Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 16 Entries. Friday, March 9 View Page Well I thought I would take advantage of the extremely nice winter we had to get a little head start on the early fair pumpkin plants. Not so much starting the plants early just getting some of the prep work done a bit earlier then normal. I will not be documenting these actual 2 fair plants as we have choosen a different plant to highlight this coming season. If you enjoy or would like to see how we go about growing these pumpkins please feel free to send me a quick note Cause If is just a waste of time I can easily just skip it...I thought I would give a quick run down of how we get started for the fair. Typically we dont start seeds till on or about March 27 or 28th...give or take depending on the weekly outlook weather wise. Today I tilled thru the area selected and worked the ground then went back thru and removed the loose soil from the tilling in about a 6X5 foot area. as you can see in the pic I simply mound the soil up along side the area.   Friday, March 9 View Page After removing the loosened soil I return with the tiller to drop down thru the area again thus getting a little bit deeper in the planting area. square off the area to be heated with cables using a shovel or rake whatever you choose or works best. After which I carefully coil in the the 2-40 Foot long soil cables. Spacing runs roughly 6"apart each run. and note the thermostat areas are located in the middle to hopefully give an acturate reading for the cables to function properly.   Friday, March 9 View Page stab a few lathes in around the outside edges of the area to make sure I don't lose track of where the cables are located.   Friday, March 9 View Page Here I have shoveled in about 3/4 of the piles back in around the cables burying them roughly 8" deep. I am only guessing as I never measure but it's gotta be close to that. Maybe 10" MAX in some places.   Friday, March 9 View Page All the cables are now buried to about 8" and the area has been raked level thru out. laths are removed and ready for covering of the area.   Friday, March 9 View Page final entry for this process shows the area has been covered with a simple piece of clear plastic. The edges have been hoed in and buried to about 3 or 4 inches to help hold and maintain the warmth. I know some use black plastic but with the dark soil I really have not seen the need to use such and the plastic I get is free so what can I say we are cheap!!!LOL! Both cords run out different direction so one can be plugged into the neighbors garage outlet and the other to my garage. My neighbor built his garage and specifically threw in an outlet for use to use since it is fairly close to the patch. that was pretty cool of him to think about that and we always drop him a some bucks for letting us use and also a case or 2 of beer. I can't ask for a better neighbor. In fact I beleive he has purchased a pellet gun to help out with critter control!! WOO HOO!! Tomorrow Marc and I hope to throw up the hut that will sit over this area .it is a new hut we used last year and thought it worked out well..Way bigger then what we used to use BUT it enables us to stand and work inside it alot easier...We not getting any younger ya know!! LOL!   Friday, March 9 View Page The last entry for today is about other interest I have besides pumpkin growing. Me and My sons hunt deer with bows and we also fish. If ya would like to see a pic of what we shot this past year feel free to drop me a line and I can forward you a couple pics NOT world class giants but decent deer non the less. Also this morning My friend and I ventured out onto the mighty Mississippi river and put out some trot lines. NEVER have we been able to go out this eary and try for some cold water catfish. yea it was cold and it will be cold in the morning when we pick them up but it was nice to get out and do something today!! thanks and hope you enjoy this years diary! DAN   Thursday, April 12 View Page It's been quite a while since I have posted anything and still am waiting on the season to begin. The winter has been one for the ages and everything appears to be a good month maybe 5 weeks ahead. my fruit tree (apple) opened the end of March about the 26th or so...NEVER has it been this early. Last nights 25° prolly did in the fruit...But what can you do? Anyways I went out and took a pic of the small cold frames we use for our late season plants..simple but effective as we have used these frames for the past 12 or 15 years. simple 2x4 constuction. holes drilled in top frame for 3 1/2 PVC pipes 5 foot long and then fresh poly applied each year. Finished product is something like 3 foot wide by 44 or 48 inches long. Ground is covered with a 6x6 piece of plastic to aid in warming and to keep the future planting area dry enough to work when the date comes to put them out. Nothing does a new seedling in when it's time to put them out and you did not take the above steps and the soil is cold and wet...really stunts them. Always better to be needing to add a little moisture then fight the muck!!!   