Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 64 Entries. Thursday, March 1 View Page For those who missed the GPC Big Show in Portland you missed one of the best ever!!!! First morning we woke up to the sun coming up over Mt. Hood stunning. What a way to kick off this amazing weekend.   Thursday, March 1 View Page I would like to give a big shout out to Jim Sherwood for all he did to secure & work with the hotel for the Big Show in Portland. Jim put in an incredible amount of time to make sure this event went on without a hitch. From what I saw his efforts made this one of the best GPC Big Show's I have attended. Not to mention he took time to give Quinn & myself a guided tour of the Columbia River gorge thank you Jim!!!!!!   Thursday, March 1 View Page Checking out the falls in Oregon, I also would like to thank Quinn for watching out for me Carol had to stay home so the baby sitting job fell on his shoulders!!!!   Thursday, March 1 View Page Look out Quinn that sturgeon looks hungry!!!!!   Thursday, March 1 View Page I knew I wasn't the only one of my kind left just had to go to Oregon & find my long lost brother.   Thursday, March 22 View Page It was our first full day of spring enjoying it with 8" of snow!?!?!?   Monday, April 2 View Page April 2, I woke up to this today another 5" of snow tough to think the weather will cooperate enough to get patch ready to plant seedlings in less than a few weeks :-( Long range forecast says much colder than normal through the middle of April hard to feel good about spring so far let alone getting ready to plant pumpkins!!!!!   Saturday, April 7 View Page Another day anther 3" of snow & 21 degrees to wake up to, getting tired of the same old song we really need to spring to get here!!!! Just think another 7 days or so to start our seeds not thinking the patch will be ready for that unless mother nature does a 180 real quick!!!   Monday, April 16 View Page Amazing turn around in just 1 week, incredible what good drainage along with 3 70+ degree days & 30 MPH winds can do. We got lucky in a short window conditions were perfect to get tilled & put our hooch's up last Saturday.   Monday, April 16 View Page A nice team effort to get the job done, just think be next Sunday we will have our seedlings in the ground.   Monday, April 16 View Page Oh yea we started our seeds late Friday 4/13 it is good to get an early start just hope the cold spell early this week is a last gasp for winter weather. It has been a tough spring but the long range forecast looks workable so let the games begin!!!!   Monday, April 23 View Page Seeds went in 4" pots late Friday 4/13 so now 9 days later time to put them in their hooch's. Check the soil temps & they look good 76 - 78 degree's those roots should like all the available nutrients.   Monday, April 23 View Page Speaking of roots I find it amazing these plants can put have this much root mass in 9 days. I feel a big part of that is the Azos we use in the starter pots it is an amazing product that make a big difference.   Monday, April 23 View Page We like to lay the seedling on it's side a little & point opposite direction of the first true leaf to help the main vine to lay down & not grow up & break off. This does not always work but has better results then burring the seedling completely vertical. You can see our remote for keeping track of the high's & lows in the hooch along with our 125 watt brooder light for heat at night.   Tuesday, April 24 View Page After we got our plants in we looked at our 1,784 from last year composting in the patch & noticed you could still read the weight on it from Hamilton.   Tuesday, April 24 View Page Here is a close up of the numbering still legible, I thought it was pretty interesting but then again that doesn't take much.   Tuesday, April 24 View Page Here is a close up of the numbering still legible, I thought it was pretty interesting but then again that doesn't take much.   Monday, April 30 View Page We had quite the weekend for weather it started off Friday evening when a front blew through with 60mph gusts & ended with 2 nights of frost. Friday night was hell for about an hour trying to keep the hooches from blowing completely apart we had 5 of us trying to keep the entire structures from blowing into the next county & putting us back 2 weeks thanks for the team effort!!!!   Monday, April 30 View Page A serene morning after a cold & windy weekend, just wanted to show the hooches with their cold night blankets on. It makes a big difference what a little insulation & a 125W brooder light does to help keep the seedlings warm on a cold night, the blankets also double as late season warmth for the pumpkins.   Monday, April 30 View Page Outside the hooch it is 28 degrees (we had 27 on our house thermometer) inside a nice 56 degrees, you can also see the high & low from the day before the 99 is skewed a little from the sun giving it an extra 15 - 20 degrees & the 46 low was when I turned the lights off to early before we had enough light to do the job on a cool cloudy day to start.   Monday, May 7 View Page Here is 2019 & 2020 patch wanted to get the leaves spread & the mustard put in the only hold up was getting the leaves out of about 1,000 bags. I appreciate the leaves but needless to say if they aren't in biodegradable bags I will decline & look else where for organic material to add.   Monday, May 7 View Page It was a mountain of an effort just to get the bags emptied & a team effort but will need to wait for a night this week to spread & till in as it was much wetter than anticipated. It is hard to tell by the picture but these should spread out to be about 6" deep over about 20,000 sq. ft., this along with the manure & grass make for a nice mixture that will break down easily with our cover crop & mykos.   