monday, August 3 View Page What's this have to do with pumpkins you ask. Nothing. Nothing at all. In fact this is what I do with most of my time instead of tending to the pumpkins. And why I won't get a pumpkin over 1000 pounds again. Oh well, there's more important things than pumpkins. Tuesday, August 25 View Page A few days after the watermelon was looking great, this is what happened. The vine was cut with some mole teeth!! Dang, no more watermelon this year. Those pesky moles effectively killed the plants. I guess I'll have to do something different next year. I don't understand why the moles bit the vine in two and nothing else??? Tuesday, August 25 View Page Our new home away from home. One of the reasons the garden isn't as good as it could or should be. Spending time going places and not tending to the garden. The garden and pumpkins are fun to do but not as important as spending time with the kids. Tuesday, August 25 View Page If it's not one thing, it's another. First it was the watermelon going bad, now it's the pumpkins turn. Tuesday, August 25 View Page What happened??? A HUGE split in the pumpkin!!! My best pumpkin too. Seems like it happens every year. My best prospect some how doesn't make it??? Tuesday, August 25 View Page Big split. Nothing I can do about this. I'll get it weighed in a few days. Tuesday, August 25 View Page My next best pumpkin. About half as big as the other one. Well, it doesn't look like I'll be breaking any personal records this year. Tuesday, August 25 View Page Victoria got ahold of the camera and took a bunch of pictures. Tuesday, August 25 View Page Took the pumpkin in to weigh on an official scale yesterday 8-25-09. I'd estimate the pumpkin hasn't been growing since 8-18-09 due to me cutting the vines. I estimated the weight at about 300 lbs. I didn't measure and use the graph just looked at the shape. A weird pancake shape. Tuesday, August 25 View Page WOW, exceeded my expectations on weight. I guess I should have measured it. The pallet used was 51 pounds so a total of 475 lbs. for the pumpkin. With over a month of growing left I think I would have broken my personal record. Oh well, that's the way the pumpkin cracks....hahaha. Tuesday, August 25 View Page The strange thing about this pumpkin is it was growing upside down. We went on vacation and this pumpkin wasn't the one I wanted but it was the only one in a good spot. I tried to straighten the neck out before leaving but after being gone for 9 days the neck was set. But, it's strange how there is a root at the stem. I think this helped! Well maybe not since it cracked. Tuesday, August 25 View Page One last look at my second biggest pumpkin ever cut short growing a month early. Not sure what to do with it now. I was planning on composting the pumpkins where I plan on planting next year but it's way too early for that right now. I wonder if the seeds are developed enough?