Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 52 Entries. Friday, May 7 View Page Hello everyone, I have been reading and enjoying your diaries. I filed soaked and planted two 779 fredricks 09's with my kids last night. I planted them directly in the best part of the patch under a small wire hoop house I have been using for vegetable gardening. I hope to raise an AG plant and pumpkin to a reasonable level of maturity this year. The weeds grew back after plowing a few months ago. Hating life out there since it has to be hand weeded due to crab grass infestation. NEVER AGAIN will that patch of dirt be left idle and uncovered in the rainy season. The patch is also more compacted in areas than I thought it would be given the tonnage of horse poo and compost buried in there over the last year. I am going to add more compost in front of the hoped for plant growth and turn the dirt some more. Saturday, May 15 View Page ....Seven days later, one of two seeds has broken ground. Since I planted it in the patch directly with no added heat, I'll post the daily temps over the 7 days since it was planted. I had some 6 mil plastic stretched over a wire frame covering a few square feet of patch around the seeds for the first 3 or 4 days. It was taken off for fear of cooking any imminent growth after that. I was worried about germination for a bit when overnight temps dropped to the low 40's. I didn't do any test germinations as I gave 3 of the 5 seeds I had away. Next step; protect seedling from mice, ants and earwigs... Day, high/low 1, 75/50 2, 75/45 3, 68/48 4, 65/40 5, 75/46 6, 80/46 7, 77/48 Wednesday, May 19 View Page I learned recently that my patch is, climate wise, in a commercial watermelon growing zone. Hmmmmm. Friday, May 21 View Page This is the little fella.Growing very slowly. It was nice and popped up more or less oriented in the correct direction. It looks like the other seed, # 2 of two planted on the same day, is getting ready to break ground.... it took about twice as long as the first... about 15 days. Tuesday, May 25 View Page Well, I am pretty sure the second seedling won't ever develope a true leaf. It came out of the ground pasty white and now it is very stiff looking and yellow. The original plant that germinated and started well is moving incredibly slow.Perhaps there have been too many nights around 40F and lower, as far as 35F last night? Not such great daytime weather either. I think I'll give up on them soon. No back-up plants planned. Thursday, May 27 View Page One pumpkin plant is growing very slowly and one is done, never making it past cot leaves. Time to go ask a few questions in the newbie forum. Saturday, May 29 View Page Bugs(earwigs) were dining before I could get home in time to cover my plant last night. If it were not so small and slow growing it wouldn't mean much. As it is, the seedling's sorry appearance is reminiscent of Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree. There is some inspiration in that Charlie Brown story somewhere, I know there is. Sunday, May 30 View Page I dropped a bucket on my plant and broke it in two on the stem. The good part is that the question is answered about how long to wait. The roots were all shorter than the plant and as skinny as sewing thread. Don't know if that was average or poor? The soil, while I am not happy about it because it is still compacting more than I like, could have grown something. I think it was the cold or the seed at the root of the problem. High odds on the cold. The bucket impact didn't help. Thursday, June 3 View Page We are having typical great weather now. Getting the earwig infestation under control.Not going to start a "high stakes" pumpkin now. If I want to do it again I'll back things up better so I am not completely going up hill. I have started some new Big Max seeds,howdens and Jack-o-lanterns. The garden is getting pretty darn big for a hand tool project... and doing well. Growing a few varieties of regular melons in there. Good luck to all you pumpkin and watermelon growers. Thanks for the help given, by this site and individuals. Russell Thursday, June 24 View Page Been enjoying reading post while restarting something of a pumpkin and melon patch. My new plants seem to have started o.k. They are store bought seeds that I will try to accomplish my orginal goal of growing a mature plant and pumpkin with. I know odds are against it with the heat coming on but I don't care. Thursday, June 24 View Page This is one end of one of my two melon rows. I only grew one hill of melons in my life and got pretty lucky. There are a couple of hills of honeydew and a hill of sugar babies on either end with younger sangri and crimson red plants in between. Thursday, June 24 View Page Hope the later starts do as well as the summer squash has. These are so good sliced about 1/4 thick grilled with olive oil and salt and eaten that way or splashed with Italian dressing. Or is that too "land of fruits and nuts" for ya :). Thursday, June 24 View Page Nobody eats fennel right? Yummy in salads. Thursday, June 24 View Page The planks next to my sorry store bought seed plants are nice. They are 24 feet wide and with block on each end, build a bridge across the patch just the right size for an AG plant. Friday, July 2 View Page Well ahead of last year. Friday, July 2 View Page Melons filling in. Friday, July 2 View Page This the first year planting anything in this native soil with manure added last fall and compost just before planting.It was chaparral last year. The irrigation is underground drip. Friday, July 2 View Page Weird eggplant,tomato,blackberry, squash forest. Tuesday, July 13 View Page Not a great day in pumpkinville. Getting the bad news out of the way so that we can go back to having fun. Both(all) Ag plants are toast. Every vine just started snapping off the stump... even if they were already laying down. We still have some Big Max and Howdens(for now). These were "weeks" seeds. Tuesday, July 13 View Page Another one bites the dust. Stump completely broke open by a fall snapping secondary. It has not been windy and I have not been losing other plants including similar size big max plants. Tuesday, July 13 View Page O.K. it gets better... Got compost for next year started. Tuesday, July 13 View Page Looking for alternatives to shovelig horse poop. This is a 50lb bag of alfalfa pellets soaked(25 gallons) to break them down that are going to make the next batch of compost with semi-decomposted leaves from the yard, food scraps and stuff from the chicken