Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 66 Entries. Wednesday, January 1 View Page Courtesy of IanP I can use this pic of his last yearīs diary entries to show the effect of a decent S-curve. As my sketch shows, the fruit will grow in ALL DIRECTIONS, it will push the vine backwards and its stem will lift the vine. With a good S-curve this part of the vine will be lifted as an arch as the stem pushes back the vine, and with a pretty sharp S-curve the number of leaf nodes which need to get rid of their tap roots (as the fruit grows and the vine is lifted) will thus be limited to a minimum.   Saturday, March 29 View Page Got "Ö"? This year again, there will be more than just pömpkins, there will be carröts on the patch as well.   Sunday, April 20 View Page This is my 150 sqft patch for 2014, it has the shape of a long rectangle. The contest plant is growing back to back with a squash. Looks like FlatNorm isnīt the only one who forgot to bring the size reference beverage can for the first photo , I need to work hard...need to remember to bring a can with me to the patch.   Sunday, April 20 View Page An thatīs my 150 sqft contest plant...the 1874 Mathison. Started on April 4th, transplanted on April 19th. Well, this seed isnīt proven yet, but my choice canīt be too bad, I suppose.   Sunday, April 27 View Page Patch update...all AG plants are in the patch now, three back-to-back sets (as shown in the pic). My 907 Wagler is a substitute for the 282 Scherber. On 28 March I had started a 282 Scherber seed, which finally produced a seedling, but a very poor little creature...the first and second true leaf are less than 1 inch in diameter right now and the stem is very thin. Not a racehorse of an AG plant. Anyway, I will keep the 282 Scherber plant in a pot for another while, and if it finally shows normal plant growth, then I will use it as a pollinator for some crosses. This time the 150 square feet plant (1874 Mathison) comes with the size reference can ;-)   Monday, April 28 View Page Had mentioned the 282 Scherber plant yesterday, but then came to the conclusion that a pic can tell much more. Letīs see how this plant will develop. BTW, the red arrow points at a root coming out of the bottom of the plant tube. Thus, I transplanted it into a bigger pot today. Maybe it was just lack of soil which had kept the plant at bonsai size, LOL.   Monday, April 28 View Page You are right, this isnīt a set of strange pumpkin seedlings. Had started some corn on 3rd April. From left: Tehua (3 x) and Olotillo (3 x). Looks like thereīs a little difference between the two varieties.   Sunday, May 4 View Page Thatīs my new toy, a nice broadfork. As I found it pretty expensive to buy a broadfork from overseas and to pay for shipping and then to pay customs for both the broadfork and for shipping, Iīm extremely happy I have found someone in Germany who made this nice broadfork. The tines are actually blades (5 mm thick steel) 44 cm long, and with a spacing of 12 cm the width of the six tines amounts to 60 cm and the width of the fork is 73 cm. The fork comes without handles, you simply have to buy two shovel handles and mount them...and there you are ready to fork the patch. For those interested in such a nice tool (especially for German growers and perhaps other European growers, who might also find it a bit expensive to get a broadfork from overseas), send me an email and I will forward your request to the guy who makes those forks and who will then get in touch with you and send you a quote.   Tuesday, May 6 View Page Time for a little update. The plants are still alive (weīve had 3 frosty nights) and despite the cloudy and cold days and the plants having been covered by fleece tunnels they managed to grow some new leaves during the past couple of days. Today they were allowed to see some real sunlight again.   Wednesday, May 7 View Page Time for a carrot update. This year there are Flakkee and Bangor carrots in my patch. Currently thereīs not much difference between the two varieties. The Bangor plants look somewhat stronger than the Flakkee plants (although they are about two weeks younger).   Sunday, May 18 View Page Tall corn update...admittedly, not too tall yet, but taller than the last time, LOL. Forecast looks like we will have nice weather the next week, therefore the tall corn went into its patch now. Alternating planting of Tehua and Olotillo...guess which is the taller variety.   Sunday, May 18 View Page Also planted my FPs into the patch now.   Monday, May 26 View Page Two weeks of cold weather followed by a week of warm sunshine...the result is that the plant growth of 3 weeks amounts to the growth others observe within 3-5 days. Crap! There is a new entry, the 874 Geyelin. This back-up has replaced the 625 Frei. It was a hard decision to pull this plant, but the first 3 true leaves had some deformations, the 4th true leaf was fine, then the 5th and 6th came out of the same leaf node, and then there was a dense cluster of new leaves which looked like always 2 leaves from one node. Also, the first secondaries appeared and there were two secondaries from each leaf node.   