Monday, May 7 View Page It was a mountain of an effort just to get the bags emptied & a team effort but will need to wait for a night this week to spread & till in as it was much wetter than anticipated. It is hard to tell by the picture but these should spread out to be about 6" deep over about 20,000 sq. ft., this along with the manure & grass make for a nice mixture that will break down easily with our cover crop & mykos.   Thursday, May 10 View Page Got the leaves tilled in & the mustard planted here you can see our 2019 & 2020 patches the mustard is in the 2020 patch. Both will get Sudan grass (Sudanex) for a cover crop mixed with Mykos to get the biological fungi going. The farmer was working the soil & planting when I was working on our future patches, I really didn't notice till I was looking at the pictures at how far our soil has come in 4 years. We started with almost straight clay & with massive organic amendments & some time our soil is getting right where we want it as you can see in the color differences in the picture.   Monday, May 14 View Page The weather was not ideal last week & left the plastic off on some cool nights when they should have been covered but all in all the plants look acceptable for this time of year. All have laid down & did not have any split mains from the process (knock on wood) & the leaf color looks decent so the program is getting the job done. We just need a little warmer weather but not complaining looks like a warm wet week so hopefully the plants will respond.   Monday, May 21 View Page Not much news this week other than the plants are hitting their stride & filling out the hooch's. Memorial Day weekend will be when the patch makes the transformation from spring to summer pulling the hooch's, final till, spread final amendments, raking 10K square' out, putting all walking boards out, shade cloth put up,..... Needless to say grilling & relaxing by the pool are NOT on the agenda for this weekend. The good news is I have 2 full days to get it done how lucky am I (truth is Carol does the work I just offer words of encouragement periodically)!?!?!?!?!?   Saturday, May 26 View Page Good week so far got the wire & ratchet improvements we needed done, plastic & boards pulled (you can see them on left of this years patch) Last night we got the top of our shade cloth put up, it is going to be in the mid to upper 80's & when the hooch's get pulled we need the extra shade so we don't burn any vines. Trick this weekend will be how bad the weather is they are calling for storms so if we pull the hooch's early the wind could tear them up but we need to till before the plants get bigger & we are tilling mud.   Sunday, May 27 View Page We had 1/2" of rain Friday night which put us behind for the weekend not what we needed for a huge work load we needed to get done. Here you can see by the end of the day on Sunday we had the top shade cloth in place, the hooch's pulled, spread kelp & humic acid. I thing we do different is to spread our Pumpkin Pro & root shield just before we do our final till. This keeps the product in the entire root area & close to the early root growth, as we know it takes 4 - 6 weeks for colonization so in our experience getting the product in place early will ensure better coverage for all roots.   Monday, May 28 View Page Brutal heat but not complaining will take 94 F long before that cold blowing white stuff. It does however make for a very long day full of manual labor doing final till, raking till lines, putting out over 150 2' X 4' walking boards, stringing up side wire, & hang the side curtains. Needles to say the heat won & did not get everything done. We did drench our plants with some liquid Azo's, fish, TKO, & Merit gotta keep the food & water to some hungry plants.   Sunday, June 3 View Page We got our drip headers set up here you can see the point it comes up in patch. From here it get's divided out to the 4 plants header lines each plant has 26 lines 15" on center, the drip tap emitters are 8" apart though 12" is normal we like the closer ones. The other 2 faucets are for the Whiz head sprinklers this is how we will feed the plants when they get a little bigger. We don't like to run anything but water through our drip tape so we don't clog our emitters up we have noticed with just water at end of year a pretty good iron/calcium build up from the water straight out of our well.   Tuesday, June 12 View Page One thing we like to do when possible is time our drenches with a good rain shower. Here you can see a good one brewing on the horizon time to get our drench ready before the down pour & save our well water.   Tuesday, June 12 View Page We got our drip laid & tested already for the dry season, needless to say we have been anything but dry so far this spring. When you are always rushing to get everything done you must remember to pay attention to the details or it could cost you. These are words I forgot when I made this rookie mistake & used a pump up sprayer for the first time in 2 years. I used it for my insecticide & fungicide spray last week but did not clean it out first before spraying my plants. It was not used for round up but needless to say the 2 year old left over product was not good for our plants. You can see how the main & secondary's pulled back & are stunted from the toxic mixture I applied. Carol was livid when I fessed up with my mistake can't say I blame her I put our good plants back with this stupid mistake.   