Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 34 Entries. Tuesday, April 8 View Page The snow is melting fast today. Last years pumpkin just re-appeared a lot flatter than when I put it into the garden.   Tuesday, April 8 View Page Today is going to be seed starting day. Starting a week earlier than usual as I found that my garden gets almost no sunlight by the middle of August so I need to get more growing in earlier. Not sure how well this will work for me since it means more heating early on but we'll see. Going to start these two.   Tuesday, April 8 View Page This Stevens 1783 is pretty white and hollow on the end but I'm hoping it'll germ.   Tuesday, April 8 View Page I got the germing temperature just right on top of my old router.   Monday, May 5 View Page Plants in the ground today - cold and wet outside but I needed to get them out of their pots and into the ground. Hope they do OK. 1783 on the left and 1387 on the right.   Tuesday, May 6 View Page Snow on the ground this morning - hope the plants are warm and snug in their hoop house.   Wednesday, May 21 View Page A week of good weather and better temperature regulation in the hoop house and both plants are now looking good. The 1387 Hopkins is easily the strongest plant of the two. I was rooting for the 1783 to be the plant this year but it doesn't look like that will happen.   Friday, May 23 View Page Today I found someone to give the 1783 Stevens plant to - I'm glad since I hate terminating a plant. The 1387 Hopkins is on the ground and running now. Main is at around 3' with good daily growth.   Wednesday, June 11 View Page took the hoop house off today. Still cool out but the sun is so strong it was burning the leaves.   Saturday, June 14 View Page cool spring - waiting for some decent growing weather. I started a week earlier and am almost a week behind last year now. Other than things being slow the plant looks OK   Monday, June 23 View Page plant is starting to really take off as the days are getting a little warmer.   Monday, June 23 View Page First girls are just showing up. Should be go time in a week.   Tuesday, July 1 View Page Just as I feared when I went away for the long weekend - the first female was open when I got home. I suspect it just opened in the morning and I gave pollination a shot at 8PM - we'll see if it takes - I have my doubts. Next one on the main should open in a couple days.   Tuesday, July 1 View Page Plant is really growing fast now. I went away 4 days and the pruning required to keep it in it's little area is huge. Another week or two and I think the plant will cover it's designated area fully.   Monday, July 7 View Page Plant is doing great but pollinations are dicey. First one on July 1 is not looking good. Second one on July 3rd in an awkward spot on a secondary but growing great. Two more pollinations on July 5th after 50mm of rain the night before seem to be taking. I had the girls covered but ended up pollinating with pollen paste rather than powder.   Tuesday, July 8 View Page Plant on July 8th   Sunday, July 13 View Page Plant on July 13. Almost covering its entire allotment of garden. Having to do a lot of terminating of secondaries and tertiaries as I try to limit its space. Down to two contenders. The July 3 on a secondary and July 5 on the main.   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Everything is looking good now. July 5 on main is starting to grow faster than July 3. Unfortunately I didn't think that July 5 would take so I didn't really do the proper vine work or pruning around it. Will need to do a lot of positioning work to make this one go.   Saturday, July 19 View Page Today I culled my pumpkin on the secondary at around 34" circumference it weighed 21.4 lbs. I'm going all in with the one on the main - today at day 14 it's 33" circumference and putting on more than 3" per day. It is now the chosen one for the quest for 500#!   Wednesday, July 23 View Page The keeper at 18 DAP. 45" circ. 117 OTT. So far this pumpkin is almost a perfect sphere...   Wednesday, July 23 View Page overview of the whole garden - sunflowers are over 10' tall and showing no signs of slowing. Pumpkin has filled it's allotment of space (which unfortunately is less than 200 sq ft) and looks good.   Wednesday, July 30 View Page Day 25, 181" OTT, 137 lbs - nice hot weather has ramped up growth. Adding 10" OTT a day the last few days.   Wednesday, July 30 View Page biggest stump I've ever had.   Wednesday, July 30 View Page Garden overview - sunflowers are over 11' tall now. Big storm last week beat them down a little and broke one.   