Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 32 Entries. Saturday, January 10 View Page Hi all, hope you all have had agreat xmas and have a great 2009 season. :>) Would be digging my patch over today but it is still frozen solid. UK been very cold and we have permafrost at the moment. Hope this wipes out a few nasties in the soil. Has not been above 3deg in the day for the last 2 weeks the minimum in my back garden has been -9deg c. Still, at least the weeds aren't growing. ~So much for global warming. Tuesday, May 5 View Page Here it is for this year, a Paton 1457, hope she does well Thursday, May 7 View Page Here is the 1457 paton in the ground. Monday, May 11 View Page 1457 going strong. lots of mula.. for this one. Nice ans sunny in the midlands today, so should start to get a move on soon. Friday, May 15 View Page the 1457, on the way now, the vine is upside down at the moments so trying to gently tease it around as the root nodules are on the upper side. Tuesday, May 19 View Page she is off.. vine now growing stong, fed with seaweed and bone meal. Will start to brew some compost tea over the weekend now things are warming up a little. Wednesday, May 20 View Page Growing really fast at the moment. Already reached the end of my cold frame tent thingy! Much faster than last years 963. Wednesday, May 20 View Page Look what i have found :>) a little one, this wont be the keeper, too close only about 5ft out.. Want to try one at about 11ft on the main vine if i does not snap in the wind. Wednesday, May 20 View Page Here is the compost tea for this year.. 2 tbl spoons black treacle, 1 shovel of soil, 1/2 lb of fresh chicken manure (Bhuna, Tikka and Korma) Hand full of fish pellets Air stone to bubble through + 2-3 days in the greenhouse Wednesday, May 20 View Page Here are my hens (Bhuna, Tikka and Korma: at least they will be when they stop laying!) Sunday, May 24 View Page Here is the 1457 in its new home.. A little worried about this one, it has had a few segments of a double vine. Two leafs at one junction and two very early female flowers at one node. I have had a look at the future segments and all apears fine, flower+leaf+side vine so fingers crossed it would be all ok. I have planted my back up 1457 along side just in case. Wednesday, June 3 View Page Here is my 1457. This is a strange plant. It is growing very strong along the primary vine at about 14ft long now. It has small shoots for the secondary vines but has only started to grow out the ones on the vine past the first fruit. It is a strong and healthy plant so will stick with it. I have got a back up 1457 coming on strong just in case! I will try to grow the third vines back from the secondaries that have grown to fill the patch with leaves. It is far stronger than last years 963, every leaf node has thown down a thick tap root where as the 963 only put down a few along the whole length of the primary vine. Weather been super in the midlands for the last few weeks topping 24degC most days. Poly tunnel with the door and vents open reaches around 36degC (Nice day in Cyprus..!!!) Doors closed it tops 45degC Plant killer!!! have to watch the weather a lot so i open it up before work. Friday, June 12 View Page Perfect 5 lobe one. Hopefully it will take. As usual, not many male flowers to choose some pollen from!. It is about 13ft out. It is also one the side of the vine that has thrown out most of the side vines, the other side has only thrown out a few. The main vine is very thick around the fruit over an inch in diameter, hope this is flexible when the fruit swells!. The next fruit will be about 16ft out and probably the last usefull one on the main vine. There are some strong side vines that could also be used. Monday, June 15 View Page Poly tunnel full of leaves now, side vines have exited and in day full sun. Will be interesting to find out if you only need to heat the main vine and fruit! Monday, June 15 View Page Side vines outside of the tunnel... Monday, June 15 View Page 3 days... #1 at about 15ft on main. 5 lobe self polination with old male (needed a bit of viagra!) still it looks as if it has taken. Monday, June 15 View Page #2 on main, might be another 5 lobe (anyway it has 5 green spikey bits on it). Out at ~18ft. Saving male flowers now to put in the fridge for some fresh stuff! Probably 3 days away. This will be the last one on the main that can be contained in the tunnel. Desperately trying to train vine to come back around on it self, it is so strong it only wants to go south! If i can get it back around i may get another chance as one of the main. Thursday, July 9 View Page Day 8 on the 3rd main vine pumpkin. growing well, but there are a lot of cracks on the mainvine to stalk area. This pumpkin is also running near parallel to the main so when it swells i think it will pull itself off. This was a 4lober, have polinated a 5lober in a much better position so fingers crossed that one will be ok. Got a nice 5lober doing well on a side vine as well at the moment. Friday, July 17 View Page side vine pumpkin, 14 days old... Friday, July 24 View Page 21 day, around 64lbs Saturday, August 1 View Page Day 28, 189lbs up 125 in the week. Friday, August 7 View Page Day 35, 302 lbs, up 116 in the week. Beat my measured PB!!!! last year measured 286lb (weighed 307lbs). This one may make 600-700lbs.... Great considering how poor the weather is in the uk. Today was 23degC and sunny perfect. Still nice and pale colour with no splits on the pumpkin. There was a longitudinal split on the stem, this has healed now. Gave it a good feed today with seaweed, etc.... Friday, August 14 View Page Here she is my 1457 paton, still adding around 100lb per week. hope she stays at that rate into september. Still nice and pale with a few darker patches now. Friday, August 21 View Page Started to slow down quite a bit this week even though the weather has been good. I think it is more to do with the light levels in my garden. The sun is getting lower in the sky now and a row of very tall trees cast a huge shadow from about 8am to 11am when it is mainly sunny. After 11am we tend to get a ridge of fair weather clouds in Solihull for the afternoon until around 4pm, these then clear but the sun has moved around to the other side of the garden by this point where it goes behind a huge oak tree. Oh well, at least it looks like i might double last years weight... Yippeee... Sunday, August 23 View Page Nuts!!!, Huge crack under my 1457 Paton, looks like it will be an early haloween this year, i will have to paint it orange, it is very pale. It got to about 450lbs and stopped growing. The blossom end was completely overgrown by the upper lobes so i could not inspect it at all. A few days with zero growth after some nice 25d egC sunny weather and loads of food made be a little suspicious something has gone wrong. I will cut it off the vine and roll it over for a few photos before carving. Has been there a while as it stinks! Never mind, always next year :>) Good luck for the rest of you. Wednesday, August 26 View Page Look at that hole!, right underneath so we did not know it was there until it stopped growing. Wednesday, August 26 View Page Lots of slime and smell fell out!!! Wednesday, August 26 View Page Oh well, it came in at 444lbs, the scales did settle at 446 on the second lift so ill split it and call it 445. There was a few lbs of slime which i did'nt want to scoop and weigh! Still beat last years 307lb. Final tape was 421lbs so around 5% heavy. (was heavy to lift, kids swings took the strain quite well!) Thanks to Matt and Dave, Andrea, Stuart and Ewan for helping. I think it was a poor polination with one of the lobes not growing, was a five at the start. Still there is always next year.... Its going to have a coming together with a chainsaw tomorrow.... gonna be messy! Thursday, August 27 View Page Extreme pumpkin carving Thursday, August 27 View Page Smiles all around! Got one viable seed out of it! Thursday, August 27 View Page Early Halloween in Solihull this year.... Sunday, October 11 View Page Hi All, Had a great day out yesterday at the XPG in Southampton... Ian, Stuart and the other UK growers made us very welcome... Check out the last few moments of my 446lbs of mush http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbr5EDGvG58 enjoy! See you all next year