Friday, June 15 View Page It's June 15th the unofficial opening to pollinating season time move to the next phase of the year. Typically we want to be pollinating 16'+ out between now & the end of the month with peak being the summer solstice, typically this will give us 9 or more side vines on each side of the plant to drive the pumpkins. This one is @ 15.5' on our 1937 Urena plant a couple things we like to do is put a piece of folded paper towel between the fruit & the leaf stalk, we don't cut the leaf off till we set the fruit as it helps shade it & the towel protects the fruit from getting scratched by the leaf stalk as it drops to the ground. Evens the smallest scratch at this size turns into large scars later in the fruits life so we do our best to protect it even at this early stage. Another thing we do is use clothes line clips to hold the flowers closed after pollinating we will remove this in the evening after the fruit has finished setting from the pollen while making it impossible for bee's to get in & cross pollinate.   Thursday, June 21 View Page Well the summer solstice came with a bang today here is a picture of our 1,784 Stelts plant as you can see we had 2 to pollinate today. This is rare that I pollinate 2 in 1 day on separate leaf nodes but to have 3 in 3 days is really good especially when you factor in the time of year & feet on vine. We shoot for pollinations @ 16' or further by the summer solstice today was the biggest day ever for us as we pollinated 7 today on 6 plants (which made me late for work, oh well) This is record for us & now have good sets on 7 of 8 plants @ 15' - 21' from 6/15 till today with 6 plants having 2 or more good sets we feel pretty good about this just need to get the pumpkins to grow now. We also have half of our plants with the first to 3rd side vines terminated we have 35' X 35' for each plant so vine burying is maxed out as well so there is much work to get done no rest for a while.   Thursday, July 5 View Page It has been a tough stretch with the heat (mid 90's) trying to keep up with the vines & it has taken it's toll on a couple of our plants. This plant has aborted all 3 previous sets & pollinated these on a 95 degree day & in reality the first one will be our last chance on the main as we won't keep a pumpkin on past the main vine break (still not sure why I bothered to pollinate it?!?!?!?) It looks good so far & love the 6 segment we have done well in the past with them so am holding our breath & hope for the best.   Thursday, July 5 View Page The heat hasn't hurt our compost tea brew as you can see our WOW tea bags & activator really like to foam up & the plants love it. We traditionally brew 35 - 40 gallons at a time a couple times a week & add in Azos, soluble seaweed, companion, ..... we mix up & rotate what we need from our sap samples that tell us what our plants are lacking.   Monday, July 9 View Page It is the dreaded foaming time of year a little earlier than usual but when you have a week + of 90 - 95 degrees & 75+ dew points you have the recipe for this to happen. Bad part is I had checked the stumps 3 days prior & would normally have daily checks but got busy burring vines & keeping up on the front side of plant. This is on our 1681 Stelts plant so the pumpkin will need to grow from side vines only you can see I treated with Zerotol & then coated the main with sulfur fungicide, I will keep at this twice daily till it dries up & hopefully do not need to cut further up the vine.   Monday, July 9 View Page Here is a picture of our 1810 Werner plant the pumpkin is just shy of 20 DAP which we will get a measurement on soon to set our baseline. We wait till 20 DAP to measure as this gives us our baseline for the year plus the pumpkin is big enough to get a 3 way measurement. You can also see we cut the main off when it reaches the end of it's area when the last side vine fills this area in we will let it grow outside the shade cloth so the plant has something growing till the end.   Sunday, July 15 View Page The weather has been brutal to work in & the humidity is actually in the mid 70's making it very difficult to work in & the plants are feeling it as well.   Sunday, July 15 View Page The weather has been brutal to work in & the humidity is actually in the mid 70's making it very difficult to work in & the plants are feeling it as well.   Monday, July 16 View Page Even with our shade cloth we are getting leaf burn, we choose not to mist as it is a double edge sword no mist & get burnt leaves - mist & promote leaf disease we feel it is better to have a few burnt leaves that have some function other than leaves that will die of disease.   Thursday, July 19 View Page Here is problem child #1 our 2145 plant we were very close to just pulling the plant but compromised on cutting 10+' of the main vine off as it was flagging bad & not growing plus aborting all sets. We have yet to have anything set on this plant & are even getting help from Jerry Snyder to try & get anything on the plant hoping that the energy from the main will get the side vines going. If we do get any to set we will try to grow multiples if possible & hope they get regatta size we can use for the big event in Pittsburgh 10/20 & 21.   Thursday, July 19 View Page All is not bad even with 2 plants with nothing on them our plants have all but filled out their areas (1,225 square') which is good for us this time of year just need to keep them healthy for the drive to put on weight. This is a picture of our 1810 Werner pumpkin in the fore ground it is close to 30 DAP we love the shape & the color is good as well just hope we can get a good one like the Skinners had!!!!   Saturday, July 28 View Page Well when you have peak growth with big rains you can almost guarantee some will split. This one was going to be a real beauty on our 1784 plant this happened Thursday putting us down to 5 & we haven't even hit August yet.   