Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 69 Entries. Saturday, March 17 View Page I Caught this on a worm with a tiny little hook. I was fishing for bluegill and yellow perch. My first cast in and wham! What A great way to start the year! 22+" I am guessing it weighed in the 6-7 pound range. I know this isn't a fishing website but I couldn't resist the urge to post this picture. Now if only I could grow some big pumpkins worthy of posting. That would be Great!   Saturday, March 17 View Page Caught a few pickerel and a perch and bluegill too . Pickerel are good to eat if you know how to filet them. Lots of bones! But well worth the trouble it takes to filet.   Saturday, March 17 View Page A picture of the pumpkin patch. It had a year off, I will be growing in it this year. It gets lots of sun which can be a good thing. The other patch (that I grew in last year) has some shadier spots which just makes the plants grow slowwwwwww,,,,,,,,,,, especially out of the gate in spring. Let's hope for some good weather this year. I would love to have weather like we did back in '07.   Saturday, April 14 View Page I started my watermelons back in March, I have them in two gallon pots. Here is what I have; 282 Dawson 209 Holloway 183 Cantrell 234 Berry 174 Hunt 174 Wolf 144 Cantrell 221 Edwards 193 White I had planned on doing some grafts to compare a grafted plant and a (own root)natural plant of the same seed. So far I have managed to kill them all. 10 days after grafting they all seemed to have taken, but then they got hit with miracle grow and liquid iron which they didn't seem to like. They started wilting and never recovered. I may give it one last try for this year. It would be nice to do at least one side by side comparison. I hope some one else is going to try it, if not me.   Saturday, April 14 View Page I got off to a rough start with my Atlantic giants too. On April 9 I started 14 seeds. I planned to have them transplanted into two gallon pots then transplant into the garden sometime at the end of April early May. Here is what I planted; -1451 Scherber -1311 Fletcher -1216 DeBacco -1011 Bosworth -1487 Desrosiers -1176 Lombardi -1426 Wolf My son Ethan planted; -1130 Marsh 08 (reverse cross of the 1239 Marsh 08) -A seed off of his 1012 Matessa pumpkin that was not weighed last year. It was big solid and white and probably weighed around 1,000 or so. I don't even know what the cross is. -1216 DeBacco Well if gardening doesn't keep you humble I don't think anything will. Sure enough Only 8 out of 14 seeds germinated. That is just over 50%! Not good. I lost both my 1487 Desrosiers and both 1011 Bosworths. I think I must have given the seeds a little too much water combining it with temps in the high 80's. I successfully cooked and composted all those that didn't germinate. As growers we will never stop making mistakes but, hopefully we will learn from them and maybe with experience we will be able to know what we did wrong and how to correct it for next time.   Saturday, April 14 View Page I decided to start a few more plants, I have been growing Ag's competitively since 2007 and every year I have had a Bosworth seed in my patch. I planned to this year as well, so I needed to take another shot at getting a Bosworth seed to germinate. Luckily I had some 1144 Bosworth seeds. Here is what I planted yesterday. 1144 Bosworth '10 1436 Wolf '11 1193 Snyder '10 I also started some more melons and some 'Shintosa Camelforce' seeds to see if I can get a grafted melon plant. After losing my melon patch to weeds last year I plan on using black landscape fabric this year to help control the weeds. Unlike pumpkins, melons will not shade out the weeds that germinate under the canopy. I hope this will save my back a little effort, as lifting and hoeing under melon vines can be quite a job. We could really use some rain here as we are bone dry at the moment. In Connecticut, we get about 4" of rain a month for every month of the year. I can't even remember the last time we had a measurable amount. March? February?   Monday, April 30 View Page The pumpkin patch is all ready to plant in. I have done a lot more with preseason ammendments. Normally I just till in 20-20-20 after adjusting for pH and adding compost. This year I added the following to my 5,000 square foot patch. 90 pounds of Kelp meal 40 pounds of Humic acid 150 pounds of Alfalfa pellets 25 pounds of 20-20-20 50 pounds of Sulpomag And a handful of Osmocote to the starting area. Also five-six quarts of perlite were blended into the starting area. Lastly the whole area under the coldframe was covered with a landscape fabric. To help with early season weed control. I am doing 4 plants while my son is growing 3. The weather is warming up this week and I hope to get the plants in the ground soon.   