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65 Entries.
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Monday, April 3
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First post of 2017
Off to a slow start this season.
The good news is it was 90 degrees in the hoop houses yesterday!
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Tuesday, April 25
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Plants are coming along nicely. They spent the last two days outside in the greenhouses but are back inside under the lights as we are expecting rain for the next two days.
The plan is to have them in the ground later this week.
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Tuesday, April 25
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Greenhouses have been up for a couple weeks now, the soil cables were installed this past weekend, everything is ready to go. Spring amendments were added only to the area where the greenhouses are. In the rest of the patch I tilled in 10 pounds of mycorrhiza a couple weeks ago and planted winter rye. The rye is about 3 inches high now. I'll add the amendments to the rest of the patch and till in the winter rye near the end of May when its time to remove the greenhouses.
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Thursday, May 4
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Plants have been in the ground for a week now. Finally getting some sun today. This is the 1713 Lancaster. It is my fastest growing plant so far.
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Thursday, May 4
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This is the 2058 Rose
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Thursday, May 4
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This is the 2066 Geddes.
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Thursday, May 4
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This is the 2261 Wallace. This one is the slowest growing of all my plants so far.
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Thursday, May 4
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This is the 2036 Glasier. I added it to the greenhouse with the Wallace plant as a back up in case the Wallace plant doesn't pick up the pace soon.
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Thursday, May 4
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View of the patch. Winter Rye is filling it. It has about 3 weeks to grow before it all gets tilled in.
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Friday, May 5
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Last night I gave all the plants a drench of Azos, Root Shield, fish, Seaweed, Humic / Fulvic acid and a tiny amount of merit. Plants look great despite the lack of sun and warm weather. The weather for the upcoming week doesn't look any better.
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Friday, June 2
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I removed the last two greenhouses yesterday. Despite starting my seeds earlier this year than I did last year, all of my plants are about a week behind where they were last year at this time. The continued cold and cloudy weather has resulted in very slow growth. Hopefully the weather improves soon. This is the 2261 Wallace.
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Friday, June 2
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The 2066 Geddes
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Friday, June 2
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The 2058 Rose
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Friday, June 2
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The 1713 Lancaster
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Tuesday, June 20
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I haven't posted for a while. The plants have really started to take off the last couple weeks. I pollinated one at about 12 feet on the 1713 Lancaster on the 17th. Have another one that should open in a couple days around 14 feet. The 1713 remains my biggest and fastest growing plant.
This is the 1713 back to back with 2058 Rose.
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Tuesday, June 20
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This is the 2058 Rose. This one also has a pumpkin at about 14 feet that should be opening this week.
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Tuesday, June 20
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This is the 2066 Geddes back to back with the 2261 Wallace. Both of these plants are about a week behind the other two. I'm probably looking at pollination dates closer to 7/1 on both of these plants.
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Tuesday, June 20
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2261 Wallace.
Almost time to take down the wind fences and get the drip irrigation set up. It's a good days work to get it all in place, but once it's set up, it makes watering and fertilizing the plants so easy and because I water from a tank, I know exactly how much water the plants are getting.
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Tuesday, June 27
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Pollinated a nice 5 lobe blossom this morning on the 2230 Wallace plant at about 13 feet. I have three pumpkins pollinated on the main both on the 1713 Lancaster and the 2058 Rose, the first ones at about 12 feet and the last ones at about 15-16 feet. It's decision time soon on both of those plants. The 2066 Geddes plant will have one opening tomorrow at about 13 feet. Hopefully I'll have all my pollinations done for the season tomorrow. Seems like not that long ago the goal was to have pollinations done by the first week of July, now it seems like if you want to be competitive, you've got to have your pollinations done before the end of June.
SVB's and cuke beetles have arrived the past couple days. The spray program kicks into high gear at this point.
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Thursday, June 29
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I spent the day yesterday cleaning up the patch. Starting installing my drip system. Put plywood and growing mats down where my chosen "keepers" are. Still have some back up's growing just in case.
A view of the 1713 Lancaster and 2058 Rose.
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Thursday, June 29
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The 2261 Wallace and 2066 Geddes plants.
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Friday, July 7
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The 2066 Geddes- day 9
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Friday, July 7
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2261 Wallace- day 10.
Ten day measurement on this one was 30 inches.