Saturday, July 28 View Page 5 could be 4 real soon if this nasty stem split doesn't stop, been a tough year & not getting any better. This one is also a beauty on our 1681 plant, why is it that the pretty ones always give you the most problems!?!?!?!?   Wednesday, August 1 View Page Update on the stem split had Jerry Rose over & he split the stem back for me to relieve the pressure on the split. I was not a big about doing this but he had good reasoning after talking to him & Quinn so let him do his thing & gotta say I am turning into a believer on cutting the stem back.   Wednesday, August 1 View Page pulled the split one out & weighed it a little light to chart but that is common for us on pumpkins this young. Didn't want to smell it when the rotting starts so figured I would decorate the field corn for the farmer who rents our field, already for the season now.   Sunday, August 5 View Page This is our pumpkin growing on our 1310 seed it was a real beast putting up numbers better than our 2090 from last year. Bad thing is it rib split I guess doing 3 weeks at 45+#'s per day took it's toll on it finished 45 DAP 1,285#'s this takes us down to 4 competition pumpkins not what we envisioned when we started our seeds.   Tuesday, August 7 View Page When good plants get bad pumpkins that split & abort we wanted to make something of the hard work we have already done to the plant. We hope to get them from 700 - 1200#'s for regatta, carving, dropping from excessive heights.... who know we will find something to do with them.   Monday, August 13 View Page I think we have turned the corner on our stem split it has scabbed up & healing a little as well. It would have been a real shame to lose this one (not that losing any giant is better than another) it has a really nice shape 7 the color is outstanding. This is from our 1681 seed stock which grew our 1784 last year which came in second @ Hamilton Ohio last year, gonna be real hard not to get this one another run next year.   Monday, August 13 View Page Here is the pumpkin with the stem split figured if I was going to brag about the color & shape I should show a picture of the pumpkin.   Thursday, August 30 View Page It has been a tough month we have 4 competition pumpkins left & a bunch of smaller ones we hope will make 1K for the event in Pittsburgh 10/20 & 21. Heat, humidity, & wet weather have given us fits with disease on our plants from a season full of optimism we are just hoping the other shoe doesn't drop in the next 5 - 6 weeks when the weigh-offs we go to finally start. Here is 1 of our highly trained cats (Aladdin) keeping a watchful eye for any rodents that might think they can get the seeds inside our pumpkins.   Friday, October 26 View Page After seeing our Altoona entry go bad when we picked it we decided to pull our pumpkins a week early since the stems were going bad at an alarming rate to keep dry with fans in our garage.   Friday, October 26 View Page Well we got through the weigh-off season & our 3 pumpkins were in the carving tent for the Pittsburgh event. Here you see the tent with the 6 carvers lined up from left to right Jim Morgan, Steve Zuklke, Gus Smithheisler, Russ Leno, Dean Murray, & Danny Kissel. These guys were awesome & Russ & Dean stayed the weekend doing small carvings & interacting with the crowd which was about 6 or more deep for the weekend at the carving tent.   Friday, October 26 View Page Here are the guys 2 days later with their finished carvings, I must say this amazed me to see this many huge pumpkins carved in a row the carvings were excellent & was a big crowd pleaser for the event.   Friday, October 26 View Page The first regatta in the Allegheny river was a big success looking to put more boats in the water next year.   Friday, October 26 View Page A huge shout out to Andy & Nick for making the regatta such a big success Nick was the first to paddle couldn't have done it with out you 2!!!!!   Friday, October 26 View Page staging the pumpkins with the city in the background pretty cool shot on a sunny set up day.   Friday, October 26 View Page Champions row or Karl Haist row at the end of a pier pretty awesome site hope we did you right Karl? Here you have Ameila Wolf giving the final inspection before the crowds come.   Friday, October 26 View Page Here you have Carol checking out Karl's 2005 set up for pumpkin diving which was another big hit. You could get inside it for a photo op, at times the Haist pumpkins could barley be seen with all the people sitting on & around it for pictures.   Friday, October 26 View Page Here is the best fisherman at the event Andy holding his prized catch with his favorite ratchet strap lure thanks for the hook up Andy!!!   Friday, October 26 View Page Another big shout out to Jim Sherwood who had this ingenious but simple rig made up by Larry Nelson to release pumpkins for dropping from a crane. If you look close enough you can see the orange vise grip holding the rope together.   Friday, October 26 View Page A very special shout out to Micheal Dongilli who put the whole event on he worked tirelessly to make it happen for with out him there would have not been a show. Here we are in front of our 1933 & 1656 pumpkins before they got carved taking time to reflect on the past year to get to this point.   Friday, October 26 View Page All good things must come to an end here we have the last of the carved pumpkins & regatta pumpkins before they went into the roll off. This will end our diary for the year we had some good & some bad this year but now it is time to focus on the pumpkin cruise in 2019 look for that in our diary next year & thanks for following us, Dave & Carol.