Thursday, May 17 View Page I went out to the vegetable garden today, to check on the squash and cucumbers I planted last week. Sure enough they were up and they were completely infested with cuke beetles. I had to act quick because with an infestation that bad I don't think the young seedlings would have lasted much longer. The younger the plant is, the more vulnerable it is to a real heavy infestation. The older plants build up a natural resistance which makes the plants slightly less tasty to the cuke beetles. The Cuke beetles are disease vectors and most of the viruses are passed when the plants are very young. Control is very important!   Sunday, May 20 View Page I just planted some late giant tomato seeds hopefully I will have a few to show come September. Also I plan on starting my field pumpkins this week. Hopefully I will have them coming in a little bit later than last year. I had one ripen in Early August and it lost 10 pounds in storage, while I waited for an early September weighoff to bring it to.   Thursday, May 24 View Page I took my cold frames off the plants this week, to allow the warm rain to saturate the ground around them. They are ready to take off. Most have touched down now. Once they all touch down I can start to green them up with some liquid fertilizer. I can't wait for the real fun to start when we get fruit that is growing like crazy.. Right now, it is just work!   Saturday, June 2 View Page I set in the rest of my eating melons yesterday. I put in 20 grafted 'Dixie Queen' melons. I will be comparing them to 20 ungrafted 'Dixie Queen' plants. In my last batch of grafts I had really good success. I went 20 for 20. I am definitely getting the feel for it and am ready for next year. Who knows? Grafted giant melons may not be the wave of the future. Everything has it's pluses and minuses. I am interested in hearing how everyone else makes out with their grafts. They certainly do make really pretty plants to set out into the garden. They are nice and bushy and stocky, with fantastic root systems.   Saturday, June 2 View Page Here is how I did my grafts successfully. Hopefully these insights ring true with other's results and observations. First off I read and re-read all of Bat cave Nates directions. I then watched his video. Without this help it would not have been possible for me. Thank you Nate! I planted both the melons and the 'Shintosa Camelforce'(squash rootstock) on the same day. This seemed to be ideal as the Shintosa are much more vigorous and stocky than the melons. I tried some grafts a couple days after germination when there were practically no adult leaves on both the melon or the Shintosa rootstock. (I did not have as good a result at this time) I had much better success when I waited an extra 6-7 days after they came up. At this point the squash had at least quarter to half dollar sized adult leaves and the melons had adult leaves almost the size of a melon seed. cont'd   Saturday, June 2 View Page I used a small drill bit to make the hole into the squash rootstock. The drill bit was slightly smaller than the diameter of the melons stem. I preferred the drill bit as it was easier for me to find and insert the melon scion into the squash rootstock. I also tried using the pointed end of a compass. (The type you use for drawing circles) I did not feel as confident with this method as the hole it left was sometimes hard to insert the melon into. The thing that I think helped me the most was really cutting a long angle on the melon scion. As long as I possibly could. (on the melon scion It is somewhat of an oval shape. I would cut the more difficult cut first then turn the melon scion a quarter of the way and make the easier cut on the broader side. Also trying to keep it a long angle so your scion will have a nice point. The key is you need to have good contact of the exposed tissues from both the melon and rootstock. The fit needs to be nice and snug so that everything stays in place. The snug fit also helps the tissues to stay in place and connect together. Kind of like stitches on a persons cut.   