Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 33 Entries. Thursday, August 20 View Page Help! Leaves are dying.   Saturday, August 22 View Page 2013 was my first year. I raised a 288lb. pumpkin from a generic seed. Last year was the worst since the 1950’s. We had a flood and cold weather. The pumpkins split when they reached basketball size. I patched one and raised it to 160lbs.   Saturday, August 22 View Page I decided to beat the weather I needed a greenhouse. I built an 18x30 high tunnel. Now I can garden in the cold and rain. This involves a whole new learning curve, but it’s worth it. I set my goals at 500lbs. for outside pumpkin and 750 lbs. for inside one.   Saturday, August 22 View Page 8/21/2015 Day 50-641lbs. 533 Foss pollenated by 881.5 Foss on July 4th. It is my slowest growing pumpkin. It is growing on the outside of the greenhouse   Saturday, August 22 View Page 8/21/2015 Day 48-716. 359 Foss pollenated by 881.5 Foss on July 6th. It overtook the greenhouse pumpkin this week. It is ave. about 20lbs. /day.   Saturday, August 22 View Page 8/21/2015 Day 46-703lbs. 881.5 Foss pollenated by359 Foss. This is my greenhouse pumpkin. It was supposed to be my large orange one. I don’t think it will be either. Its doing about 10lbs/day. What happened to orange? The plant is looking worse every day.   Saturday, August 22 View Page This was from a mega bloom on a Black Krim tomato. I weighed it with a Rapala electronic fish scale. It registered 2.94lbs. I registered a different tomato on a certified scale and the fish scale was .49 lbs. light. So this might have weighed 3.43lbs. Not bad for being grown with other tomatoes on the plant and with no pruning.   Saturday, August 22 View Page This was from the 5.2 Lyons (22.5 in.) It registered 3.87 on the fish scale. I cut the tomato trying to shorten the stem. I didn’t think it weighed 4lbs. so I didn’t bring it in to get weighed.   Saturday, August 22 View Page This was from the6.88MacCoy. Thanks for all the seeds Dan. This must be beginner’s luck. I didn’t want to take any chances so I used a Dremel to cut the stem out.   Saturday, August 22 View Page I did bring this in. I sent in the GPC entry form. So I guess it’s called 4.59Hill   Sunday, August 23 View Page I just noticed on the scale printout, that it is a hot house tomato worth $9.04. Does that mean for $18.08 I can beat Dan’s record?   Monday, August 24 View Page I removed the badly infected leaves. They seem to be moving from the pumpkin back. The pumpkin has pretty much stopped growing.   Monday, August 24 View Page This is a picture of the infected leaf. E-mails say injured vine, soil disease that attacks your roots, and downy or powdery mildew. Any other ideas? Can I do anything about it?   Monday, August 24 View Page Only two tomatoes left. This one on 5.20 Lyons (20.75 in. circumference, single)   Monday, August 24 View Page This one on the 5.3 MacCoy.   Monday, August 24 View Page This wrinkled tomato was knocked off of the 8.41 MacCoy when it was green. It was about a pound. I put it in the potting shed and it ripened. I’ll see if the seeds are viable. Lesson learned, put a support under each tomato.   Monday, August 24 View Page This is a new one that I started on the8.41 MacCoy after the first was knocked off. The plant looked really tough so I removed the old leaves and let a sucker grow. I also rooted a sucker and have a tomato about the same. Neither plant would throw a big mega bloom.   Monday, August 24 View Page West side of greenhouse. Looks pretty good.   Monday, August 24 View Page East side of greenhouse. Six leaves were removed from the front. They were completely limp, almost mushy. They were completely yellow, with about 3 inches of black dried up edges.   Monday, August 31 View Page 4.86 Not bad for first year. I’m happy. This one was on the 5.3 MacCoy. The ground squirrels took a bite off the bottom. I’ve live trapped seven so far this year. I will have to find a way to protect the tomatoes next year.   Monday, August 31 View Page The single off of the 5.20 Lyons went 3.64.   Tuesday, October 6 View Page This is the ticket from our pulpwood scale. I couldn’t find a contest near here, with a scale that would go over 1000lbs. I don’t know how accurate this is, but it will serve my purposes. I now know what I have to beat next year. For my records the pumpkin off the 359Foss is now 1020Hil2015. I am happy with the size and color and will grow the359 next year.   Thursday, October 8 View Page My 1020 loaded and heading to the scale.   Thursday, October 8 View Page My 533 sprung a leak   Thursday, October 8 View Page Yup. It’s compost. It was supposed to go to a local pumpkin patch with the 881.I took the white one. Over 2000 people had never seen a white pumpkin, or one that large. Lots of pictures and smiles. A lot of people knew what I used to grow it. I heard a lot of Holy Shit.” I told them it wasn’t holy, but evidently good stuff. Great time!!   Thursday, October 8 View Page I was hoping the year wasn’t over yet. I found a small pumpkin after I took out my white one. I nursed it to 75lbs. Even the greenhouse won’t protect it with temps. in the 20s. I’ll let it go until the rest of the plots are winterized   Thursday, October 8 View Page I even tried for more tomatoes. The one on the back is from a cutting I took from the 8.41MacCoy and rooted. The other two were grown after the first ones were removed. The one on the right is an 18in. cir. on the 8.41MacCoy. Maybe heat for the greenhouse next year.   Thursday, October 8 View Page Not all things have to be large. This is my attempt at Bonsai. I have been doing it for about six years. I seem to kill more then I get to grow.   Thursday, October 8 View Page It is time to learn from my mistakes. These are the seeds from the533Foss that sprung a leak in the garden. Any seeds I really want to keep will be dried in the basement. The squirrel might have planted all of these for me.   Thursday, October 8 View Page This is a tower I made to grow Long gourds on. I fastened it to the raised beds on each side of it. It was covered with vines and had starting to grow gourds. A strong wind came up and tipped it over. It now has a three foot anchor at each foot. I will try to get seeds and grow them next year. The sunflower in the back is a 22Berry2011. I have six seeds left and will save these seeds. Was only 9 feet, about the same as my mammoth seeds. I will try harder next year.   Thursday, October 8 View Page You think I would have learned about growing generic seeds. My bushel gourd grew to 36lbs. Next year better seeds.   Thursday, October 8 View Page This is probably my first mistake for next year. I tilled and added compost to a new 30x50 spot. I always seem to bite off more than I can handle. I have to hold back and not plant too close together in here.2or 3 or maybe ten 150 sq,ft plants. I hope I don’t get to over motivated at Stillwater this weekend.   Thursday, October 29 View Page This is the single grown on the 8.41 sucker. Not bad for a plant that looked like it was dead when I set it.