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Friday, July 7
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1713 Lancaster- day 11
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Friday, July 7
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2058 Rose- day 15
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Friday, July 7
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2261 and 2066 back to back
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Friday, July 7
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1713 and 2058 back to back
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Friday, July 7
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View of the patch
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Friday, July 7
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LG's growing nicely.
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Friday, July 7
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Still have 2-3 day old back up's on all the plants- just in case.
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Thursday, July 13
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The last two growing seasons, couldn't buy a drop of rain.
This season, the rain won't stop. WTF.
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Friday, July 14
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2066 Geddes-
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Friday, July 14
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1713 Lancaster
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Friday, July 14
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2261 Wallace
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Friday, July 14
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2058 Rose
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Tuesday, July 18
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I discovered yesterday that the pumpkin on the 2261 Wallace plant had stopped growing. It was at day 20 yesterday. Looks like it aborted around day 18 at around 100 pounds. Very disappointing.
I have a couple females opening on the main this week, trying to decide whether to continue with it or just pull the plant. Our last weigh off in NH is on 10/14, that could still give me 80+ days of growth if I could get something going on it this week. Then again, I've lost all my plants to frost by the last week of September the past two years.
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Thursday, July 27
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I pulled the 2261 Wallace plant last night and planted mustard. Something was going on with that plant. In addition to the pumpkin that aborted at about 100 pounds, anything new that I pollinated wasn't growing either. All new growth on the plant looked deformed and the leaves on the man vine were turning yellow. Not sure if it was yellow vine or some other virus.
Good news is I have three pumpkins growing on the other three plants and they seem fine. I'll post some pics tomorrow.
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Friday, July 28
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2066 Geddes- day 30
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Friday, July 28
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2066
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Friday, July 28
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2058 Rose- Day 36
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Friday, July 28
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2058
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Friday, July 28
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1713 Lancaster- Day 32
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Friday, July 28
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1713
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Friday, July 28
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Nice healthy looking stumps so far on the plants.
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Friday, July 28
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LG plants are growing good.
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Wednesday, August 2
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I took August 1st measurements yesterday. The two pumpkins on the 1713 & 2058 are at about 550 pounds and the 2066 is about 400 pounds. I'm about 150 -200 pounds behind where I was last year at this time. I just can't seem to get them to grow as fast as I would like. The pumpkins only averaged about 20-25 pounds a day over the past 10 days.
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Wednesday, August 16
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2066 Geddes- taping 740 pounds
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Wednesday, August 16
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Another picture of the 2066
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Wednesday, August 16
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2058 Rose taping 800 pounds
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Wednesday, August 16
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Another picture of the 2058
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Wednesday, August 16
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1713 Lancaster taping 960 pounds
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Wednesday, August 16
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Another picture of the 1713
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Wednesday, August 16
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We have a few long gourds growing.
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Wednesday, August 16
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This is our longest gourd going as of today.
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Wednesday, August 23
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Got a few good LG's going.
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Wednesday, August 23
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another one
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Thursday, August 31
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Tilled in the mustard last night and covered everything with black plastic. That 30 X 35 area should be in good shape for growing a plant next year.
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Thursday, August 31
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Covering and uncovering the pumpkins with heavy blankets every night and morning. This has been a nightly event since the middle of August with overnight temps continuing to be in the low 50's to upper 40's. May hit the upper 30's this weekend. Crazy for this time of year.
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Thursday, August 31
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I wanted to say thank you to everyone who showed up at the New England summer picnic hosted by the NHGPGA this past weekend. It was a real pleasure for us to host one of the patch tours and share the results of our hard work this season with so many awesome people. Armand- I took your advice and covered the mustard, thank you. I don't think it would have got hot enough to do it's job without covering it.
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Tuesday, September 5
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My oldest daughter still lets her Dad take pictures of her with the pumpkins.
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Tuesday, September 5
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2066 Geddes
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Tuesday, September 5
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1713 Lancaster. First picture is the 2058 Rose.
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Monday, October 2
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This was the result from the Deerfield Fair, the 1713 Lancaster plant.
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Monday, October 2
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This was from the 2066 Geddes plant, weighed at Sanford ME.
Went very light.
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Monday, October 16
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Brought in 45 yards of leaf compost, spread it over my 4500 square foot patch and planted winter rye. No more patch work until next spring.
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