Saturday, June 2 View Page Now if you get the good contact that you need, it is hard to screw it up from here! I did not have a plastic dome to go over my plants so I placed a clear plastic garbage bag over my plants after I misted them really well. I then put mine into a 70-75 degree room. For the first day or two they stayed in front of a window with diffused light. Then they went under a grow light. I misted them in the morning and again at night. It stayed moist under the clear plastic with constant high humidity. After about 6 or 7 days you could tell which grafts had taken and which hadn't. The ones that started to wilt by day 6 or 7 were not going to make it. After about 7 days I would take off the plastic and keep an eye on things I misted them after taking off the plastic. Now you can harden them off and get them used to outdoor conditions. Take it one step at a time. Maybe put them in a spot that is partly shaded and cool, then the next day get them into a sunnier spot.   Saturday, June 2 View Page Hopefully next year I can remember what it feels like to make a good graft, Once I got the feel for it I knew right away if it was a good graft or not. Once I finished inserting the scion. I could tell! It only took me about 3-4 attempts, Hopefully you will learn quicker than me. Fortunately my persistence did pay off.   Monday, July 9 View Page This year has been a challenge to say the least. we are down to 3 plants after starting with 7. I believe Yellow vine disease is to blame. I just hope and pray that I have at least one pumpkin make it to a weigh-off. My giant melons look doomed as I have been unable to control the voles under the landscape fabric. The mice have been chewing up the roots and the plants are really compromised, the leaves are curling and the vines are limp. Arggh. Maybe I can get a giant tomato or field pumpkin..... that just doesn't get me that excited. It seems too soon to be thinking about next year. I am hoping for the best but feel like I am in a sinking ship here. I will fight till the end.   Saturday, July 14 View Page With some empty space left behind from the removed pumpkin vines. I did some planting today. I did two rows of heirloom cukes and 2 rows of some heirloom summer squash. That I got from Baker's Creek and Comstock Ferre Seeds in Wethersfield CT. I also put in a late planting of Sweet corn. It is the 'Mr. Mini Mirai' from Harris seeds. This is my first year growing that variety, supposedly it is very good. This is a week later than I have ever planted sweet corn here. The way the summer is going, it should not be a problem to get a crop by late September, early October. We need rain bad! Hopefully we will get some showers tomorrow.   Thursday, July 19 View Page Only one plant left with no Yellow Vine disease. My hopes are now pinned on growing a giant tomato or field pumpkin. I will have to come up with some sort of a plan for next year to deal with this YVD. My condolences to all growers who deal with this problem. (and all other season ending problems.) Ironically I have two large plots of winter squash and field pumpkins and also several 30' rows of summer squash and cucumbers. They seem to be doing O.K. Could the Atlantic Giant's be the most prone to this infection? Based on what I have seen I would have to say, Yes. I am hoping to get some pics up sometime this year. LOL   Thursday, July 19 View Page O.K. I finally had the time to get some pictures of the patch. This is a picture of the 1193 Snyder with yellow vine disease, the plant has not grown and continues to hang on to life. No fruit will set either, also any fruit you do have that are set will abort regardless of size. Keep in mind I did not send out any tissue samples to a lab. My diagnosis is based solely on the symptoms the plants are showing. Brother Dave Cantrell describes the disease really well in his 2010 diary.   Thursday, July 19 View Page Yellow vine disease on my 1311 Fletcher. This plant was an absolute beast and was going to give me my personal best too. When this plant contracted the bacteria it really stung hard. NOTE: In my last diary entry I meant to say the YVD description is in Dave Cantrell's 2011 diary. I get the years all mixed up. I can't believe it's 2012 already. We should be living on the moon or in space stations by now! At least that is what they used to tell us in school when I was a kid. LOL The world has certainly changed though, I could have never imagined this internet thing. It has changed the world for both good and bad.   Thursday, July 19 View Page You can have healthy looking leaves and sick looking leaves on the same plant. Here is a healthy one on the 1311.   Thursday, July 19 View Page And a sick looking one on the 1311   Thursday, July 19 View Page A picture of the stunted vine tips. Another symptom.   Thursday, July 19 View Page My Son Ethan's 1426 Wolf today. What a shame! It is starting to abort now. This one was really starting to gain weight rapidly.   Thursday, July 19 View Page So far the only plant that has not shown symptoms is the 1144 Bosworth. This pumpkin is still growing at the moment. It would be nearly a miracle to see it make it. But you never know.   