Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 34 Entries. Thursday, June 3 View Page Hi everyone, i'm a long pumpkin watcher, 1st time grower. (yall indiana people better get that joke) Well, pumpkins are off the the races so to speak. I have 2 plants that are pretty healthy out of the 5 I planted. I've pulled out the other 3 cause they were dead. I've been learning alot about the ins and outs of it all. My goal this year being my 1st yr is grow one to be around 300lbs. I got Burpee Prizerwinner seed. So it should do just that. Just main part that I learned about growing pumpkins is keep them water and don't tamper with them too much. Old guy told me a trick/story about how someone watered the pumpkins. They cute the main vine the pumpkin is growing on long ways, stuck a thing of yarn up inside it and and lightly taped it up, and then put the other end of the yarn in a 5 gallon bucket full of water, and their pumpkin got HUGE, and had to fill the bucket back up about every day.. Any of you "vetrians" think or know this is true, please feel free to comment and leave me other tips for a 1st time grower, i'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks, Hope yall have a great season this season.. Saturday, June 5 View Page Pumpkin doin decent. After the 2 day storms with the strong damaging winds and hail wasn't sure if they was gonna survive. Now that they have, hope I get a nice one to start growning in a few weeks. Saturday, June 5 View Page Doing good! These are pics from a little while ago. Finally was able to get out there get work in the garden. Tuesday, June 8 View Page Well the my pumpkin are troopers! They survived the tornadoes, the hail, and the 80mph winds! I haven't watered them since the May 30th cause its rained every other day! As a matter fact its raining right now. Hope the flowers start poppin soon. Wednesday, June 9 View Page This is my best plant. But in my mind, I think its growing kinda slow. Thursday, June 10 View Page Put some Miracle - Gro Organic Choice and it got bigger and grew a male flower! Happy with results! Thursday, June 10 View Page My plants are getting bigger after I put Miracle-Gro Organic Choice on them. Finally got a flower to bloom. Its a male flower. But I can't believe how big they got over night after feeding em! Hope to see a pumpkin grow before too long. Friday, June 11 View Page I got my 1st pumpkins on the vine! I have 3 little ones bout the size of a pea wanting to be big 300 pounders! For me being a 1st time grower, this is pretty damn exciting. I barely have weeds in the garden. The only bug problem I have isnt really a problem, just small little ants (maybe sugar ants? and all my vines have been watered just about every day thanks to the rain. I so for the Irish Luck is on my side and hope pumpkins get big! Thursday, June 17 View Page Plants are getting alot bigger. Been having a few male flowers come and go. I have some female blooms, but they have been on there for about a week 1/2 now and still the size of a soy bean. I dont think i'm gonna make the Indiana weigh off in August. But other than that, plants are rather healthy. Tuesday, June 22 View Page Pumpkin is finally getting bigger. I think my plants are getting a little out of control. I got vines going every which way. But i'm still not sure which ones to cut or pull out. My female will be ready to polliate any day now! Just hope I have enough males open to do the job with. Hope we dont get further flooded out as well. All this rain we are having is saving me money on my water bill! Thats a big plus. Tuesday, June 29 View Page Vines are goin insane. Haven't had a pumpkin yet to pollinate. But other than that, have had ALOT of male flowers and no females. Monday, July 5 View Page This is Calypso. This my 2nd pumpkin I have. Just pollionated her this morning. Monday, July 5 View Page Poseidon was also pollionated this morning too. Monday, July 5 View Page Zeus is growing pretty good. He's bout 8 inches around. Pollionated him I believe on Thursday. Looks like he's gonna grown pretty big. Tuesday, July 6 View Page Did some pruning this evening. Making everything look real good. Have a little trouble with a few leaves though. Some are turning yellow and seem like there burnt or something by the sun??? I'll have picture of them in the morning when I pollionate Chryses and Icarus. I'm thinking about just cutting those leaves off, in case it could possibley infect the other?? But for the most part, my pumpkins are doing rather well! I gotta say for this being my 1st time doing this, its rather fun and addicting. Family and friends are almost getting annoyed by me talking about them! lol But they dont complain when I give or cook the them pumpkin blossoms! Well hope everyone else is having good luck with their patches! Tuesday, July 6 View Page Here is the dead leaves.. There is a few of them like this. Could it be some type of fungus? Wednesday, July 7 View Page Pollionated 3 more pumpkins this morning. Glad to say I have one pumpkin doin rather well. For a Burpee Prizewinner Pumpkin, its growing rate is about 2 1/4- 2 1/2 inches a day. So my quest for the 300 lbs is gonna be rather close. Since I'm not goin to compete this season for it being my 1st year. I have til Sept, to keep growing. Bout 2 1/2 months or little more to go. So next year i'll be even more into and I believe I'll be getting some of the Atlantic Giant seeds, or if someone would like to cut me a deal on their 1000lbs + seed(s), i'd be glad to buy a couple of em. Wednesday, July 7 View Page Measured him today and he's 13 1/2" around. Grew 3 inches since 8pm last