Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 37 Entries. Sunday, April 20 View Page Greetings from Somerset, UK! I've grown regular pumpkins before but this will be my first season going for the giant. Started digging my patch back in February. Have since erected my custom-built polytunnel - more pictures to follow.   Sunday, April 20 View Page Crystal palace from the front. Polythene aside, this beauty has been pretty much built from stuff I've reclaimed or been given.   Sunday, April 20 View Page A shot of the interior.   Monday, April 21 View Page I decided not to go with doors, instead just two panels at either end that you lift in & out. The polytunnel is 20 ft square, 7.5 ft tall in the middle. 400 square feet... probably not enough to break any records ;-)   Monday, April 21 View Page Here are my seeds - thanks once again to IanP who sorted them out & for telling me about this website. I had 2 of the Werners & 3 of the 1180 Pukos; I started one off of each, sanded the edges down & soaked 'em in seaweed & local spring water for an hour & a half. Then into some potting compost.   Monday, April 21 View Page I started them off on the 4th April; after 8 days, finally Werner germinated!   Friday, May 2 View Page Here's the second Werner that germinated. I started off my last 3 seeds on April 14th and gave all of them the same treatment; unfortunately all 3 of the Pukos failed to germinate!   Saturday, May 3 View Page Since the other Werner didn't look as good, this is the one I'm gonna go with :-)   Saturday, May 3 View Page Finally, it's in the ground! Hopefully I've planted it right so the main vine grows in the desired direction.   Saturday, May 17 View Page It's now been in the ground 2 weeks, still growing every day and I think the plant looks quite healthy. As it's my first & only plant, I'm not too sure how well I'm doing...   Saturday, May 17 View Page Seems to be lots of leaf growth but I'll feel happier if the plant grows more horizontal than vertical.   Monday, May 26 View Page Plant's definitely growing the right way! Secondary vine seems to be growing vertical - but only last week I had the same worry about the mine vine. I guess it's early days...   Monday, May 26 View Page I had a go at burying the vine. Hopefully I can get me secondary vines down & the plant will start to take shape.   Monday, May 26 View Page Baby pumpkin! I wasn't expecting a female flower this early, 4.5 feet down the vine. As I don't want to grow a pumpkin yet, I don't know whether to pinch it out... wish I knew what I was doing(!)   Friday, June 6 View Page Main vine's now 11 feet, with another female at 10, so maybe I should try to pollinate this one... if any male flowers come out. I've only had the one so far.   Friday, June 6 View Page I've pinched out 3 more females on my secondary vines... which have now touched down. Yesterday I freaked out; the farmer in the field behind my polytunnel had been out spraying, & managed to shoot a load of mystery pink balls in onto my plant. I washed the plant off, it hasn't died yet... but I don't even know what that stuff was! Gonna have to keep me eye out for finer netting, or a screen or something for that door.   Monday, June 16 View Page Looks like I got away with the farmer-spraying thing for now, plant seems fine. Started spraying with Epsom salts & will do that every week now. I showed a photo of my seeds back in April & said I was growing a Werner; this is wrong, I'm actually growing a 1160 Paton!   Monday, June 16 View Page I attempted my first pollination last Thursday (12th) - 10 ft out, nice looking flower, 5 lobes, used 3 males but one of them was 3 days old... & it was on a scorching hot day! Yesterday I did my second pollination, again with 3 males, 2 of which had come out the day before, & the other had come out that night. It was also a lot cooler, my biggest concern is that this flower looked a bit deformed compared with the last. Got my fingers and toes crossed, 'cos I'm fast running out of room in my little tunnel! I've got a bit of irrigation hose which runs off the tap, with more to add.   Tuesday, June 24 View Page I've been looking at this plant, scratching my head - originally I was gonna snake the main vine straight down the middle, but because I'm not sure I've got a female set, I think I'm gonna grow it into the corner. Which would make it about 28ft.   Tuesday, June 24 View Page I've now done 4 pollinations; the first was on June 12th at 10ft, the second was on the 15th at 13ft, the third was on the 18th at 16ft, and the fourth on the 22nd at 20ft. But my first pollination definitely failed!   Tuesday, June 24 View Page So this is my second pollination, I'm not sure how big it has to get until you know it has definitely set. But I hope this one has, 'cos I dug in an inch-thick piece of cellotex with a slight slope, & put some holes in it. It's just over a metre wide, so this might be a bit ambitious for my first pumpkin! I've got some pieces of 3mm laminate underneath, & my plan is (if the pumpkin grows) I can carefully remove them one at a time, until it's on the cellotex. I've also used an upside-down plant pot to take the roots right next to the pumpkin, but the pot might be a bit small. We'll have to see what happens....   