Thursday, July 19 View Page 1144 Stem end.   Thursday, July 19 View Page 1144 Bosworth plant. It has some major leaf damage. I am not sure if it is fungal in origin or what.   Thursday, July 19 View Page Here is a healthy plot of winter squash. There are C. maxima types in here such as buttercup, hubbard, pink banana and others. But still no sign of YVD.   Thursday, July 19 View Page Enough with the depressing talk about Yellow vine disease, Let's look at some healthy garden pictures. Things are doing well despite the dry hot weather. I have been able to provide just enough water to keep things going. Also I am thankful no hail or tornadoes have come this way so far. Crazy weather!   Thursday, July 19 View Page Okra in front chard in the background. Chard is a good green to have through the summer heat. Keep the older leaves picked and keep pruning off the diseased leaves or ones with leaf miners and the chard will look good all through the summer and into the fall.   Thursday, July 19 View Page More chard with kale in the background. Kale is a green you can literally enjoy almost year round. It manages the heat and laughs at the bitter cold of winter.   Thursday, July 19 View Page New to me this year is malabar spinach, this went into the garden after the peas got ripped out. I had transplants ready to go in the ground around the 20th of June. It has not started to climb yet. I have heard it is very slimy when cooked sort of like Okra. I guess it can be eaten raw too. I will let you know the verdict when I try it. If nothing else the plants are gorgeous with glossy dark green leaves.   Thursday, July 19 View Page This is a row of heirloom muskmelons (cantelopes) One of my favorite crops to grow. They should be nice and sweet if this dry weather continues.   Thursday, July 19 View Page This melon is going to be a monster. It is the variety 'Old Time Tennessee' from Baker Creek seeds.   Thursday, July 19 View Page These are 'Halona' muskmelons. One of the best new hybrids. Very prolific and they taste great too.   Thursday, July 19 View Page These are my 'Carolina Cross' melons. The plants are on landscape fabric, which the voles have gotten under and have caused a lot of damage. Through persistent watering I have gotten these to persist. I don't think anything special will come out of this patch. But I will not quit on them. Even a bunch of 50 pounders will be fun to eat.   Thursday, July 19 View Page I planted this melon as a last ditch effort to grow a giant melon after it became evident that the voes were causing severe damage to my outdoor plants. I had this 209 Holloway plant stagnating in the greenhouse, in a 2 quart pot. I layed a tarp on the bench and covered it with straight compost. Hopefully I can keep this melon healthy in here and get one to grow for me. Mites are a big problem in the greenhouse and will have to be managed. If it does work I will be thrilled to have it, as it was planted in it's spot around July 14th. You will never know if something will work until you try it.   Thursday, July 19 View Page 84 Ciesielski giant field pumpkins. These are displaying the same mottled leaf type that I love.   Thursday, July 19 View Page The first set on the 84. Nice and long like a zucchini. These were direct seeded on memorial day, you can see that they grow fast!   Thursday, July 19 View Page A July 6th Sowing of 'Mr. Mini Mirai' sweet corn. The late planted corn always comes so quick.   Thursday, July 19 View Page So I planted one more planting around July 14th. Just to make sure I finished the season out until the end. Around here you need to grow a rust resistant variety to withstand the cool mornings of September. Hopefully 'Mr. Mini Mirai' will work.   Thursday, July 19 View Page 'Fordhook 242' Lima Beans, a must have for succotash. Homemade succotash is probably the dish I enjoy the most from the garden. It is nothing like the garbage you get in the store or even restaurants for that matter. It's simple to make too. E-mail me if you want the recipe, it's nothing fancy. But well worth the trouble.   Thursday, July 19 View Page 'Super Sheperd' pepper. It is very sweet and also prolific.   Thursday, July 19 View Page This is a 'Shintosa Camelforce' squash plant. It is an intergeneric f1 hybrid commonly used as a rootstock for grafting watermelons in Asia. I think it is a C. maxima x C. moschata hybrid cross. I didn't know you could do that? Anyhow I am growing one out to see what the fruit look like and to possibly see how the f2 offspring work for grafting next year. Dennis Masterson was kind enough to get me some seeds, I know they were not easy to find. This plant is growing entirely on a pile of compost. The roots spread out across the whole pile! I didn't know they would do that. It makes me realize how compacted my regular soil is for the 'Atlantic Giants'. I will have to work on that for next year.   