Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 36 Entries. Tuesday, March 2 View Page Started 3 practice seeds 6 days ago and one finally came up today. Guess I will have to get a warming mat as it is too cold in my living room at night. Wednesday, March 3 View Page Planned on working in the patch today but woke up to snow. C'mon, this is California, not North Dakota. Wednesday, March 3 View Page Grew this 200 pounder last year but had never heard of Mycorrhiza, humic acid, foliar feeding, or vine burying. Hope to grow one too big for the chair this year. Thursday, March 11 View Page Got lots of great advice from Don Young at the Elk Grove seminar last weekend. Now if it would just stop snowing, I could get some work done in the patch. Snow the last two mornings and another storm tonight. Thursday, March 11 View Page Carved Bob on one of the small pumpkins last year Saturday, March 13 View Page This is the third morning this week with fresh snow. At least it looks like it will melt off and I can get my gypsum in. Also got a warming mat and started the tomato seeds and a few more practice pumpkin seeds Sunday, March 28 View Page Finally got the gypsum in the patch today. Also planted some rhubarb for pies this summer. Giant tomatoes are up and growing nicely under the light. Of course, more snow on the way this week. Wednesday, March 31 View Page March is turning into the snowiest month of the winter. Monday, April 5 View Page Snow on April 5 and almost every day this month so far. Looking forward to Spring getting here someday. Saturday, April 17 View Page Scored some free CPVC pipe and decided to make a couple of dome cold frames. Saturday, April 17 View Page Apparently they only make plumbing fixtures for the pipe so I had to improvise the fitting at the top with two "Ts" glued together with a nipple. Saturday, April 17 View Page When I tried to put the plastic sheeting on, I realized why everybody else uses the Quonset Hut shape for the hoop house. Buckminster Fuller would turn over in his grave if he saw this. Thursday, April 22 View Page Snow again yesterday but at least it didn't stick. Hopefully that will be the last of the white stuff but another storm is due next Tuesday. My first seed (1568 X open) is up. Sunday, April 25 View Page Heavy frost this morning and more snow predicted for the day after tomorrow but might be able to put something in the ground after that. Wednesday, April 28 View Page The 1568 X Open is looking good but once again it is snowing on the patch this morning. Hopefully this is the last gasp of winter and I can get some plants in the ground soon. Wednesday, April 28 View Page The snow quit, the sun came out and it started warming up so I put my two 805 Watsons outside in the sun. Looked out an hour later and it was a blizzard so had to bring them back in. Tuesday, May 4 View Page 805 Watson has bizarre cots but the first true leaf looks okay. I may have forgotten to file the edges and maybe it had a hard time getting out. Tuesday, May 4 View Page 1110 Urena is in the ground and looking good. This is the plant I have my highest hopes for. Tuesday, May 4 View Page Cleared some brush to enlarge the patch and some volunteer asparagus stalks started popping up. Six of them so far. Tuesday, May 4 View Page Rhubarb pies are almost as good as pumpkin pies so I got some roots from the neighbor and they are off and running. Friday, May 7 View Page Well, 29 degrees yesterday morning and since I neglected to heat my mini-domes, both plants ate it. Fortunately, my spares are inside under the grow light and in three gallon pots and doing fine. Tonight I'm experimenting with a different heater and a remote sensor thermometer and should have this figured out when I re-plant. 26 degrees this morning. Thursday, June 3 View Page My second Urena 1110 finally has a good main vine started but of course it is heading the wrong way. Going to try to turn it around and then try to figure out a vine pattern once it straightens out. It's significantly larger than my other two remaining plants. Monday, June 28 View Page Finally got my first female bud on the main vine of the Urena. Can't wait for it to open and get pollinated and then it will be off and running. Spent the day burying and doing some pruning of the secondaries. The Watson and Langevin are running behind but both still look like strong plants. Friday, July 2 View Page Pollinated my first female flower on the Urena today. It's only about nine feet out but I understand that's what Christy's was last year. Another flower developing at ten feet and will get it started also. Got a new gallon sprayer and tried it out this morning with kelp extract. It's a thousand times better than my old quart one. Going to use it again tomorrow with CO2 foliar. Monday, July 12 View Page Well, the first one kept growing slower instead of faster and only had a circumference of 10 inches at 10 days so it got culled. Fortunately, a second female with 4 lobes opened up on the Urena yesterday and I pollinated it with a male from a Langevin potluck. It's in a better position anyway; about eleven feet out. The Langevin has a female that should open tomorrow. Friday, July 23 View Page This four lober opened early this morning and the bees got to it before I could get some pollen in it. It might even end up being my keeper as all of my main vine pumpkins have aborted. I've now put my hopes in the secondary vines and have several started although the largest is only eleven inches in circumference. So much for getting an early start this year. I had been hoping for something really large this summer but it doesn't look promising. Maybe next year. Thursday, August 19 View Page Growing about 17 pounds a day now and should hit 300 in two days. My first effort was last year and was 200 lbs so this year is already way ahead of that. Had to leave for most of the last ten days and put my trust in the sprinkler timer and everything was fine when I got back. Had to do lots of pruning and also gave it plenty of kelp with a CO2 foliar so hope it keeps on growing. Saturday, August 28 View Page Bears have been getting in the neighbors' garbage lately but my watchdog is on the job. Actually she is 13 years old and can hardly walk up the porch steps anymore but she can still bark. The Urena should hit 400 pounds tomorrow which will be double my initial effort of last year. Friday, September 3 View Page Found a big pile of bear poop about a block from my patch yesterday so now I've got a new watchdog on the job. He is fourteen years old and weighs about 5 pounds but I have faith in him. Meanwhile, the Urena is 278 OTT for 458 pounds; shattering my initial try last year of 200 pounds. Slowing down a bit but should go over 500 and has an outside chance of hitting 600. Tuesday, September 7 View Page 287 OTT for 502 pounds. Really didn't think I could get one this big on a secondary vine but this one went beyond my expectations. The patch was a lawn last year that I dumped loads of manure and compost on. Didn't even rototill it except for the area around where the stem came out of the ground. Next year the patch will be in much better shape. Monday, September 27 View Page Still putting on a few pounds a day with only three more days until harvesting for Elk Grove. Tapes at 611 pounds now which is more than the old county record but who knows what will happen at weigh-in time. Plus I'm starting to really worry about the bottom of the pumpkin. There are a few signs of gophers in the area. Friday, October 1 View Page Loaded up and ready for Elk Grove. Estimating at around 620 pounds which would greatly exceed my expectations since it was grown on a secondary with snow and freezing weather for much of May. Wednesday, October 6 View Page Even my son was amazed at the size when we loaded it up. Wednesday, October 6 View Page Weighed in at 671.5 at Elk Grove so almost 10 per cent heavy. If it had been a thousand pounds heavier, it would have barely made first place. Saturday, November 20 View Page Looks like I won't be working in the patch for awhile. At least I got two loads of horse manure and three loads of shredded leaves down before the snow. Really have high hopes for this coming year. Wednesday, December 1 View Page Decided to see if my 671 seeds were viable so I soaked 5 of them for 6 hours and then planted them in a pot. All five came up although the last one took ten days. This was despite being put on a heating pad under a styrofoam cooler.