Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 23 Entries. Thursday, April 11 View Page Four days until I start my seeds - need the snow to melt. Monday, April 15 View Page April 15 begins the 2013 quest for 500#. Two kindly donated 1197 MacCoy seeds started this day. This plant was a 1634 Werner offspring. Saturday, April 27 View Page Only one 1197 seed sprouted so I put in a backup seed, also a 1634 Werner offspring. It was started on April 19 - both plants in good shape - still waiting for the last of the snow to melt... Monday, May 6 View Page Hoop house and heating cables in on the 5th, plants are in the ground on the 6th - transplant went well and they are looking good. Warm weather has begun so hopefully the growing season will be back on track after the brutal cold and snowy spring. Wednesday, May 15 View Page Plants are looking good after transplant Wednesday, May 15 View Page 9 days in the ground and the plants are looking strong - only one will be grown so in about a week to 10 days I need to cull one. 1197 on the left and the 619 is on the right. Wednesday, May 22 View Page Yesterday I decided to cull one plant. The plant that I will be going with this year is the 1197 MacCoy. Looking strong - almost big enough to start burying the main. Thursday, May 30 View Page Plant is doing great. Secondary was pushing against side of hoop house so I lifted the plastic on one side a little to let it escape. Tuesday, June 4 View Page Plant is continuing to thrive - secondaries poking out of both sides of the hoop house now. Main is at over 5', will probably take hoop house off in the next week or so. Hopefully all the cool weather is past so the plant will continue at this rate of growth even without its protective cavern. Thursday, June 13 View Page Suffered my first real setback today. The past week has been cool and rainy so growth had been slow. To top that off we had a hail storm roll through this afternoon. Fortunately most of the plant is still under the hoop house so damage is fairly minimal. All the vine ends look good so just a few leaves with holes... Sunday, June 16 View Page I took the hoop house off tonight - time for the plant to get used to the real world. It also lets me get the automated watering system going. Hoping for no more hail. Sunday, June 16 View Page With the main at about 10' I have my first female. Thursday, June 27 View Page First female opened today on main at around 12' - plant is looking good after the minor hail mishap. Cannot keep up with the weeds this year. Thursday, June 27 View Page Nice 5 lobe flower - will hope to make this one a keeper. Worked her over with multiple boys hoping to get something started. Thursday, July 4 View Page day 7 - it looks like the pollination took. Crossing my fingers that it does not abort. Thursday, July 4 View Page Plant is continuing to thrive. Three more pollinations since last week. One on the first secondary and the other two on the main. Have started to terminate secondaries due to my limited space. Would like to cut the main once I'm sure I have ignition. Sunday, July 7 View Page Day 10 for my first set - circumference just over 26". No idea if that's good, bad or average. My goal this year is 500lbs so I really just need something that will grow steadily for the next couple months. I have three other sets but this one is on the main, has a perpendicular long stem and I was able to put a bend in the vine for some slack. I'll probably wait another week before I pick the keeper. Wednesday, July 17 View Page Today is day 20. This week brought a couple days of torrential downpours and downright cold weather (had to turn the furnace back on in the house...) In spite of that the pumpkin continued to grow and is now 133 OTT for an estimated weight of about 60 lbs. Warm weather the rest of the week then I'm away from home for two weeks so will have to hope things go well with the pumpkin on cruise control. I have my fingers crossed. Tuesday, August 20 View Page After taking a couple weeks vacation and then another two weeks for another business/personal trip I'm finally back in town. A month away and it seems the pumpkin survived - my automated watering system kept the pumpkin fed and things didn't get too far out of hand (except for the weeds which I've officially given up on). I had to do a ridiculous amount of secondary/tertiary trimming and baby pumpkin culling but it looks OK now. I measured today and my OTT is 265 for an estimated weight of 414 lbs. Tracking very nicely towards my goal of over 500 lbs. This 1197 MacCoy plant is by far the best plant I've ever grown - no issues or problems so far. Nights are starting to get quite cool (8�C last night)so will have to work a way to keep it warm at night. My vine is also getting quite tight on the stem - if he gets much bigger I'm going to have to pull a few tap roots downstream of the big fella to loosen things up. Fingers crossed for another month of continuous growth... Tuesday, September 10 View Page Unfortunately my pumpkin's growth has slowed to a crawl. It's only putting on about an inch of girth about every three days. I'm worried that means it has an issue but everything I can see still looks good. If this thing hold together for another three weeks it'll be a PB for me but may be just short of 500 lbs. Also take note of the sunflowers. The middle plant peaked at 15' just before the flower bloomed and the head drooped. I'll definitely be growing those again next year. Saturday, October 5 View Page Loading day today - had a few guys over and heaved it on using a tarp. Now that it's out of the tent I found that I made a mistake in my previous OTT measurements so it's taping at 264" for an estimated weight of 410lbs. Previously I thought I was closer to 450lbs. Saturday, October 5 View Page Official weight is 404.4lbs, a personal best for me. My goal was 500lbs so I do have some work to do. I will add another couple posts with my learning's from the year with my thoughts on growing in a small space and soliciting some feedback from all the 150 square foot growers. Thursday, October 31 View Page pumpkin carved - lots of questions and comments about where I got such a big pumpkin.