Thursday, April 12 View Page Here is the condo we use for the state fair plants. LOL!! we picked this up pretty reasonable and is an absolutely wonderful tool for the fair plants. Very simple to put together..Marc and I can throw this up in prolly 10 minutes and it is very very durable with the nylon reinforced preformed plastic covering. Yes the covering does have a pretty heavy opaque look to it, and we were concerned that it might not be what we were looking for, BUT last year the plants responded well inside so it was a winner. It came with a second brand new cover for the metal frame and I seriously doubt we'll ever need it. Inside we have the heated cables and the spot covered with Polly and then use a couple real small thermostatically controled space heaters to ward off the real nasty early season cold nights. Always warm and toasty inside. The Opaque plastic actualy diminishes the real hot sunny days to the point where we don't have to even worry about over heating the plants. It's tall enough that the real hot stuff hangs out up and away from the plants themselves. Also real nice to beable to "walk" in and do the work inside verses all those years of struggling on hands and knees under a small low profile standard hut we used to use.   Monday, April 16 View Page well we finally got some moisture in the ground so I decided with the late season planting date fast approaching it was time to go out and get the areas covered and the small huts into position. Area covered is about 4 or 5 foot square and the huts are about 40 x48 inches.....each one will house prolly 3 or 4 plants until the selection process of picking the best plant. We don't plant say 4 #1 seeds persay... but we plant what we hope to be our primary plant and then say 3 other seeds of top quality that we would not mind growing if something was to happen to the Primary seed of choice...with so many great seeds out there there is really no reason not to have a back up plan....the following 2 picctures will give a prefect example of why we tend to go this route. Generally speaking the back ups are seeds we tend to have planty of and don't mind using them as "valuable insurance" to making sure we start the season with as healthy and vigorours plants .   Monday, April 16 View Page Ok here is a RARE look at a couple of our fair plants...westatred a bit earlier then normal for us do to the warmer then normal spring and winter we had so we decided to give them just a few days head start. that said we planted 3 per hill.....2 each of the primary seed (our own so we have plenty) and another seed to use as insurance incase both the primary seeds are slackers. The insurance seed is also our own seed and is one we plan to plant for the later weigh offs and this gives us a early look see on how this one will be doing coming out of the gate. call it a spring preview!! LOL!! anyways this one is a 1220 C&P seed.... nice vigorours plant healthy and looking normal for this time frame. deep green nice sized leaves and basically what we are looking for from our primary seed.   Monday, April 16 View Page Ok here is the 2nd 1220 seed we planted for the state fair.....Planted same day ..came up same time.....put out the same date and was planted roughly 24 inches from the earlier picture. In fact if you look back an entry you can see this little guy in the back ground... Now look at this particular runt. Yellow...spindly....extremely weak looking ....IF this was our only option for keeping we would already be playing catchup and were only 2 weeks into the season...Sooo in this case it has really paid off in our eyes to plant the extra seeds for that insurance I mentioned earlier. Would or could this plant pick it up later or come out of the funkk it obviously is in??..Sure but we'll never find out as it will be culled when space gets tight. Just thought marc and I would show and do some explaining on how and why we go about how we do things.....Hope you found this enlightening....We thought this particular example was perfect to show.   Saturday, April 21 View Page after 3 weekends of scouting and trying not to screw anything up we managed to go out and have a little fun today.....I had these birds down to a T and they did exactly what we thought they should...Tomorrow we try and get another one with Marc going with us... jake took this one at 10 yards....what an awesome morning 10.5 Beard.. 1 1/8 spurs and 25#'s dead on!! great memory   Saturday, April 28 View Page I like to add other things to my diary or interest as in hunting stories and or fishing lies... I mean stories... that said I figure the event of this morning marks a time where it should also be listed in my diary. As of 1:51 AM today my daughter and husband has blessed Beth and I with our first grandchild. a bouncing baby girl named Kenley Rae Mcfarland 7#11 Oz and 20" long. baby and mother are doing very well and we are on our way to let the spoiling begin..can't wait to see her DAN   Saturday, April 28 View Page Ok just had to do it.. here she is Kenley Rae Mcfarland 20 inches long and 7# 11oz......pretty darn cute I have to admitt....let the spoiling begin!!!   Saturday, May 5 View Page Ok sometimes you gotta go out there and make those tough decisions when you are trying to narrow it down to a single plant. we try and keep the extra plants in the hills as long as possible and when the primary plant gets 'issues" it is nice to have a couple options...The 1220 we had growing for the fair was doing very well all things considereed.. I mean we had a march that was closer to a may and we had an april that was closer to a march....soooo when we had to remove the covers permentantly things kind ground to a halt growth wise....Bottom line a 4 inch main vine length wise split was the undoing of the 1220. fair plant. really a bummer as it was the seed that won it last year..But our past experiences shows that these areas tend to get soft and rot off no matter how we try and "fix it"..that said I thought I would take a pick of the little guy in the end..Looked like he has 1800# written all over him!!LOL!! Oh yea and to top it all off Marc was in the process of moving to a new home and I had to go through all the stress and stuff alone!!! LOL!!