Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 12 Entries. Saturday, January 11 View Page Happy New Year to everyone. May everyone grow a personal best in their patch this coming season. Patch prep is in progress with 6 to 8 inches of leaves over the patch and a modest amount of manure added on top. Still neee to till it in and get a cover crop planted in the coming weeks. The weather has been outstanding with lows in the 30's and 40's and highs in the 70's and 80's and even reaching into the low 90's a couple times in the last month. I'll take that over freezing any day.   Monday, February 24 View Page Chris, plans for secret weapons and covert patch operations are in full swing in my patch and in Jims patch. We've been watching your operations and have had to come up with some counter measures to try and best the madman pumpkin grower to the north of us.   Thursday, April 3 View Page Just saw your diary post Chris. You need to get some help buddy! For some strange reason I get the feeling you are TOTALLY hooked on growing giant pumpkins ;-0 I have one plant going right now that is just starting to vine out but its a volunteer plant. I am going to have to get my seed incubator fired up and do some testing in the next week or two.   Saturday, April 12 View Page Time to get it in gear.   Tuesday, April 15 View Page Patch is ready to go but I won't be planting till next month. Still waiting for a "secret weapon" or two to arrive in the mail. And Chris, it's not motor oil. haha.   Thursday, May 15 View Page Wildfires burning everywhere around here. I can't ever recall having Santa Ana winds in May. That usually happens from Oct. thru Jan. We've had two Santa Ana wind events in the last couple weeks. My weather station says we started out at 59° this morning and then got up to 109° this afternoon. My plant is ready to go in the ground but I don't want it to get cooked in this heat. It should start cooling off in a day or two.   Sunday, May 18 View Page It's go time! Here she is, the 1985 Miller. I hope she grows me a nice big heavy one. She was transplanted on the evening of the 15th...which was our 109° day. Although the crazy high temps of the past week are gone we are swinging the other way with temps this week expected to be 10-20 degrees below normal for this time of the year.   Sunday, May 18 View Page This is mine and Jims pollinator plant we hope to make some nice crosses with. It is the 1491.5 Werner (1730.5 Werner X 1770 Lieber) Special thanks goes out to Quinn for sending out some seeds on very short notice. THANK YOU QUINN!!! Our plan is to make crosses involving the 1985 Miller, the 980 Fredricks and the 1491.5 Werner in every way we can.   Thursday, June 12 View Page I'm really impressed with this product. My plant looks great!   Monday, June 16 View Page One month from transplanting into the patch, the 1985 Miller is looking real healthy and growing fast. Vine burying is in full swing. I have a feeling this plant is going to bust down its patch fence and grow all over the place like last years plant did. The 1985 seems to be a jumbo size plant with large leaves and thick vines. I hope that equals a jumbo size pumpkin too!   Tuesday, July 1 View Page Pollinated second pumpkin on the main about 18' out today with 980 Fredricks. Not sure if this is the one I will go with. Another pollination will take place in a few days. I'm hoping I have some males from the 1491 Werner to do the job. The 1491 didn't have any males to use today.   Tuesday, July 22 View Page I thought I would have a little fun today and do an experiment to see if I could actually watch my pumpkin grow in real time. I placed my measuring indicator up against the side of the pumpkin and watched to see if I could observe the dial moving as the pumpkin grows. The indicator reads in .0001 of an inch increments. Sure enough, I could watch the dial move as the pumpkin grew. The dial doesn't move constantly, its more like very small bursts of grow at a time. I watched as it grew .0008 then it would stop for a bit then grow .0005 the stop for a bit then grow again. I guess at this resolution I am watching cell division. Anyway, it was a fun experiment. Today is day 20 and she is 78.25" circ with an OTT of 191. Right at the same pace as last years pumpkin.