Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 69 Entries. Friday, January 23 View Page This begins my journal for 2009. Last year was great but this year promises to be better. A special thanks goes out to Sam Lovelace, Chris Kent, and Gail Newsome for all your guidance last season. I learned allot, so you guys better grab your records tight, I'm coming to get them. Friday, January 23 View Page After pulling the roots out of my patch last fall I found that they didn't go very deep. Today I used a sub-soiler and plowed down to about 20 inches to loosen the compacted subsoil. I found a good number of honey suckle, tree and pumpkin roots from the stuff I pulled last year, a couple inches down. Noting was growing past about 9 inches. I'll download some pics tomorrow. Saturday, January 24 View Page I got up the morning after plowing to find three squirrels and about 25 turkey digging around in the patch. Tuesday, February 24 View Page Nothing like the smell of freshly plowed earth to make you feel alive. Thursday, March 12 View Page I was at work tonight digging threw my desk drawer and found this saved in a folder. One of my coworkers drew this picture of me last fall. How funny! Monday, April 27 View Page I had to travel to New Orleans for a week long work conference. So I woke early and got everything set to start my plants. I was planing on doing it two days earlier on Saturday but decided that I didn't want to be away from home when the plants broke ground. Thursday, April 30 View Page I got home from my business trip and expected to see all my budding little plants out of the ground. Instead I discovered that my wife had managed to turn off my heating pad and lamp. The pots where cold and there was no movement on top the soil. I plugged ever thing back in and hoped that there was no damage. Friday, May 1 View Page There was a little movement in the pots this evening. I think we are going to be OK. Saturday, May 2 View Page Three plants up and growing out of five. So far so good. Here is this years intended line up. 1173 Liggett 2006 / 969 LaRue / 1026 Kent 08 est DMG / 1178.9 Lovelace 2007 (proven and grew my 830 last year) / 1060.5 Beachy 2004 DMG Sunday, May 10 View Page Planted the 969 LaRue / 1026 Kent 08 est DMG / 1178.9 Lovelace and fertilized with Miracle Grow starter fertilizer (4-12-4). Monday, May 25 View Page It's been pouring the rain for weeks now. I finally got out in the patch and beat down some weeds. All this rain has things growing fast. The pumpkin plants should start running soon. Monday, May 25 View Page Planted my watermelon today (200 Newsom 07). Thanks for the seed Gail. Monday, May 25 View Page My daughter Savannah is growing her own pumpkin this year. Her is a picture of her 1178 Lovelace 07. Monday, May 25 View Page 1026 Kent on the Left of the picture and 969 LaRue on the right. Plants are both looking pretty good. Monday, May 25 View Page I rerouted the invisible fence today to keep the beast out of the pumpkin patch. While I was hoeing weeds I could have sworn I smelled his urine on one of my plants. That may explain why one plant isn't growing as good as the other. Saturday, June 27 View Page I haven't posted in a while, so here are some updated pictures of my patch. Saturday, June 27 View Page 1026 Kent is finally rebounding after the dog pee incident. I had to dig it up, and remove all the soil around it and replant it. This seriously stunted the growth but it looks like it will catch up eventually. Saturday, June 27 View Page The 969 LaRue is doing pretty good, I'm getting female flowers on the main vine at about 10 feet now. Saturday, June 27 View Page First female flower on the 969 LaRue Saturday, June 27 View Page The 1178 Lovelace 07. I have grown this seed Two years in a row and again it's the best plant in the patch. Saturday, June 27 View Page First female on the primary vine of the 1178 Lovelace 07. Saturday, June 27 View Page 200 Newsom 07 (watermelon) started a little late but seems to be doing really well with all the recent heat and rain. Tuesday, June 30 View Page We are ready to pollinate. I covered two female and three male flowers this evening and should be ready to make my crosses tomorrow morning. Wednesday, July 1 View Page pollinated Today July 1st at 06:15 am. (969 LaRue X 1178 Lovelace 07) 11 feet out on main vine. Wednesday, July 1 View Page Pollinated today July 1st at 06:10 am. (1178 Lovelace 07 X 1026 Kent) 13 feet out on main vine. Wednesday, July 1 View Page I just spent some time in my garden gathering cut flowers for the house. Aren't they pretty? Thursday, July 2 View Page Another funny pumpkin picture drawn by my friend Matt. Monday, July 6 View Page I got over to see Chris Kent's patch on July 4th. His melons look great. It's always a learning experience to see what the other guys are doing. Thanks for having me over Chris. Monday, July 6 View Page Pollinated a good fruit today (1178 Lovelace X 969 LaRue) perfect positioning on the vine, lets see how it goes. Thursday, July 9 View Page Pollinated (969 LaRue X 1178 Lovelace)I think this one is a keeper. Thursday, July 9 View Page 1026 Kent is looking much better now. It's a little behind the others but I should be able to pollinate by the end of