Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 33 Entries. Tuesday, July 24 View Page Well, way behind on diary. THis is a pic of a new facet of my giant vegetable growing--big maters. This bloom was about ten days ago on a 6.5 meisner. the blooms are definitely impressive on these. I have two 6.5 meisner, two 4.46 marley, and one each of 5.5 meisner and 3.96 osmala.   Tuesday, July 24 View Page i also have a 114 martin long gourd, 63 lorson field pumpkin and 905 v-m squash at the house and a few others at my patch at work. the regular patch has a 1486* jarvis, 1647 wallace, 81 wolf and others. they have taken it tough because of groundhogs and deer.   Sunday, August 12 View Page the boys and I at the best ballpark in baseball--got to see a grand slam and a buccos victory....60 days to altoona weighoff by my count. hoping to have something in the game. plenty of aborts before d10 to report and not much else. long gourd plant growing like crazy and starting to see some respectable tomatoes.   Tuesday, August 21 View Page best one so far--sitting at about 17.5 cc. should have a few more weeks to grow. on 6.5 MeisnerA plant.   Tuesday, August 21 View Page something besides tomatoes hiding in the foliage. this one at 16 cc and about a week and a half behind the previous pic. on 5.5 meisner plant   Tuesday, August 21 View Page Dad grew a nice one on my 63 Lorson 10 seed and lost it last week to a BES. weighed 96#. he was disappointed he lost it, but got more disappointed when i told him the site record at altoona was 96.5#. no seeds saved--open pollination and he had other regular field pumpkins growing   Friday, August 24 View Page went out looking for supper and ate well. almost six pounds in about an hour. a new PB smallmouth. over 2.5 #   Tuesday, August 28 View Page never give up!   Tuesday, August 28 View Page pretty good plant behind it--ready to take on some bigger gains now. had another downpour sunday. upper 80's today and nice for the next week. no lower than 60 at night.   Tuesday, August 28 View Page apparently i can't count past 35. my count was off...today marks 40 days to altoona weighoff.   Wednesday, September 5 View Page not a great picture, but you get the idea. should go over 200 today. 20+ pound gains the last couple. PB is 343.5 so hoping to beat that. it almost got harvested last night when my daughter decided it would be a good idea to stand ON the stem.   Thursday, September 6 View Page kids were harvesting sunflower seeds while I was cutting maters for salsa.   Thursday, September 6 View Page thought it might go closer to three pounds, but ended up at 2.38 pounds. call it a PB, never made an attempt at growing big tomatoes before. was grown off the 6.51 Meisner Delicious seed.   Thursday, September 6 View Page second tomato was 1.81# grown off the 5.5 meisner seed--cant remember if this seed was MegaMarv, Brutus Magnum or which variety. still have some coming, and i would really like to get a new PB and break 3#.   Monday, September 10 View Page couple more tomatoes--couldnt bring myself to cull one or the other, so they both suffered. both on the same 3.96 osmala plant.   Monday, September 24 View Page pretty nice one on a rebel crayfish lure. gave my boy a pretty good fight. 5 years old and holding that fish like a bassmaster classic champion.   Tuesday, September 25 View Page waiting for a weighoff on the 6.51 Meisner. should easily be a PB. 22.5 inches cc. picture doesnt do it justice.   Tuesday, September 25 View Page vine issue ive been battling on the same 6.51 meisner plant. about a foot off the ground. has still kept the tomato growing even with the split. seems that it may have been a result of blight--the bottom leaves started to croak at the same time.   Tuesday, September 25 View Page squash on DAP 45. slow growth. just happy to have a fruit at this point.   Tuesday, September 25 View Page front view. you can see i had vine issues on this one also--started splitting at about ay 10 at the stem junction and slowly split up to the first leaf node. very happy with the look of the squash though.   Tuesday, October 9 View Page kids rearranged these squash about 8 times in the last week   Tuesday, October 9 View Page loaded up for altoona   Tuesday, October 9 View Page pretty big tomato. ended up 4.78. grown off 6.51 meisner delicious   Tuesday, October 9 View Page 4.78 Lorson 2012. my new mark to beat.   Tuesday, October 9 View Page about 12 pounds represented here. from left to right, 3.98, 4.78 and 3.33. the one in the middle is from 6.51 meisner and the other two are from two separate 4.46 marley plants. all delicious variety.   Tuesday, October 9 View Page last pose with the squash. ended up 331#, grown from 905 vincent-mcgill, got lots of comments on the color. squash was third at altoona and tomato was second.   Tuesday, October 9 View Page after the weighoff, my oldest boy got the opportunity to shoot his first squirrel at 8 yrs old and delivered. it was exciting for him and me.   Tuesday, October 9 View Page ended up with two for the day.   Wednesday, October 10 View Page my long gourds were down a little compared to the competition. only about 4 feet shorter than first place. that's what happens when the world record is measured at the weighoff you attend. i still have one at the house that will be a pb.   Saturday, October 20 View Page not a great story but a decent PA bow buck.   Saturday, October 20 View Page to make something look bigger, put it next to something small. trying to get this picture was funny, thought she might drop them. My 4.78 Lorson 2012 ended up number 10 in GPC this year. pretty happy with that for first year growing them. i have seeds available from these two maters as well as a 2.3# megamarv for anyone who wants them.   Tuesday, October 30 View Page Happy Halloween!   Tuesday, October 30 View Page too little too late, but still a new PB. cut it down before big storm sandy came through--i guarantee she would have taken it down for me. ended up at 105.5. about a foot and a half better than my previous PB.