Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 73 Entries. Tuesday, January 3 View Page Building a new irrigation station for 2017   Friday, January 6 View Page Ground finally froze enough to get the JD out and tur the compost piles. Love that smell when its 19 degrees outside!   Tuesday, January 17 View Page Cold and snowy start to 2017. 14" of snow overnight and temps in the single digets this past week. Compost pile melted the snow so at least its still cooking!   Monday, February 20 View Page Wow winter is flying by, decided hell or high water (8" + so far in February) I was going to get the irrigation system finished! Finished the siding and roof for the irrigation hut and roughed in the new 1" water main. Now the fun part, installing the custom solar powered 12 zone timer and valves. Also managed to pull two soil samples (east / west) from the water logged 5000 sqft patch.   Tuesday, April 4 View Page Trying to beat muther nature with "rain coats"...   Tuesday, April 4 View Page Rain on the way, time to cover the cover crop (again).   Tuesday, April 4 View Page What! 2 days of no rain, got out the trusty 20 year old Craftsman push mower and made hay!   Tuesday, April 4 View Page Spread half the amendments recommended by A&l Labs and did the "rough till" ( long day)...   Tuesday, April 4 View Page Pulling out all the stops to get the last amendments in and beat the rain! Measured Boron in teaspoons with the Stihl blower, that stuff scares the crap out of me!   Tuesday, April 4 View Page Started raining again on the last pass. Will dig the pits and install green houses tomorrow. I love playing in the mud!   Friday, April 7 View Page Took last week off to mow down the Rye, till, install heat cables and hoop houses. Here's a pic of the lovely and talented Dani Gadberry helping clean up the power equipment after the end of it all. Best freind ever!!!   Friday, April 14 View Page Good Friday seed soaking, will put the little guys in the germination chamber at 1:00 AM so I will call my germination date 4-15-17! We are growing 5 plants this year so will have one back up.   Saturday, April 29 View Page Crumby weather this spring has forced our starting line up into 3 gallon peat pots. Started backups last night. Hay Sherwood you are now offcially in our line up!   Tuesday, May 2 View Page Been a really cold wet spring so we potted up the prime seedlings into 2.55 gallon pee-pots Saturday and started back ups. All three second string seeds popped up and are under the T-5 bad boys today. Expected to go from 58 and rainy today to 80+ tomorrow so we think we will hold off on planting into the heated hoopties until this Friday when the rains return. Hay Jim if I kill enough of my 1st stringers I may plant that 1586 of yours yet!   Wednesday, May 3 View Page 82 degrees today after the longest / wettest winter on record... weeded and double dug the hoppties today. Planting earlr Saturday. Hey Jim the back up Sherwood is looking good!   Saturday, May 6 View Page Unleashed the hounds today!   Saturday, May 6 View Page Third best punkin in the patch so far...   Saturday, May 6 View Page Dialing it in...   Saturday, May 6 View Page ;)   Monday, May 8 View Page Weather has finally warmed up and dried out. Night time lows are getting close to freezing with rhe clear skys so added 60 watt "bug lights" to the hoops for added heat and to not attract any more bugs..!   Wednesday, June 7 View Page Pesky sideways photo of one of our 1405 pumpkins. She has a sweet baby on the main 11 feet out that will be ready to that will be ready to pollinate in a few days.   Wednesday, June 14 View Page Huge storm heading our way in the morning so... buried vines and stoked out lateral vines as best we could to minimize damage, we get crazy wind here sometimes even tornadoes!   Wednesday, June 14 View Page Pic of our 1405 Gadberry plant today before tomorrow's high wind storm. Buried and streaked her the best we could, hang on babiy! Ps has a female ready to open any day as at 12'...   Wednesday, June 14 View Page Don't know what to say about the up side down photos? We even paid premium member dues... Guess it don't matter much as this year is turning into a bust with the crappy spring weather so far.   Wednesday, June 21 View Page Yea! Finished the new irrigation hut and distribution system just in time for our 1st hundred degree weather here in the Pacific NW.   Wednesday, June 21 View Page Here's one of our plants getting ready for its 1st pollination. Hay Cindy can you guess what seed its from? Here is a hint, Ron Wallace made the same cross last year and we are growing that on too.   Wednesday, June 21 View Page Here is a picture of one of our 1405 plants getting a sweet dose of copost tea via our new and improved fertigation system. She has a nice female pollinated on 6-19-17 @ 12 ' out by the "Guess the mystery" pumpkin in my earlier post. If you go to pumpkin fanatic.com you well see that this should be a cool cross using some super heavy genetics.   Monday, July 17 View Page Perfect weather this week for pumpkin growing!   Saturday, September 2 View Page Finally got our lifting tripod finished and cut the 1405 number two loose that stem split to its cavity on 8-17 Final measurements are 377 ott or 1204 pounds. Surprised to see it gained almost 200 pounds after breaching the cavity!   Saturday, September 2 View Page The frogs are hoppy living in the split pumpin!   Thursday, September 7 View Page Pic of our custom tripod head, each leg has a bolt allowing it to fold in or expand out making it easy to "walk" into position over the pumikin.   Thursday, September 7 View Page The 14 foot long leg need to be spread apart no more than 11' and set on "shoes" to prevent them from sinking while hoisting your whopper, notice the mini t-post pounded in at the end to prevent a leg from skating off and dumping your fruit.   