Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 14 Entries. Wednesday, May 8 View Page Here are my starts. A little late afer I tryed to cook my seeds (my oven with light on is just too hot). So I got new seeds and switched back to the method I tried last year, which is to soak them and then plant them. All these started in the soil. They are looking pretty good, so two will be transfered this weekend. All are Pacific Northwest seeds. Very excited to get this started. It was a long winter. Wednesday, May 8 View Page I thought I had started a diary..well that's the way it's been going this year. So here are my starts. My first 6 or so I think I baked when I tried to grow them in my oven. I returned to my method last year which is to soak 'em and plant 'em and that seems to work for me. All are Pacific Northwest seeds, and I am going to attempt to grow it in a 10' x 10' area as the chapter of pumpkin growers has a new category and I want to grow more pumpkins in the area I have ( 20' x 35'). Very excited to get these babies in the ground. Sunday, May 12 View Page Finally in the ground. The hoop house isn't as done as I wanted it to be but I was having technical difficulties. This will have to do until I can think of something else. There are two under the hoop house, and two under some ADS pipe couplers and fittings. The soil is not heated due to budget constraints( which are due to having to feed, water and clothe a teenager who is growing as fast as the pumpkin).Soil is a mixture of compost, fertilizer ( some 16-16-16) and yesterday with fish fertilizer. No one told me how icky it was going to smell. Made my eyes water and I am so glad I did not spill it. Whew! Two are Tobeck 1135 and two are Gould 788 being grown in two patches (that look like one) 10' x 10'. measured off where the rebar spikes are. Believe it or not but I am more prepared this year. My goal is between 300-500 for the area I have sanctioned off. I have two more plants growing inside and so I so have some back ups. Tuesday, May 21 View Page Terror in the patch. My son went to mow and the hose runs across the grass and is attached to the soaker hose that was wrapped around the plants. He yanked up the hose and took out 2 of the 4 plants. The only thing that saved the two were the plastic ADS couplers I put over them. The one pictured lost almost all it's leaves, but seamed to rally last night before the temp. dropped. The other I propped up with rocks but he didn't look like he was going to make it. My son did apoligize and then told me it was my fault because I baby them too much. Sounds like someone is jealous. Wednesday, June 5 View Page Being from Mount Vernon some of you might be interested in the falling bridge and how it's affecting my pumpkin growing. I think they feel stress. Commutes are longer and peoples tempers are shorter. Actually if my pumpkins don't make it I have something to blame it on besides Obama(joking!). With the warmer weather my plants are chuging along. The yellow concerns me but the secondary leaves are coming up green so I think it'll be ok(course I'm new so ???)I actually have 3 plants left and 1 that's main stem broke but it's still growing (?) I thought I would leave it for now to see what happens. I need to get them fertilized again and get ahold of the tea compost that really helped last year. Looking forward to a nice weekend with lots of warm weather. Friday, July 5 View Page Haven't had much to report. While everyone is taking advantage of the warm weather my pumpkins seem to be late bloomers. They don't want to do anything. Very much like my teen. I have been better to them this year, fish fertilizer and 16-16-16 fert. and tenting. Still they are slow growing and haven't produced any flowers. There are male flowers but no blooms. I do have some tiny females developing so I'm guessing 5-10 days. I am frustrated. The picture is of a plant that I thought my son had taken out(see previous entry) but it continued to feed itself on half a vine and grew a new root at the cut. I thought that was pretty cool. I know I probably should've ripped it up but I wanted to see what it would do. It is my second largest plant now. Thursday, July 11 View Page Finally! got a male. Now the mate should be along prtty soon. This weekend I hope. I also embarking on the adventure that is conpost tea. Started to collected the components. Starting this weekend, if all goes well. Thursday, July 18 View Page I finally got some females to open and pollinated 4 this week. So far they are all looking good. My concern is the leaves of one of my plants. This started on a few leaves about 3 days ago and seems to be spreading. I read that the soil might be short on nitrogen (which is very possible considering I have yellowish leaves on another plant) or it might be burnt (which I doubt, I mean it's been hotter then we are used to this summer but the plants don't know that). If it continues I might take it out. I have too many plants in one area anyway but I was waiting to see which fruit on which plant took off. BTW my compost tea turned out nicely,and the leaves on the other plants are looking very perky and green. (Brown started before the compost tea was used). Monday, July 29 View Page Pumpkins are doing much better. The pictue shows a Tobeck 1135 (not sure of the #, I'll double check tonight)my biggest one. I have 4 pollinated fruit, two on the biggest plant, one on main (this one is 15 DAP 30.5" as of this morning) and one on a secondary that's about 27". I have two other plants but everything is a getting a bit crowded so one may have to go. I am still nervous about the leaves, still browning, one by one on the ends and my vines are still curling and ripping out their own roots. I sprayed for spider mites but the leaves keep dropping, one by one. The newer leaves look good though. Hoping to see if the old leaves will just be replenished with the greener ones. Compost tea has been added to my routine and the leaves look perkier already. I am buying the compost tea from a local nursery (finally, something they have that has been useful!) I did make myself a batch and it turned out pretty well but I haven't had time to collect ingrediants to brew. I am going to add the fish fertilizer, because the stuff just doesn't smell like fish and it's needed. Monday, August 5 View Page Pumpkins are growing. With the rain we received last week and some compost tea,fertilizing and constant obsessing my #2 pumpkin, named Lisa, has surpased my #1, "Cindy", after Tobeck whose seed it is. "Lisa" is doing 2-3 inches a day, whereas "Cindy" has slowed down to 1-2" a day. No clue why. Lisa is at 49" cir at 21 dap and Cindy is at 45" same time frame. Beautiful color and both are well rounded (good schools, athletic, musically gifted). Monday, August 12 View Page Another picture, a few days later of "Lisa" she at roughly 64" cir. My tape is too short, it ends at 60" so I must get a longer one. The rain really helped and the fungicide seems to be working to. There is so much powdery mildew on everything around my pumpkins, my roses, lilacs, even the dandilions. I figured with the warmer tempatures we've been having that I wouldn't have a problem with this stuff. But after reading more about it I guess that's not how the mildew works. My roses are a mess because I've been neglecting them to take care of the pumpkins. Sunday, September 1 View Page We had a big wind on Thursday night and a lot of my vines were pulled up. I guess I need to bury them a bit deeper. So that's what I tried to do yesterday. The pumpkin in the foreground is still growing, the one on the vine to the left seems to have stalled and the one way in the background had a stem split while I was on vacation last week. The leaves are failing now, looks like spider mites. One month to go and hoping the leaves will hang in there. Friday, September 13 View Page Here is "Abu" my fall offering. May take her to the Central Market in Shoreline, she's a beautiful color and size. Like they told me last year, not the biggest but the cutest! Friday, September 13 View Page Here she is..still growing, even though her leaves are going one by one. Trying to coax her along until the 28th. Even thought the weather has been great it's still a little on the cold side at night. I've been covering her with a blanket at night and finally got a tent over her. Going to meet tonight with some friends to figure out how to get her to Christensen Nursery. Nice to have friends that have things like pick-ups and trailers. Hoping that she will be at least 300 lbs. It's hard to tell since I can't get a tape around her and she is so wonky. Again, not the biggest, not the prettiest, but double the weight of last years will make me happy.