Tuesday, July 1 View Page It's happy days in Somerset! me 1160 Paton that's self-pollinated is definitely getting bigger (I'm chuffed to bits) but I know there's still a lot that can go wrong...   Tuesday, July 1 View Page I was feeling brave at the weekend & decided to cut off my other two pollinations, one of which was the size of large grapefruit, & there were also another couple of females - which made it 7 in total on my main vine. As for my plant, it's just about as big as it can get. Gotta leave a bit of room either side so I can get in & do some watering!   Tuesday, July 8 View Page It's all changed from last week, I'm now feeling very concerned! Seems to have lost its nice smooth shape & now developing deep ribs, so I'm worried this means it's likely to split... or that something's going wrong. I've seen pictures of giants with deep ribs but I'm thinking it shouldn't be losing its shape at only 22 days...   Tuesday, July 8 View Page Trying to stay positive! at least its grown lots, thought I'd have a go at estimating its weight. Never done this before, but I took the 3 measurements (OTT) which made a total of 146', so according to the chart... estimate it at 76 lbs (& 22 days!)   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Couple weeks ago I thought I had her at a good position on the vine, thought the vine would just lift up as she grew - wasn't expecting her to grow out round the stem quite so much. I cut & carefully removed the plant pot but now she's getting awfully close to the actual vine. I guess I might have to dig up the vine & sever the roots to allow for some more movement!   Wednesday, July 16 View Page It's not growing flat on the bottom, its got a deep rib, couple of inches, that runs from blossom to stem. It's even got a gap on either side & twisted around at the blossom end! This cannot be good... I've got serious doubts that she's going to make it, but if she did, I'm sure she'll be one UGLY pumpkin. (Don't get me wrong, I don't mind UGLY, it's just the making it that's worrying me!)   Wednesday, July 16 View Page I had another go at measuring it the same as last time - not sure how accurate this'll be due to its insane shape - but made it a total of 194 inches, so I estimate 164lbs (30 days).   Tuesday, July 22 View Page Did a stupid thing last Thursday & scratched the skin with a piece of laminate that I was using to cover the cellotex; really annoyed meself! That's the gouge centre bottom. Just when I was starting to get over it, I noticed a little split, yesterday (in the top left). Is this the beginning of the end???   Tuesday, July 22 View Page I dug up some of me main vine & two of the secondary vines, & propped it up with a piece of guttering & foam, because the pumpkin was growing up against it.   Tuesday, July 22 View Page Measured it at 231 (OTT), so I estimate the weight at 269 lbs - this is day 36 :-)   Tuesday, July 29 View Page What a shame :-( Noticed a nasty looking stem split on sunday, but at least I've stopped worrying about the little split & the gouge I put it in the other week....   Tuesday, July 29 View Page Measured it 251" so estimated weight is 341 lbs. This is day 43. I don't know if it can get any bigger, with that horrendous split....   Tuesday, August 5 View Page It's game over; now got three stem splits & on closer inspection, I can actually see straight through to the celotex underneath... it must have a huge split on the underside. This would explain the puddle of dripping ooze over the last couple of days! Had several people contact me offering advice on the stem split, which I'm very grateful for.   Tuesday, August 5 View Page She's still only resting on the ground in three places - so maybe it's not surprising things went wrong under there. I measured it today at 258", so that's 369 lbs (day 50).   Monday, August 25 View Page I meant to post a few weeks ago but I've been a bit lazy :-) My last post was on tuesday 5th, & on thursday I noticed it had started to go soft on the left-hand side. But I wanted to know how heavy this pumpkin actually was, so I had a plan; I got a pallet & weighed it, & I arranged for 4 mates to come round on the saturday morning, & I thought if we could somehow get it onto the pallet & into the back of a van, we could've taken it down the local scrapyard and asked the guys down there nicely if they could lift it out with the forklift & pop it on their scales. I was amazed how fast this pumpkin went rotten, we decided it was just too far gone to try & move it... so we ended up just rolling it over a couple of times. Things I'll do different next year; shade netting (it got too hot for a few weeks in that polytunnel), don't think I'll bother with the cellotex (maybe just some plywood & sand), maybe try for more for an 's' bend (although I don't think that's the cause of my stem split), but I tried to grow my pumpkin from a flower with deformed lobes & I'm convinced that if I'd gone with my 3rd pollination (only 4 lobes but a nice-looking flower) I'd still have a nice big pumpkin that was still growing! I'll put these down to rookie mistakes... ;-)   Monday, August 25 View Page I just liked this last photo of me rotten pumpkin after it had been rolled over a couple of times... Good luck to everyone else still growing! Mumbles over'n'out.