Thursday, September 7 View Page Here's a pic of our humble tripod after picking and lowering the 1405 Gadberry (2016) I messed up and split. It was setting cut in half in the blazing sun for three days before taking this pic due to heavy smoke and ash from local forest fires. Thick ass SOB!   Tuesday, September 12 View Page Weigh offs are coming and need to build another pallet for the trip to HMM. Have beenloomingfor an Oak one but had to settle for a crappy old spree one from MY pails at Wilco. Thanks guys! Replaced a few boards and am good to cut the top.   Tuesday, September 12 View Page Cut down a 4' x 8' piece of 3/4 CDX to 4' x 5' and radius cut the corners to prevent the Typar from tearing it when being loaded / unloaded. (4' x 5') hoping for a whopper!   Tuesday, September 12 View Page Centered the CDX top and lined out the pallet "runners" to sink 3" exterior screws down into to secure the top to the pallet. Ok enough for tonight have to be back at work by 5:30 AM... will lay down padding and Typar tomorrow. Fall is defiantly coming to our patch in Battle Ground, hoping to squeak out a few more pounds before the weigh offs in a few weeks.   Tuesday, September 12 View Page Centered the CDX top and lined out the pallet "runners" to sink 3" exterior screws down into to secure the top to the pallet. Ok enough for tonight have to be back at work by 5:30 AM... will lay down padding and Typar tomorrow. Fall is defiantly coming to our patch in Battle Ground, hoping to squeak out a few more pounds before the weigh offs in a few weeks.   Saturday, September 16 View Page Uncovered the pumpkins to warm up a bit before the torrential rains and cold weather hit next week. Been keeping them on the wet side all summer so hopefully they don't suck up so much water that they split.....   Saturday, September 23 View Page Dani and I with our 1532 pound pumpkin. Second place at Elysisn Brewery weigh off. Cross wad the 1910 Tobeck x 1405 Gadberry.   Saturday, September 23 View Page Dani and I with our 1532 pound pumpkin. Second place at Elysisn Brewery weigh off. Cross with the 1910 Tobeck x 1405 Gadberry.   Saturday, September 23 View Page Here is our 1532 second place winner at Elysian Brewery on 9-23-17. Cross is 1910 Tobeck x 1405 Gadberry   Friday, September 29 View Page Two out of five plants cleared out so time to lay down 30 yards of fine compost. Will spread after the last pumpmins are weighed ??   Sunday, October 1 View Page Dani named our pumpkin "Pinocchio" because its nosd keeps growing everytime my pal Sherwood tells me I am lying about her ott its nose grows !   Sunday, October 1 View Page The nose grows...   Sunday, October 1 View Page Picture of Pinocchio from first post... Scheesh   Saturday, October 7 View Page Heres our 1803 pumpkin, third place at Baumans Farms weigh off. Cross is 2145 McMullan x 1405 Gadberry   Thursday, October 19 View Page Torrential down pours for the next few days forced us to pull our last pumpkin one day early. I see getting muddy in my near future....   Thursday, October 19 View Page Sooo.... Three hours later got the plant cleared out and tripod set up, I need some dry undies!   Thursday, October 19 View Page Weatherman say "Scattered Showers" our rain gauge shows 1.8" of rain in 24 hours! Made it out of the patch thanks to 4-wheel drive and lotsa walking boards crammed under the tires. What a mud hole   Saturday, October 21 View Page Hetes the results from the Terminator today. Our pumpkin went way heavy and we took second place.   Saturday, October 21 View Page Heres Dani and I with our 1748 grown off our 1405 from last year.   Saturday, October 21 View Page Heres aphoto of our 1748 before weighing at the Terminator, it went super heavy!   Saturday, October 21 View Page More Terminator monsters   Saturday, October 21 View Page More Terminator monsters! Eddy Z drug down the beauty in the foreground with the blue wrasslen mat under it.   Saturday, October 21 View Page Photo for "more terminator monsters". Pesky Merlot......   Saturday, October 21 View Page Realky?   Monday, October 23 View Page Terminator 29 competition pumpkins total   Monday, October 30 View Page Dani helping build the "Secret Soil Weapon".   Monday, October 30 View Page Best thing you can add to the compost pile   Monday, October 30 View Page Vine Maple Leaves from your local forest! Thanks for collecting over 6 yards so far sweetie!   Monday, October 30 View Page Hay, come back you missed a few!   Wednesday, November 1 View Page Harvested seeds from our 1803 today.   Wednesday, November 1 View Page Nice thick walls, pumpkin was stil rock solid!   Thursday, November 2 View Page Good seed count in the 1803, hoe they are all solid when fully cured.   Saturday, November 4 View Page End of season secret ingredient, two yards chicken litter.   Saturday, November 4 View Page Added to our 8 yards of leaf multch, grass clipping and garden compost. Will stir occasionally and should have awesome compost for next years pumpkin vines!   Sunday, November 26 View Page Seeds have all been dried and graded, now we just let them sit in the "finishing room" for about 6 weeks before refrigerating.   Sunday, November 26 View Page Trying different seed germination methods to try and get an ide of this years germination percentages.   Sunday, November 26 View Page This is my favorite method using seed stRting medium in a temp controlled germination chamber. Bought a lotter ticket in hooes of extra cash for the auctions and fertilizers...   Thursday, November 30 View Page Germination trials, picked 10 of the whimpest seeds from our 1803 9 out of 10 seeds germinated in 72 hours, the 10th seed is pushing dirt and should be up in the morning!   Saturday, December 23 View Page Max the Beagle gaurding his freshly turned compost pile.   Saturday, December 23 View Page Winter equipment tune ups, long way to go....   Sunday, December 24 View Page Wow what a difference a day can make, guess there is wisdom in the old saying "do it while the sun is shining"!