Monday, May 26 View Page Some growth on the FP plants. In addition to the new growth one can probably see the dirt on the leaves. Two days ago weīve had some heavy rainfall...a nice welcome for the little seedlings.   Monday, May 26 View Page Almost forgot to add a pic of my 282 Scherber plant. It is still alive...and about two months old now (counted from the day the seed was started). It grows normal leaves now.   Tuesday, June 17 View Page My 150 sqft contest plant (1874 Mathison), with the main vine of about 7 ft length now and a good number of secondaries. Murphyīs Law holds true, out of my six plants this is the plant with the best symmetry of secondaries and for the sake of squeezing it into the 150 sqft contest area I cannot utilize this awesome feature for a decent vine pattern.   Tuesday, June 17 View Page The plants finally decided to grow. Having a closer look at the plants I noticed that their development isnīt too bad, only the length of the internodes is way below that I know from previous years (I attribute this to the rather cold weather). The 1209 Shenoha, for example, has a main vine of about 8 ft length with about 20 internodes.   Wednesday, June 18 View Page Time for a Field Pumpkin update. Plants are growing quite nicely, although two out of three initially decided to grow their main vine into the opposite direction (they wanted to grow towards the first true leaf), but I finally made them look into the right direction. Found the first females on their main vines. Still too early for pollination though (donīt want to set a keeper before 7th July), but good to know they actually can produce females.   Monday, June 30 View Page Today is a good day, itīs the day of my first pollination in 2014 :-). After a very warm April I had been dreaming of mid-June pollinations, but now June 30th was the first pollination out of a total of six plants. Have a look at the dates of the pics taken, now you can probably imagine how terrible our summer weather had been during the past weeks. I havenīt seen such slow development of females in the past (vine growth isnīt any better either). Oh, almost forgot, the cross is 1209 Shenoha x 1874 Mathison, main vine, 7 ft (correct, 7 ft and likely to become the keeper), 16 secondaries between fruit and stump...go figure!   Wednesday, July 2 View Page This is my 282 Scherber plant, seed started on 28th March, hence the plant is 3 months and 5 days old now...and has a main vine of 4 ft length. Even though this plant wonīt grow my new PB I know that it had a very hard start into life and Iīm glad to see that it wants to grow and turns into a real pumpkin plant. For genetics reasons (as a pollinator) it should be fine, I like the idea of having the 1725 Harp [2009 Wallace clone] x self as a pollinator in my patch. Also, thereīs a little female at the vine tip, 4 ft should be fair enough for a little genetics pumpkin.   Wednesday, July 2 View Page The carrots really like the cold weather. At least I donīt have any comparison with carrots grown in a warm spring and warm summer, and these little guys are looking great so far (I wish I had an idea of what they look like under the surface).   Wednesday, July 2 View Page Oh well, I know, tall corn doesnīt like cold and cloudy and wet weather, but Iīm happy with what I see, thought the plants would behave much worse with the weather conditions of the past few weeks.   Wednesday, July 2 View Page Started to create an S-curve in the main vine of my 1209 Shenoha plant. Itīs only 2 days after pollination, but I donīt want to wait too long with S-curving the fruit position out of the idealized straight main vine direction. This curve is smaller than one might think (because of the short internodes of this plant). The fruit is about 1.5 ft from the idealized straight line of the main vine.   Monday, July 7 View Page Looks like my pumpkin on the 1209 Shenoha plant is still growing, which basically is a good thing, but...   Monday, July 7 View Page ...when I look at the size of the fruit on the 854 Frei plant, which is 2 days younger, I have the feeling the former is slow (...and will thus go heavy, fingers crossed!!!).   Monday, July 14 View Page Now thatīs what I call a stem :) The 263* Lütjens with a beautiful 6-lobe female on the first (and pretty strong) secondary. After two deformed females on the main vine and the 3rd female on the main vine looking like in a bad position and with a shorter stem, I keep my fingers crossed that this little greenie here will grow and grow and grow...and hopefully retain some of its awesome shape.   Monday, July 14 View Page Forgot to add to previous pic: This 263* Lütjens baby on the secondary is 4 DAP.   Monday, July 14 View Page Another green thing: FP 94 Lyons x 117.5 Tobeck (main vine, 7 DAP). Fruit looks good so far, the 94 Lyons plant is the strongest out of my 3 FP plants this year, and the pollinator plant is the second strongest plant.   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Any idea why people call them "Bangors"? That one here went BANG!   