night! Thursday, July 8 View Page Thank God it rained today! We got a pretty good soakin this afternoon. Went out after the rain was all done, and measured Zeus and he grew 3 3/4" from last night at 8pm. So I figured since he's getting bigger, i'd tempt to see how much he weighed. So I youtubed and googled it. Found out how to do it. After all the measurements were done, he came out to weigh 42.3lbs. Which for me, i'm happy about if this accute measurements. My goal this yr like I said was 300lbs, and I have another 2 months to go! I def gonna be close the weight. Very happy with this the results so far. Tomorrow its gonna be a little bigger. This is a pretty fun hobby. Sunday, July 11 View Page Just got outta the patch. Had alot of catching up to do. its been too hot for me to get in there and "clean house" so to speak. I have vines going every which way. So I went in and cut off the 3 stage growth, dead leaves (which I'm not sure why the died) but their done, and cut off. I have maybe 4-5 pumpkins on 3 of the plants I have. Zeus (my biggest one) is about the size of a volleyball. I hope with all the vines that I cut off, it will do a little better. I know there was alot of energy being sucked up by 3rd stage. I carefully moved the vine that his is growning on to give him and the others pumpkins more room to grow. I put a hand towel under him to keep him safe. Alot of work, but I enjoyed it. Now I have a few good vines out there, and gave the pumpkins more of a chance to go bigger. 1st year at this is a pain learning the ropes. But i'm catching on rather fast. I'll be watering them later on night and hope they get bigger. Sunday, July 11 View Page Zeus getting bigger, July 11th at 7:30pm. Sunday, July 18 View Page Lookin pretty good so far. Bout the size of a basketball now. I have 3 more growing and their getting big too. Season gone pretty good. I think my biggest one is growing about 3-4 inches a day and a rough 1/2 lbs to a pound a day. Wish these Prizewinner's would suck the water up and gain about 5+ lbs a day! That would be really nice. Sunday, July 18 View Page Football anyone? This pumpkin is gettin huge Tuesday, July 20 View Page Just measured my biggest one a few mins ago and its 102 OTT score. A 30 pound pumpkin I know isnt big big, but its pretty nice considering its Burpee seed. But I did notice some weird ass bugs around the vines. Its not squash bugs, those little SOB's are everywhere. I've sprayed and sprayed all over, and thats not including the fugus I have now on the leaves. Next year I'll be more prepared. Friday, July 23 View Page Zeus is a Tennessee Vols fan! Friday, July 23 View Page Getting bigger. He has a few cuts on him which I know is from me measuring him. But wish he was gaining more weight per day like 20 or 30 lbs that way I def met my set weight in Sept. Right now he's only bout 30lbs or so. Saturday, July 24 View Page Finally got some well needed rain last night and an hour ago! Helped out big time. Now its goin to be hot and humid all day long. Won't be able to tend to them tonight and tomorrow for its the BRICKYARD 400 weekend! Be at the race track. Sunday, July 25 View Page Brickyard 400 is today and I had to get up early to do some work in the patch. With the rain we got yeasterday which was over 2 1/2 inches, pretty much flooded the patch out. So I had to wait to get in there. While I was waiting for the water to go down, I happen to see a young red fox not too far way. Kinda odd seeing one in the city. But it was rather cool none the less. Possible might be my next task to catch him and let him go in the woods far away from the city. Pumpkins like all the rain, but its still tough keep the fungicide on. Plants got it bad and a bunch leaves dying off. I had to cut 2 more pumpkins today cause they died. One of them was about a little smaller than a soccer ball. It had a brown spot down the side of it, where it was rotting. So I couldnt have it on there and effect the rest of the plants and pumpkins. So i'm now down to 4 pumpkins. 2 of them are pretty damn big and doing rather well. Zeus my biggest one has grown so much in the last couple of days. I can barley lift him up! So thats is a good thing! Well its time for me to go and get ready for the race! Monday, July 26 View Page Measured Zeus this morning and he's now 40 LBS and my other pumpkin is at 20 LBS. Zeus only gaining 10 pounds a week isn't that good, but he'll still be big to me. Wednesday, August 4 View Page Getting alot of rain! Hopefully I can get in the patch soon. Monday, August 16 View Page Well it seems that couple of them are about to the end of there growing days. Only getting a 1/2 inches every 2-3 days of growth. With Sept around the corner, and my due date to pick em is in the 14th just about all of them should be around the 50-60lbs this yr.. It wasnt my goal, but I guess i'll just have to take it. Alot learned this season. I found some land yesterday where I can grow a bigger patch and have more room. Just glad football season is here that way I have something else do to! I have 4 pumpkins and from my last measurements, my est weight is, 1st pumpkin (Zeus) 51.7 LBS, P2- 39.1 LBS , P3- 30.9 LBS, P4- 22.6 LBS. So not too bad for decent size Jack O'Lanterns. Next year its on! Sunday, August 29 View Page The 4 pumpkins I harvested a little bit ago. Burpee Prizewinner Pumpkins did decent this year. 19.5 LBS to 48.5 LBS. Wish I had atleast a 100 pounder. But Burpee seeds isn't all its cracked up to be. Sunday, August 29 View Page Zeus the biggest one I got weighed in at 48.5 LBS. Sunday, August 29 View Page Apollo and Zeus. 38 LBS and 48 LBS