Sunday, August 10 View Page Left town for 10 days for a family vacation and came back tonight to a much bigger pumpkin than when I left. 10 day growth from day 26 to 36 was about 218lbs. Currently 105" circumference and 254ott for an estimated weight of 367. This thing has a really short stem so if it keeps up this growth there could be a problem - time will tell...   Thursday, August 14 View Page Day 40. All looks good. Currently 263ott (112/76/75) for an estimated weight of 405lbs. Lots of time left to hit my goal of 500lbs - lets hope it keeps growing for the next six weeks to blow past that!   Wednesday, August 27 View Page Two weeks since my last post and the pumpkin is still growing steadily. Averaging around 13lbs per day. It was at 15 per day but some cool cloudy weather the past week slowed the growth. One night it went down to almost zero - in fact it bottomed out at -2 at the airport. All is still looking good. Vine is really tight to the pumpkin on account of the short stem and it's size but I think it should be fine as long as the pumpkin keeps growing the way it is. Currently I'm at 298 OTT with an estimated weight of about 580lbs. My biggest ever - just need it to stay intact until Smoky Lake in 5 weeks.   Wednesday, August 27 View Page August weather and the growth to date.   Friday, August 29 View Page 55 DAP - Uncharted territory for me now. OTT 302" estimated weight 605lbs. While my published goal was 500lbs I've kinda had a secret goal of getting on OTT over 300". Still getting 10+ lbs a day in spite of the cool weather. Crossing my fingers that it all holds together for another month. The plant is finding it's own way to find more light - a tertiary has climbed to the top of the sunflower closest to the fence, it terminated it but now a quaternary vine is starting to head onto the roof of the shed!   Tuesday, September 2 View Page 59 DAP - 310 ott. Almost impossible to accurately get a front to back measure now so the ott is a bit of a guess. Still packing on some weight. Starting to cool off a lot at 53.5 degrees north, down to below 5°C the next few nights. I'm not too concerned about getting a lot more growth now I just want to have everything stay healthy for another month.   Thursday, September 18 View Page Well on September 9th I had to go away for a 10 day business trip. The forecast wasn't good but I had my fingers crossed that the light frost being predicted wouldn't happen. When I got up that morning it was snowing! I went out and threw some plastic sheets on the plant hoping for the best. Three days where the temp never got above 8° and went down to about -4°C and this is what I've got left for a plant. There's only about three good leaves that were low to the ground. I'm going to leave the pumpkin on the vine in it's protected little cave and hope that it stays rot free. Too bad - I think it had a little growing still left in it.   Tuesday, October 7 View Page Season is wrapped up now. Personal best for me and goal of growing a 500 lb pumpkin achieved. Finished 5th at Smoky Lake with a weight of 601 lbs. Weights were light compared to previous years at the weigh off probably due to the challenging conditions this year. Only disappointment is that the pumpkin was taping over 700lbs but I put the light weight down to the plant being killed by frost in the first week of September. Pumpkin was probably losing weight since then. What did I learn in 2014 (notes for me because otherwise I'll forget): 1) Early start is good - it's easy to handle extreme weather when the pumpkin is in the hoop house. 2) Need to automate temperature control in hoop house in spring - let the temps get too high on a couple occasions. 3) Need to improve overhead watering - patchy coverage with existing sprinklers. 4) Humic/kelp/sulfur added to watering in July/August - no PM this year 5) Go Orange next year - tired of people asking why my pumpkin is yellow.   Tuesday, October 14 View Page Got a soil test done - I really don't know how to interpret this at all. If anyone has any advice please email me.   Friday, October 31 View Page Well this is it for this years diary. My pumpkin didn't really make it to Halloween. It started to rot in the garage last week. I hacked away the mushiest pieces keeping about a third that would still stand up. I carved it but it was pretty gross and soft. I' think it made the half jack-o-lantern even scarier - I did get a lot of good comments on it from the trick or treaters. All the seeds had started to sprout inside the pumpkin so no seeds from this one.