coop. Should take about 2-3 months. $9 a for the bag and I'll get about a cubic yard of high nutrient compost per batch... I think. Tuesday, July 13 View Page Silver queen sweet corn Tuesday, July 13 View Page Watermelon row July 12. I don't want to jinks these plants but it looks like they are trying to do around 1 melon per foot of row...or more. I guess that is a pretty normal yield for farms, but to me its extreme. We will see. Tuesday, July 13 View Page Rest of the pumpkins for the year. Howdens and Big Max. Thursday, July 15 View Page I do actually have a plant left. I thought it completely fell apart but there are two secondaries on the ground running. Thursday, July 15 View Page 103F yesterday and it will probably be as hot today. Pretty sure the plant would actually prefer to be pulled. Friday, July 16 View Page 103F and hard winds yesterday...106F today. I am gradually getting into the idea of a two headed snake plant. Two secondaries off the stump, growing in opposite directions are all that is left. Last year,my first growing pumpkins, I had a great start and plant, then the pumpkin quit at 20 DAP. So this plant could possibly beat that... if there are no more serious setbacks. We could actually start over and probably not get frost for 120 days. Better luck next year sounds more like it. Saturday, July 17 View Page When it comes to expected results, the garden god's definitely have a sense of humor. The sunflowers that are only supposed to grow to 8 feet tall @ 24" on center spacing, are 10-12 feet tall with 8" on center spacing... with little care and no feeding. The wind didn't phase them. Saturday, July 31 View Page The small plant on the left is the surviving Alantic Giant. I am feeding it a doing an otherwise half measures job since the big setbacks, but it is still fun to see what it will do. The other mass of plants consist of 5 very healthy Howdens and 1 big max. Monday, August 2 View Page One of the younger guys on the team finally gets to jump into watermelon picking action. Monday, August 2 View Page Another one of the fellas and I took this one to the gardener who started the plants at City Farmer's Nursery. They weighed it there and it was 35lbs. Don't want to make too much of it but it is a sugar baby watermelon... and my new PB in all watermelons. Enjoying complete novice status. I think our pumpkin PB could easily happen on a big max. Maybe not. Saturday, August 14 View Page Way too much tossed salad in the pumpkin patch for AG growing.Even got the cherry tomatos. It's a mess. Monday, August 16 View Page My plant is very undisciplined. Monday, August 16 View Page The plant has a few slow growing pumpkins. There are some others on other vines. I don't really have a main, so I'll just make a wild guess on a few to keep. I think keeping a couple gives me the best chance of getting a mature pumpkin, albeit likely, a relatively tiny one. Monday, August 16 View Page I am going to post some more general garden pictures for my friends and family. Honeydew were amazinly productive. This is Half of about 80 melons from six plants. Smallish but very worthwhile and super sweet. Monday, August 16 View Page We have eaten and given away about 20 melons and there are 60 left just ripening now...come and get'em! This sangria gets the beauty contest prize, though there are some close runner-ups in the Crimson Red category Monday, August 16 View Page Some of the ripening butternut squash. Thanks for the tips on this stage of growing butternuts, to Linus Van Pelt and Big Moon, from Big Pumpkins.com Monday, August 16 View Page Our great team of happy growers. Monday, August 16 View Page Squash Sunday, August 22 View Page The melons and squash that are still growing are starting to get powdery mildew and aphids. Most are well enough into ripening that it doesn't matter. Unfortunately the AG I still have has a young pumpkin, but I don't feel that I have grown anything worthy of fighting these problems. Hopefully it can get some semblance of maturity, maybe over 100 lbs. That would be nice for whoever we give it to. Sunday, August 22 View Page The Howdens(Jack-o-lanterns) did great with very little help from me.There are about 20 pumpkins between 40"-60" circumference in the patch... now turning orange. Wednesday, August 25 View Page 108F yesterday in my area. Very hot today. This years pumpkin is approximately where last years was, in DAP, when it stopped growing. It's a little smaller than last years was. The plant has wilted with the heat but looks good a little after sunset and great by morning. Wednesday, August 25 View Page We have been giving watermelons away to the locals and taking some to town for friends. Wednesday, August 25 View Page Of the three types of melons, Sugar baby, Crimson sweet and Sangria, the Sangria is far superior for flavor,color and texture...at least from this patch this year. This was the nicest Sangria. Next year we want to try CC because of the good luck we have had with these. Wednesday, August 25 View Page Tomatoes for scale. Just a melon that meets the standards for it's type, quite nicely... yeah, that makes me happy :). Tuesday, September 7 View Page Found this rattlesnake when I pulled a spent cherry tomato plant. Tuesday, September 7 View Page EIther the snake bit this thing or it didn't like the heat wave that just passed. Either way it was a pretty amazing looking cull. Tuesday, September 7 View Page These are some of the butternuts and cantaloupes which turned out great. Tuesday, September 7 View Page I finally discipline the AG plant,cutting off about 350 sq. feet behind the stump. It's too late of course. This is the bigger and older of two small pumpkins on the now fading plant. It's somewhere between 70" and 80" circumference. Tuesday, September 7 View Page We got to practice with a big max plant. It grew two full sized pumpkins for the type. Each and every young pumpkin tore badly on the blossom end, but healed leaving large scars as it grew. I wasn't sure they could do that. Sunday, September 12 View Page I think I'll wrap up this diary here. I am glad I did not quit with the pumpkin even though it only got to 80cc as and adult. My goal to get a mature plant and fruit was minimally accomplished , a first. It's 80"CC. I got to understand growing quite a bit better. Summer garden is winding down. Getting the fall garden going. My kids and I want to try Black diamond and Carolina Cross watermelons and maybe another AG next year. Thanks to all and Good Luck. Congratulations to everyone who enjoyed their season.