Thursday, July 19 View Page This is my Jala maize sent to me from Iowa's Pumpkin-man Dan. It is my first year having access to the Jala strain. I can't wait to see what it can do. When it was about a foot tall it started to shrivel up an turn purple. I then found out that the roots were being eaten by voles. I sprinkled some wolf urine granules around the base and watered heavily. They have recovered and look good now.   Thursday, July 19 View Page These watermelons are in a place where they get no additional water other than what nature provides. I almost lost these to the cuke beetles in May and early June. (as I did all my cucurbits) Fortunately they recovered somewhat, many of them had to be re-seeded in June. Hopefully we can still get a crop, even if it comes late. The ones on the left are the 'Dixie Queen' melons on 'Shintosa Camelforce' roots. As you can see they look superior to the rest which were all about the same size when they went in. So far I like what I see in the grafted plants.   Thursday, July 19 View Page These are field pumpkins and squash. Also in a spot where water is not available. If they get some rain they are poised to take off. These were hit really hard by the cuke beetles!   Thursday, July 19 View Page And lastly a shot of the future fall garden. All the Crucifer's (broccolli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi) are seeded and will be ready to set out at the end of the month. I hope you have enjoyed this virtual tour of my garden as much as I have enjoyed writing it.   Saturday, July 28 View Page From left to right banana peppers, 'Eight Ball' hybrid squash and Costata Romanesco zucchini. The 'Eight Ball' squash is an incredibly early summer squash. It takes a little over a month, maybe 38-40 days and you are picking little round zucchini's. When they get big they look just like an unripe sugar pumpkin. The 'Costata Romanesco' zucchini grows on a very large bush and they have the best taste of any zucchini I have grown. Almost a slightly nutty flavor. I had no idea that one type of zucchini would have better flavor than another. I thought they were all the same.   Saturday, July 28 View Page I have not had much look getting fruit to set on my field pumpkins, all the fruit have turned yellow and aborted. I don't know what is going on. The plant looks healthy enough. I will have nice big plants if I ever get one to take.   Saturday, August 25 View Page This is the grafted stump on the 183 Cantrell. The stump is huge, you can see a bic pen coming out of it on the top of the picture for a size reference. A large portion of this plant had to be removed as it collapsed. Oddly enough the rest of the plant has managed to survive and I have harvested a couple nice melons off of it to eat. There is one melon left on this plant which looks pretty much done.   Saturday, August 25 View Page Here is another shot of the stump on the 183 graft. Notice the green snakelike thing on the bottom right. That is a root! The shintosa camelforce squash rootstock definitely changed the appearance of the melon vines growing off of it. The melon vines had a larger diameter than I have ever seen on a melon. The outer growing portions of the plant looked pretty much the same as a regular melon though.   Saturday, August 25 View Page This is the last melon on the grafted plant. What a chunk! Overall this season has been a real trial for me, with all my giant vegetables, not just the melons. I really don't have anything to brag about this year.... BUT I don't use systemics on the melons so we have been able to enjoy eating them. Who needs seedless melons when you can carve out a massive heart off a Carolina Cross?   Saturday, August 25 View Page This is the biggest melon in the patch, it is a 234 Berry. It was measured last week and it was around 80 pounds or so. There is not much of a plant left for it to grow on, so I don't know if it will reach 100 or not. I can't complain, this is the plant that was hit the hardest by voles eating the roots. It was wilting really bad every day for a couple of weeks. The plant managed to survive and still grow a melon for us.   