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Today I created an S-curve for my keeper on the 854 Frei plant, and I decided to take some additional pics which help explain the procedure. In this one and the following 3 pics the color code is always the same. Now letīs start: Some days ago (as soon as I had the impression that the pollination was successful) I had placed a stick of wood and a piece of a plastic pipe at the 3rd leaf node before the fruit (where the red arrow points). On a warm afternoon I then moved the vine for the fruit to rest at the current position. (In the interim the leaf nodes between the red arrow position and the fruit position could develop their tap roots, because I wonīt disturb them again.) Today I bent the vine (which is already 6 ft beyond the fruit) around the same setup of a piece of plastic tube at the fruit leaf node (blue arrow) backwards. Again, it was a warm afternoon, the vine was very flexible. Four leaf nodes down the vine (usually itīs three leaf nodes because of their usually alternating directionality, but in my case I had to go four nodes down the vine) I placed a piece of plastic tube and a stick of wood at the leaf node where the yellow arrow points at. The green line shows the extrapolated idealized straight line the main vine would have made without the curve.   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Top view. You can see that the fruit is about 1.5 ft from the extarpolated idealized line of the main vine (green line). Now itīs time to curve the vine back into its original direction (at the yellow-arrow leaf node).   Wednesday, July 16 View Page View along the main vine. You can see that the fruit is 1.5 ft off the idealized line of the main vine.   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Finally I removed the sticks at the red-arrow and blue-arrow positions and I placed something under my pumpkin. In this case it is a sheet of styrofoam, where I cut a good number of holes in, and then I covered it with fine sand. You see that I placed this sheet of styrofoam in such a way under the fruit that thereīs much styrofoam at the stem side of the fruit. Reason is, the fruit will grow in all directions. At the blossom end I can easily add another sheet, but as the fruit grows and the vines in the back of the fruit turn into a dense jungle it will be impossible to add more styrofoam at the stem side of the fruit. Letīs see what happens as this fruit grows (hopefully it will grow for the next 10 weeks). My guess is that the junction between vine and stem will then rest at about 1 - 1.5 ft above ground, somewhere between the red-arrow and yellow-arrow positions.   Thursday, July 24 View Page Itīs update time. The fruit on the 94 Lyons FP plant is not as dark green as last year, but who cares, fingers crossed it will develop the same wall thickness as my FP last year.   Thursday, July 24 View Page Corn, what else? The Olotillo plants are clearly ahead of the Tehua plants.   Thursday, July 24 View Page The 854 Frei with the S-curve.   Thursday, July 24 View Page The 1209 Shenoha, oh, thereīs also an S-curve.   Thursday, July 24 View Page 874 Geyelin, this one looks like it wants to become the keeper. S-curve, styrofoam sheets, sand and shade will be added soon.   Saturday, July 26 View Page ...and nothing else maters (or something like that, LOL). Although I havenīt had much luck with getting a megabloom set a decent fruit, two of the "regular" flowers made it into some nice big ones. BTW, this is a 4.14 Osmala plant.   Saturday, July 26 View Page Sad news, had to pull the 874 Geyelin plant. After some yellow mosaics on the new growth I have found some leaves with dark green pustules now and today I discovered two tiny females in vine tips which had those awful squashy green color on parts of the baby pumpkin. Just wanted to get the mosaic virus plant out of my patch, hopefully early enough.   Tuesday, July 29 View Page The 1209 Shenoha. In the past five days this fruit doubled the OTT-weight.   Tuesday, July 29 View Page Same happened to the 854 Frei, also doubled OTT-weight during the past five days.   Saturday, August 2 View Page FP update, here is the 94 Lyons (26 DAP). So far no signs of turning orange, this FP is getting bigger each day.   Saturday, August 2 View Page 117.5 Tobeck (x open), fruit is on a secondary. It is DAP14 now and I keep my fingers crossed that the fruit will do its best to adjust its size to the already big stem.   Saturday, August 2 View Page The 854 Frei, S-curve works nicely.   Saturday, August 2 View Page 1209 Shenoha. Here also, the S-curve does a good job.   Saturday, August 2 View Page 907 Wagler (x 282 Scherber), fruit is 11 DAP.   Saturday, August 9 View Page Seems to be the season of the mosaic virus. Yesterday I found some (or some more) of those vine tips with clear signs of a mosaic virus on almost all of my plants. Now Iīm very curious to see how the pumpkins respond to this problem.   Sunday, August 10 View Page The two big ones from my 4.14 Osmala plant (1120 g and 1090 g, i.e., 2.47 lbs and 2.40 lbs). As you can see, they developed from regular flowers (not from megablooms).   