July. Thursday, July 9 View Page 969 LaRue is really taking off now. I have culled the first pollination, which I thought was a little to close. Thursday, July 9 View Page (969 LaRue X 1178 Lovelace) pollinated this morning. Thursday, July 9 View Page Culled this fruit(969 LaRue X 1178 Lovelace 07) pollinated on July 1st, 11 feet out on main vine. I hated to do it but sometimes it has to be done. Thursday, July 9 View Page 1178 Lovelace still a great looking plant. Thursday, July 9 View Page I'm Still trying to decide if this one stays or goes. (1178 Lovelace X 1026 Kent)Pollinated July 1st. Thursday, July 9 View Page (1178 Lovelace X 969 LaRue)Pollinated on July 6th and has great positioning but I really wanted to cross this plant with the 1026 Kent. I will wait until this weekend to make my final decision to keep or not. Thursday, July 9 View Page 200 Newsom 07 (watermelon) is steady growing and I have had one male flower but still no secondary vines. Saturday, July 11 View Page I culled the (1178 Lovelace X 1026 Kent) today, leaving the (1178 Lovelace X 969 LaRue). Hopefully I can still get my cross with the Kent and Lovelace plants now that I have females showing on the Kent. Monday, July 13 View Page I have sprayed my plants with Bayer Tree and Shrub four times this year, no signs of cucumber or vine boring beetles but I have seen signs this week of something cutting and eating my leafs. I haven't seen the culprits so I will post pics of the damaged leafs for input. I also found the first signs of powdery mildew on the 1178 Lovelace today. It seems to early in the year to have to combat PM. I will spray the plants tomorrow with Daconil. Tuesday, July 14 View Page Got up this morning at 6:00 am to spray my plants with Daconil. I hope this holds back the Powdery Mildew for a while. Wednesday, July 15 View Page 1026 Kent self pollinated today about 8 feet out on the main vine. I hate that I missed the pollination but it's closer to the stump than I want and will probably end up culled anyway. Wednesday, July 15 View Page 1178 lovelace day nine (11FB-11SS-13CC) OTT 35 inches. Wednesday, July 15 View Page 969 LaRue day six (10FB-10SS-13CC) OTT 33 inches. Saturday, July 18 View Page My new pumpkin sticker from ExtremePumpkinStore.com Saturday, July 18 View Page (969 LaRue X 1178 Lovelace) at day nine. Saturday, July 18 View Page (1178 Lovelace X 969 LaRue)at day 12 Monday, July 20 View Page We just had about an inch of pea sized hail. It looks like a snow storm hit outside. The plants are really beat down, I hope they recover OK. Monday, July 20 View Page Hail damage on the 1026 Kent. Monday, July 20 View Page This is how all my leaves look, some are even worse. I've never experienced this kind of damage before. I've heard plants will recover from a hail storm, but I don't know how when they are torn like this. Time will tell. Monday, July 20 View Page One more picture for griefs sake. Tuesday, July 21 View Page I appreciate the nice emails from everyone. It's great to have all the support. I didn't even realize people where watching my diary. I got home this afternoon and surveyed the damage. It's really bad but I don't think it's season ending bad. Lucky for me I haven't started terminating vines yet and still have time to get some new green growth. I do think however that Sam's NC state record will hold safe from Joe this year. Wednesday, July 22 View Page 1178 Lovelace day 19 OTT 85.5 Wednesday, July 22 View Page 969 LaRue Day 16 OTT 75.5 Thursday, July 23 View Page 1178 Lovelace day 20 Thursday, July 23 View Page 969 LaRue Day 17 Thursday, July 23 View Page I'm not sure why the 1178 Lovelace has so many stem splits and so early in the season. The vine is nice and slack and this started before the storm. Thursday, July 23 View Page Storm damage on the 969 LaRue plant. Thursday, July 23 View Page Storm damage on the 1178 Lovelace plant. Thursday, July 23 View Page More damage on the 1178 Lovelace plant. This is an example of how many of my leaves look a couple days after the storm. Saturday, July 25 View Page Pollinated today (1026 Kent X 1178 Lovelace) Wednesday, July 29 View Page 1178 Lovelace day 26 OTT 130.9 Wednesday, July 29 View Page 969 LaRue Day 23 OTT 118.0 Wednesday, August 12 View Page 1178 Lovelace day 40 OTT 196 (168 lbs) Wednesday, August 12 View Page 969 LaRue Day 37 OTT 165.0 (104 lbs) Wednesday, August 12 View Page I've been out of town and haven't been in the patch for almost two weeks. When I finally got out today I found that two pumpkins that I pollinated on the Kent plant had aborted. I now have a really nice Open pollination on that plant. The patch is a soaking wet mess and the fruit really need to be tended too, not to mention that I missed fertilizing my plants last week. I'm surprised that things are still growing however with very little plant behind the pumpkins. Wednesday, August 19 View Page 1178 Lovelace day 47 OTT 210 (204 lbs) Wednesday, August 19 View Page 969 LaRue Day 44 OTT 179.0 (131 lbs). Very ugly fruit with all the damage from the hail storm and It's just about to stop growing. Maybe I'll get some good seeds out of it. Wednesday, August 19 View Page (1026 Kent X Open)pollinated on approximately July 29th. Day 21 measures OTT 133.0 (57.8 lbs)