Saturday, August 25 View Page A picture of what is left of the melon patch. Can you believe that I used landscape fabric and it still ended up as weedy as that. I really love growing melons and it kills me to have had such a disappointing year. The weather would have been super for me to grow a personal best and meet my goal of 200 pounds. I feel like a baseball player who just missed a pitch right down the middle. grrrr. Next year I don't think I will be using the fabric as we just have too many mice that love to hide and feed under it. The cats just don't stand a chance at catching them.   Saturday, August 25 View Page Jala maize is starting to tassel I think I may get some around 15' or so. The corn in the background is the 'Mr mini Mirai' I planted on July 6th. Things have grown very fast this year with all the heat.   Saturday, August 25 View Page An 84 Ciesielski field pumpkin. All the fruit are long and misshapen like this. I had high hopes for this seed but I am disappointed with what I have seen.   Sunday, August 26 View Page A late planting of tomatoes with late blight.   Sunday, August 26 View Page Plenty of early tomatoes though. This is 'Better Boy' I get tremendous yield from this variety.   Sunday, August 26 View Page 'Golden Queen' tomato a small yellow heirloom type, just about done.   Sunday, August 26 View Page This little melon was just set on the greenhouse watermelon. It was my last hope to grow a melon this year. My biggest problem will be keeping the mites down. They are already at the base of the plant. For some reason they seem to thrive in the greenhouse. They are not as big a problem outdoors. That is the problem with greenhouses, they provide a great environment for overwintering disease carrying insects.   Sunday, August 26 View Page These are 'Georgia Jet' Sweet potatoes. These didn't go in the ground until July 14th. I am not sure if they will yield a crop or not as the planting date is a month later than I would normally choose to plant. The place that I had ordered my sets from sold out and I had to make a last minute order around the fourth of July. The plants didn't arrive until the 13th of July. They went in the next day. I have a couple things going for me. The 'Georgia Jets' are the fastest maturing variety that I have found. In fact you really don't want to leave them in the ground for too long because they get huge and split right open. The other advantage I have is that the temps have been good and I have them on black plastic. Now lets just hope the voles don't get them all. That has happened before, actually more than once.   Saturday, September 15 View Page These are the 'Dixie Queen' melons grown on the grafted 'Shintosa camelforce' rootstock. They outperformed the other varieties grown on their own roots. They are nice and solid fruits. I will have to give the grafting another shot next year as I had some success with it. Although I would say it is still hard to tell if it is the holy grail for growing giant melons. My results with the Carolina Cross were inconclusive the only really impressive thing that I have seen from it is the diameter of the stump and vines coming off of the stump. They are huge!   Saturday, September 15 View Page Here is a shot of the 1144 Bosworth in the patch before harvest. It wound up weighing 854.6 pounds at the Bethlehem Fair. I am guessing it went quite heavy. I am not sure as I only measured once at the end of August and it was taping 677 then. I am very pleased that this pumpkin made it to the end. This pumpkin was the only one that didn't contract Yellow Vine Disease. It wound up getting second place! I didn't expect to even place!   Saturday, September 15 View Page Another shot of the 854.6.   Monday, September 17 View Page I cut into the Carolina Cross melon that was grown on a grafted rootstock. The flesh was solid as a rock all the way across, there was no "cross" shaped hollow heart at all. Generally speking, Most of my Carolina Crosses have hollow hearts. (All were hollow this year) I am thinking that the grafts do a better job of filling out the melon and this could be why the Italian record melons have been going heavy. This is pretty interesting to me.   Wednesday, December 26 View Page Well 2012 didn't turn out as good as I had hope , but I was very happy to get at least one Atlantic Giant to a scale. In this picture The Atlantic Giant is the 854 pounder I grew on the 1144 Bosworth. The field pumpkin was in the 65 pound range and it was grown off my 84 Ciesielski 11 seed. The 84 produced these long narrow fruit. The little white field pumpkin was a hybrid seed from Stokes seed co. ( I can't remember the variety.)   Wednesday, December 26 View Page Another angle of the pumpkins.   Wednesday, December 26 View Page I am looking forward to growing some big and orange next year. Just like this one from 09. Merry Christmas and Happy New year to everyone!