Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 47 Entries. Friday, April 25 View Page This is the beginning under grow lights in the kitchen. Isn't my wife understanding? lol   Sunday, May 4 View Page This is the setup. A 20 X 12 ft greenhouse with Netafim drip lines on a timer.   Wednesday, May 7 View Page I grew my own seed from last years' BC winner. A 1043 from a 1789 Wallace.   Thursday, May 8 View Page I grew my own seed from last years' BC winner. A 1043 from a 1789 Wallace.   Friday, May 9 View Page And this Cinderella in the Chan 1043.   Sunday, May 25 View Page We started with 2 plants and the smallest was culled. This is also what the babies looked like just before we took off on our holiday.   Sunday, June 1 View Page While touring Italy my good friend, Glenn Dixon, came over to tend the babies. The next pic will show you what a great job he did. Thanks a million, Glenn.   Monday, June 23 View Page This is the Chan 1043 almost 1 month later and I wasn't even here! Glenn and I have often said that "less is more". the 1043 was pollinated on June 26 th with a Chan 988.   Saturday, July 5 View Page Plants are doing very well with lots of female and male flowers. Interestingly, the male flowers are have very little pollen and are therefore,.... shooting blanks. I might have to do a midnight raid on Glenn Dixon's virile 1602.   Saturday, July 19 View Page Nothing too exciting but the patch is really spreading out and developing well. About 13 pairs of secondaries to the pumpkins.   Saturday, July 19 View Page This is the Chan 988 with 2 pumpkins set. The one on the right is number 1 and seems to be forming a "wheel". Number 2 on the left is a "football" shape and looks much nicer. Number 2 is also growing faster than the first so I need to make a decision in a couple of days to see which one I'll go with.   Saturday, July 19 View Page Chan 1043 doing nicely and was pollinated July 5th. The pumpkin size is behind last year but my plants are bigger this year. It is set at approximately 20 feet.   Wednesday, July 30 View Page This is the Chan 1043 on day 26. The main vine after the pumpkin looks like it will start to bind as the pumpkin grows so we made the decision to cut it off. If you look at the next picture you will see that the main vine is now set up so that it goes straight into the pumpkin. An ideal situation.   Wednesday, July 30 View Page This the Chan 988 with the complete main vine intact. The vine after the pumpkin is touching. If left, the pumpkin will start pushing on the vine and something will break. In the next picture you will see how the main vine goes into the stem perfectly after the main is cut off.   Wednesday, July 30 View Page The 988 with the main vine removed. The main vine and stem are now stress free to move and expand. Circ on the Chan 1043 is 89 ....well behind last year. However, the plant is 50% larger than last year so hopefully we will get a bigger push at the other end.   Friday, August 1 View Page The vine and pumpkin are now aligned almost perfectly. This should make a big difference as the pumpkin grows larger, especially if the pumpkin develops large shoulders.   Tuesday, August 5 View Page Sorry, but entry 16 should follow entry 13. Its the before the main vine is cut off and after.   Tuesday, August 5 View Page This is the Netafim drip irrigation system installed before the babies are planted. this system will be expanded as is necessary to irrigate the plant.   Tuesday, August 5 View Page The second irrigating system is a set of sprayer heads that will wet the whole plant with either plain water or from a 1000 liter tote containing all the secret boosters or foliars.One of the sprayers is in the middle of the leaves sitting on top of the 2x4.   Tuesday, August 5 View Page The sprinkler heads are fed from the 1000 l tote via this pump. Notice the sediment filter on the output side of the pump. Sprinkler heads have very fine mesh screens that can clog with debris so keeping the irrigating water as clean as possible is a good thing.   Tuesday, August 5 View Page With proper vine burying, good even irrigation, and appropriate fertilizers, this what the plant should look like.   Monday, August 11 View Page Had to perform a pumpkin autopsy on the Chan 988. Began as a perfectly shaped baby but started to grow into an odd shape and then cracked parallel to the stem. I should have documented the female to see if there was a correlation.   Monday, August 11 View Page You can see how uneven the thickness was throughout the whole pumpkin.   Monday, August 11 View Page Since there are no backups on the Chan 988 we will perform an experiment and cut the main vine at the stump to see how much the main stump roots contribute to a wholly developed plant.   Monday, August 11 View Page The Chan 1043 is doing well. This shows a tertiary of a tertiary....what would that be called? Its only 5 ft long and I'm using it to fill in a bare spot.   Monday, August 11 View Page This is the Chan 1043 and is the only pumpkin left in the patch.Fingers are crossed. Ott Aug 12th was 260.   Friday, August 15 View Page All the babies are doing well! OTT is 283 on Aug 18.   