Tuesday, August 12 View Page 854 Frei   Tuesday, August 12 View Page 1209 Shenoha   Tuesday, August 12 View Page 907 Wagler   Tuesday, August 12 View Page Now, more than a month after making an S-curve into the vine, this series of four pics of the fruit on the 1209 Shenoha plant demonstrates how the S-curve works. The stem of the fruit can easily lift the vine and push it back as the fruit grows.   Tuesday, August 12 View Page Same S-curve thing for the fruit on the 854 Frei plant. It works.   Thursday, August 14 View Page Had to pull this Bangor carrot today (its weight was 2.50 kg, i.e., 5.5 lbs). Found a soft area on the top part of this nice root and decided that it definitely wonīt have the power to survive for the next six weeks. As I found that the Bangors are much more tasty than the Flakkee carrots, I decided to pull it now (and to have a nice carrot to eat...and to share with my guinea pig) rather than leaving it in the ground and then having a handful of mud.   Thursday, August 14 View Page So here we are now, thatīs the 150 sqft keeper pic! (1874 Mathison x open). The fruit is 26 DAP, could be bigger, but to be honest I havenīt even thought that the plant would set a fruit. Although the 1874 Mathison plant was one of my best plants in May/June, it seemed to have some troubles in June/July (some leaves died), and the first pollination aborted. According to Murphyīs Law, this small plant then set three successful OPEN pollination over a weekend when I had been away. Few days ago I decided to let this one on the main vine be the keeper and culled the other two. BTW, this plant isnīt alone, itīs hosting the friendly mosaic virus. This little guy will probably slow down the fruit growth a little, so that I will have a pumpkin to harvest from my 150 sqft plant. Last year my 150 sqft pumpkin grew just too fast and had a BES around August 19th.   Saturday, September 20 View Page From now on "shameless plug" has a totally different meaning, LOL   Tuesday, October 7 View Page Updates!!! Tall corn (first year growing this stuff, a rather cold year here and the corn was grown in an outdoor patch). Olotillo grew better than Tehua, and the tallest Olotillo plant measured 513.5 cm (202 inches).   Tuesday, October 7 View Page next: The 150 sqft pumpkin (grown on a 1874 Mathison plant...with mosaic virus since end of July). Its final weight was 79.4 kg (175 lbs).   Tuesday, October 7 View Page The "bigger" pumpkins havenīt been too big this year. On the 854 Frei plant I grew a 325 (uow) lbs fruit, and the pumpkin on the 1209 Shenoha plant went to the scales in Görlitz with 204.0 kg (449.7 lbs). 2nd place (and heaviest outdoor pumpkin) at that weigh-off. Looks like it had been a difficult year for many other growers as well.   Tuesday, October 7 View Page Finally the FPs. Although I had 3 or 4 pumpkins on each plant, the pic only shows the heaviest fruit from each plant. From left: 66 (uow) lbs (109.8 Wagler x open); 78.5 lbs (94 Lyons x 117.5 Tobeck); 103.2 lbs (117.5 Tobeck x open). Although the pumpkins on the 94 Lyons and the 117.5 Tobeck plant had very similar size and shape, the latter went pretty heavy, whereas the former was some % light.   Tuesday, October 14 View Page Look what Iīve done today: You know, pumpkins can have all kinds of shapes...round, flat, high wheels etc. Now letīs assume the shape of the pumpkin is an ellipsoid with three different principal axes (this FP serves as a nice model compound). This FP has an actual weight of 66 lbs. Is it heavy or light or on chart??? Well, it depends on where/how the fruit was grown. In its original position (left) the OTT prediction would have been 60 lbs. Hence, the fruit is 10% heavy. Now letīs assume the fruit had been in a different position (middle), OTT prediction would have been 66 lbs...fruit on chart. Oh well, and we also know tall fruit (right)...OTT tells us that it should be a 71 lbs fruit...unfortunately it goes light, -7%. Take-home-message: The same shape and the same volume of a fruit (and the same wall thickness and therefore the same actual weight of pumpkins) can produce awfully different OTT values, it simply depends on the shape and positioning of the fruit.   Tuesday, October 21 View Page First lantern this year.   Saturday, October 25 View Page 2nd lantern this year, carved out of the main fruit from the 94 Lyons plant (shape- and color-wise this was the prettiest of my FPs this year, similar shape and color like the FP I had last year). This year I found a good load of fine seeds in the pumpkin (94 Lyons x 117.5 Tobeck).   Saturday, November 22 View Page Received another ribbon this weekend (from one of my nephews, what a nice surprise indeed, never thought that this kind of award would exist)..."Bestes Kürbisfest 2014". Apparently, our pumpkin party (on Oct. 31st) was one of the pretty good ones. We spent about two days turning about 60 lbs of pumpkin (incl. AG!) into various kinds of yummy food (and drinks), and friends and family came over here to enjoy all that great stuff.   Sunday, December 14 View Page Doesnīt look like white X-mas this year, but itīs fun to watch the rye grow.