Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 30 Entries. Tuesday, February 18 View Page Here's what I've been doing this winter. This has been the best year of snowmobiling since I've been alive. The snowmobile in the picture is over 300 horsepower. To say it is exciting to ride is an understatement. I need to clear my mind of pumpkin growing at times and this is my winter hobby.   Monday, April 28 View Page 2328   Tuesday, May 27 View Page 2328 looking good.   Tuesday, May 27 View Page Despite one of the worst springs on record (I believe April was #1 worst ever) the plants are starting to look pretty decent.   Monday, June 2 View Page 3.25" rain yesterday. On top of already saturated soil. It's been a very very wet streak of weather.   Tuesday, June 24 View Page This is how it is. We have all time record rains so far this season. I have not burried a vine since June 7th. Saturday I was able to get in the patch and I removed on average 6-8' of main from each plant. This is my desperation attempt to get the secondaries to grow. All plants had the mains removed much like the pic attached. We will give it another week or so and see if the water wants to keep coming or if it will give us a shot.   Tuesday, June 24 View Page The good news is the 2328 is flowering and has great looking females and males. The pollen is out there so we should have some epic crosses to grow for next season. We will do everything we can to get something off the 2328 plant.   Monday, July 14 View Page First real pollination of the season today. 2009 x 2328.   Wednesday, July 16 View Page I burried vines yesterday for the first time in a LONNNNG time. I think 6 weeks. LOL.   Friday, July 18 View Page Tilling in the mustard today. It's a wierd year having a patch in a different spot. Also going to setup our redneck drip irrigation for 2014 soon. Not really in need of the standard drip irrigation...lol.   Friday, July 25 View Page Here's a picture of our biggest pumpkin. 2328 x self. You can see the redneck drip irrigation in the background. It's a leaky overhead sprinkler that drips all over the place. The lack of hope for a good season left the 8 plant drip system in the shed for the year. We have many other 2328 crosses including 2009, 1783, 1623, 1476, and I believe 1791. Too many to keep track without looking at what we have written down.   Tuesday, August 5 View Page 2328 x self 8-4-14 Obviously not what we wanted, but hopefully it's loaded with seeds.   Monday, August 18 View Page Here's a patch shot taken today. Last year after a brutal spring I was able to rally quite nicely at least with one pumpkin. This year there is no rally....lol. As you can see there are 8 plants and 8 pumpkins. Plants have been allowed to only fill about 400 sqft in an attempt to push the pumpkin. It's not working. You can see the empty unfilled patch areas at the end and sides of each plants. We do have some great crosses with the 2328 here and elsewhere. From lower left clockwise is the 2009, 2009, 1791, 1476, 1623, 1623, 2328, 1783. I believe out biggest is sitting in the high 300's (pounds not OTT). About 30 days old.   Monday, August 18 View Page Here's the 2328. This is set on probably a 3rd or 4th vine...LOL. Either way it's not on the main. All of our other pumpkins are on secondaries re-trained as mains..or secondaries. You can also see in this picture the original "center" section of the plant that was crushed by the early season rains. The leaves never did come back healthy.   Thursday, August 28 View Page Generally I enjoy standing next to my pumpkins as they are bigger and I can do that and they don't look small. That is not the case this year. So here's the 2328 taken today by my friend LL who's KICKING MY BUTT. It's actually turning out to be a nice pumpkin. About 500# est.   Friday, August 29 View Page As you can tell from the pic we didn't fill plant areas this year due to a month with no growth. We have all our mains terminated at the pumpkin, all the plants area about 400-500 sqft instead of 900, and the center of each plant is still the terrible stunted green. That said we have some pumpkins hitting just under 30# / day. Someone told me we have a chance at 1500 yet which I don't believe, but you never know. We will fight it out and see what happens. #1 and #2 at this point are 1623 and 2009. Go figure.   Tuesday, September 2 View Page First day of school pic #1. Kids keep getting bigger = pumpkins look smaller and smaller. This is one of our 1623's. Since everyone thinks they can go 430 OTT around here this one has to be at least 450. It might not look it, but my kids are getting big.   Tuesday, September 2 View Page First day of school pic #2. I know I know....they don't look THAT big, but my kids are big and the pumpkins are long. I think this one is just over 460. Still doing about 28 / day. This is one of 2 we have on the 2009.   Tuesday, September 2 View Page That was my best Kevin Marsh impression by the way. Someone has to pick up the slack while he's away :) And yes that's a blossom split right under the nub of 1623. It's not into the cavity.   Friday, September 5 View Page I just couldn't deal with the tiny pumpkin first day of school pictures. So I went for a very short road trip yesterday with the kids to take some real pictures.   Monday, September 8 View Page Still.....8 plants, 8 pumpkins.   Monday, September 8 View Page I tried to post this the other day unsuccessfully apparently. Here's Kailey with a big one. You can also see a pumpkin in the background....just a little feller. Both the pumpkins in this picture are going to be much bigger than anything I've grown. Not....close.   Tuesday, September 23 View Page Here's a happy grower with some 2328 plant material. This material will be split up and cultured at UW River Falls. Possibly making lots of baby 2328 seedlings available for next spring.   Wednesday, September 24 View Page And here is the beginning of the tissue culture. Thanks for getting this going Tanner.   Tuesday, October 7 View Page Here's the final version of our 2328 x self.   Tuesday, October 7 View Page Stem end shot #1 2328 x self   Tuesday, October 7 View Page Stem end shot #2 2328 x self   Wednesday, October 8 View Page Full disclosure regarding 2328. As mentioned earlier in the diary we basically had a month to 6 weeks of zero patch work due to flooding in the patch. All our plants sat in water for that time. Somehow none of them died. I did a lot of complaining during that time and when Scott Steil came over to get pollen for his 2009 plant (see whopper in Stillwater this coming Saturday) I asked him what he thought. He said "it's 100 times worse than I imagined." LOL. 2328 should tape right around 900 pounds. It was the only pumpkin we were forced to grow on a secondary (of a secondary, of a secondary). All our other pumpkins were grown on a secondary retrained as a secondary retrained as a main :) Follow me?   Wednesday, October 8 View Page So the plan on Saturday is to take the 2328 and cut it open on the scale. If there are seeds we will hand a seed out to each club member if wanted as seed count permits. If there aren't enough seeds we will do the same with the 1623 x 2328 that's sitting on the trailer next to the 2328 in the pics above. Yup, generally it's a bad sign to be loaded for a weigh-off 4 nights in advance, but for us patch prep for next year's run is far more important than putting a few pounds on an 1100# pumpkin. Stay tuned for this weekend. Stillwater should be one of the most competitive events of all time.   Monday, October 13 View Page Good news on the genetic front. We retrieved about 400 seeds from the 886 (2328 x self) pumpkin that I believe will sprout. Some aren't pretty, many are full auction quality seeds. We also opened our 1127 (1623 x 2328) and that also had some seeds. Maybe 200? So at this point we have seeds, but not enough for everyone. I will have to think about where these will go. If Beni has poor counts and wishes to have some in Europe I will probably send a considerable amount his way. I have already passed out over 50 to our club members at Stillwater.