Tuesday, August 19 View Page Thanks to Glenn for the idea....this is my new fertigater. Now I can spray amendments or chemicals onto my leaves anytime I want, even if the 1000 liter tote is full. Starting to get some powdery mildew. Will spray 2 gallons of Infuse through the fertigater.   Wednesday, August 27 View Page Coming along slowly but surely. Very nice shape and color. Looks really heavy.   Monday, September 15 View Page A picture showing the adventitious roots (hope that's the right word) of a plant I pulled out because the pumpkin split open. Must be doing something right with the soil for those roots to be so big...eh?   Monday, September 15 View Page Both of my plants have issues with the older leaves especially those on the 1st, 2nd and third secondary vines. Does anyone have any ideas as to what may be causing this? Please email suggestions to 'janetanddave@shaw.ca' Thank you.   Tuesday, September 16 View Page About 3 days ago I decided to remove all the diseased? leaves and vines. The pumpkin is still growing.   Thursday, October 9 View Page I'm posting a few pics of my plant just for fun and to show the pumpkin plants in a slightly different way. this will be the main vine with secondaries leading up to teh winning pumpkin. you'll have to read to the end of the diary to find out the final weight. it was 148 lbs over the charts.   Thursday, October 9 View Page These were some of the tertiary vines with a (quaternary) 4th vine going to the left. Look for the water bottle to compare. These vines were BIG!   Thursday, October 9 View Page These are the secondary roots coming off the main vine. The secondary roots are bigger than roots from the stump! Must be very very important and demonstrates the need to stabilize and bury your vines so these secondaries can fully develop undisturbed.   Thursday, October 9 View Page It's too heavy for my pumpkin orange Kubota. Had to solicit the help of a good neighbor farmer with a much bigger tractor.   Thursday, October 9 View Page So this is the beginning of prepping for next year. After soil analysis showed low levels of calcium and magnesium, I cultivated in 300 lbs of gypsum, 15 lbs of 0-0-22(K Mag) and 10 lbs of Epsom salts.   Thursday, October 9 View Page We then sowed 45 lbs of fall rye cover crop.   Thursday, October 9 View Page Growing fall rye cover crop has always been a problem for me. I'm sure the birds get most of it so I sow 2 or 3 times the correct amount and usually end up with much less. This year I sowed 45 lbs for 1900 sq ft...a lot of seeds!   Thursday, October 9 View Page Btw the above picture shows half of the seeds raked in. I raked in much heavier than usual. My secret weapon this year was covering the rye seeds with Reemay. It should protect the seeds from the birds and have a small greenhouse effect.   Friday, October 10 View Page The patch looking good after hand raking in the fall rye seeds.   Friday, October 10 View Page This is my latest experiment. The patch is covered with Reemay to help the seeds germinate and to protect the seeds from birds. There's a murder of crows that frequent the patch daily. Hundreds! Love to eat fall rye seeds. So we covered the seeds with Reemay on the 10th and the seeds are germinating today , the 13th. Seems like a very good thing to do!   Sunday, October 12 View Page Weigh off day at Aldor Acres in Langley, BC. I'm standing with the chief organizer of the weigh off, Glenn Dixon. Thanks Glenn! Thanks also to his wife Andrea, who does most of the work but he gets the credit...lol. He is also my pumpkin mentor and I owe a great amount of my success to him. He can also be very annoying. I gave him my seeds and he grew a bigger one than me. My Chan 1043 produced this Chan 1040. Glenn grew my Chan 1043 and grew a Dixon 1124!! Oh well, that's the fun of pumpkin growing. Although the 1040 was only good enough for 4th place, the first 3 were all record breakers over 1100 lbs. My personal victory was growing over a 1000 lbs for 2 years in a row. Final stats on the Chan 1040: chart weight 892 final weight 1040 14% heavy. ( avg percentage for the last 5 years is 19 % heavy) See you all next year   Monday, October 13 View Page On the late afternoon of Oct 10th I covered the fall rye with Reemay. 3 days and germination is well underway with almost 100% success. That's much better than previous years !!! Well worth the effort. Will post future pics of the cover crop.   Wednesday, October 15 View Page http://youtu.be/ibEsx4fOLvo This a 5 minute YouTube video of my 4th place 1040 lb pumpkin at Aldor Acres in Langley, BC, Canada. It was taken and then edited by my son who was making the video unbeknownst to be as I was so busy with the contest. So when he called to say" check out " Dave Chan Giant Pumpkin 1040 lbs", I was totally shocked and surprised. There is a little bit of "Hollywood" in that it seems like I was the winner but in fact Scott Carly came in first with his 1177 pounder. And, Glenn Dixon came in 2nd and third with 1126 and 1124's. Wow!! 2 - 1100 pounders in one year in a a small, approximately 900 sq ft patch!!! I think he has some secrets!! lol.   Friday, October 17 View Page Nice to see the amount of germination in 1 week!   Tuesday, October 21 View Page I think the experiment worked!...only 12 days! I'll need to use a combine harvester in the spring...lol.