Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 36 Entries. Friday, March 23 View Page Well I guess it is time to start this year's diary. My wife and I had a blast in Vegas and were lucky enough to meet some of you in the pumpkin community. This year we have expanded are pumpkin garden and also have the same vegetable garden. The vegetable garden had a winter crop of spinach, lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. We also started a large crop of diffeerent kinds of yellow and red onions. About a week ago we planted 8 store bought tomatos but we will struggle getting them going with lows in the low 40's at night. This year has been very dry but we did get about 3 inches last weekend. The garden did drain well though. Yesterday we planted zucchini and summer squash seeds.   Friday, March 23 View Page This is the fall soil test. The N is so high because I made a mistake last year and added some fertilizer from Lowe's that had tons of N in it. I wanted to get my OM up so we added some compost over the winter and also some Sulphur to get our pH down.   Friday, March 23 View Page This is the first soil test we did this spring. I say first because we have taken another test after redoing the patch. Another rookie mistake, adding untested soil, caused my salinity to go through the roof.   Friday, March 23 View Page I decided to correct these problems I created and also increase the size of the pumpkin garden. To do this wooden chicken coop on the right of this picture would need to be removed.   Friday, March 23 View Page Then we would get rid of the hard pan the previous owner had piled along the fence.   Friday, March 23 View Page You can see the difference between the red dirt on the right and the garden soil on the left.   Friday, March 23 View Page The chicken manure from the coop was removed and put in the compost pile. All dirt containing base rock, concrete or asphalt was removed along the edges to increase the size of the garden. The garden soil was piled up in the center of the garden. We then brought in a load of composted cow manure from a local dairy and two loads of tested top soil that was low in N and salinity, but high in magnesium. We mixed all of this together and laid it down in the new expanded garden. Another soil test was submitted and we are awaiting the results.   Friday, March 23 View Page Picture of our subsoiler for Windy City.   Saturday, March 24 View Page The next soil test came back and now I am getting confused. The Nitrogen fell, which we expected. The OM fell from 3.5 to 2.5 even though we added 20 yards of composted cow manure. The salinity increased from 3.0 to 3.2 and the pH went from 6.9 to 7.9.   Monday, March 26 View Page She has a lot of work ahead of her. Good thing it's cheap child labor.   Monday, March 26 View Page A farmer passing by couldn't stand the sight of the kids working that hard and decided to help out.   Monday, March 26 View Page Is this a good sign?   Monday, March 26 View Page It's so purdy! The garden was expanded to about 2,650 sq ft. Now I have to decide how many pumpkins and watermelons to plant.   Thursday, March 29 View Page I bought this bag of kelp meal through the local feed store.   Thursday, March 29 View Page I was ready to put it on until I read 9% salt. I don't think I am going to add it until the fall, if my ECe decreases by then.   Thursday, March 29 View Page This morning I picked up six 50 pound bag of Menefee Humate from Simplot. They have a location less than a mile from the yard.   Thursday, March 29 View Page Here is what is in it. Trying to decide how much to add the the 2,650 sf patch, the rest will go in the vegetable garden.   Monday, April 23 View Page About three weeks ago we added humate, peat, sulphur, molasses, liquid gypsum, copper sulfate, blood meal and solubor to the garden. Last night we started 3 pumpkin seeds; 1409.5 Miller, 562 Renninger, and 1451 Est Scherber. We also started two melons; 260.5 Clementz and 161 Blanton. Thank you everyone for the seeds. We soaked for 45 minutes and put them in seed starting mix with a little Mykos. The seeds were placed in plastic containers, then into a plastic bin with a light and digital temperature gauge. Good luck everyone.   Wednesday, April 25 View Page The two melons are up. No kins yet.   Tuesday, May 1 View Page All the kins came up the following day after the melons. Everything is now planted in the garden and the kins have their 2nd true leaf starting. Highs in the 70-80's lows in the 50's the next 10 days. We will use mini greehouses at night.   Friday, June 15 View Page I haven't posted in a while put I have been keeping up with the pumpkins and watermelons for the most part. Here is the irrigation system I am using. One timer runs the drip lines and the other will run the misters when I get it programmed, hopefully today. I also added a fertilizer injection system for the drip lines.   Friday, June 15 View Page The garden with pumpkins up front and watermelons in the back ground.   Friday, June 15 View Page We pollinated the first melon on the 161 Blanton with a 260.5 Clementz male.   Friday, June 15 View Page The Blanton was pollinated on 6/13. The 260.5 Clementz has grown a little faster than the Blanton. The first male should open up tomorrow. This picture is of the 562 Renninger. The main is growing quickly but the secondaries are lagging.   Friday, June 15 View Page 1409.5 Miller has one strong secondary but the others are also lagging. If necessary I will have some tertiaries off the strong secondary fill in the area.   Friday, June 15 View Page 1409.5 Miller has one strong secondary but the others are also lagging. If necessary I will have some tertiaries off the strong secondary fill in the area.   Friday, June 15 View Page The 1451 Scherber is our strongest growing plant and has a female at about 9 feet. If there are any males ready at the time we will pollinate it but I would prefer a couple feet farther out.   Thursday, June 21 View Page Self pollinated the 1409.5 Miller today. I was lucky to have any males at all. First pollination on this plant.   Monday, July 9 View Page Things are coming along but a little slower than last year, I planted later. A few things to remember for the off season. I need to get more shade cloth, even some to hang down from the sides. I have had a problem with squirrels. I think they have taken bites out of at least 4 kins and even terminated a main vine. Wind has also been a bigger problem than the past, I need to protect the patch from the North better. One kin is basketball size and the other two plants have 2 smaller pumpkins on each, it is almost decision time.   Sunday, July 15 View Page 562 Renninger   Sunday, July 15 View Page 1409.5 Miller   Sunday, July 15 View Page 1451 Est Scherber   Sunday, September 16 View Page Our 1409.5 Miller aborted in mid August. We skipped our local fair and saved our largest pumpkin (the 1451 Scherber)for an event in early October. Yesterday morning when we took off the sheet to check on the pumpkin we discovered a rotten area on the front, season over. Today we weighed it on our truck scale and it weighed in at 640 pounds. We were trying for a little bigger but we still beat our personel best of 550. Finally measurements are end to end 89, side to side 86 and circumference 134 for a 309 total.   Monday, September 17 View Page The rotten area.   Monday, September 17 View Page I can not keep the older leaves alive all season. This is what the vine looks like on each plant this time of year.   Monday, September 17 View Page We were bummed our season was over but we made the best of it. We still have some smaller AG's that we are growing for Halloween.