Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 26 Entries. Sunday, July 22 View Page I have a good one going this year. Day 30 on the 1791 Werner. She's breaking all my previous records for daily weight gains, weekly gains and best day 30 weight. At day 30 she's taping at 525 lbs. with daily gains in the low to mid 30's. Special thanks to Cecil for helping early on with the soil and SoCal Chris for the technical tips and many talks we've had this season. Thanks buddy!   Sunday, July 22 View Page Sure wish I had a larger area with soil to grow in. Only 300 sqft. of soil to grow in, the other 600 sqft of the plant is on cement and everything else. Another round of hot weather coming up for the next few days. Last heat wave we reached 115° and the 1791 did really well with no leaves wilting that were under shade cloth but some of the newest growth that was exposed to direct sun didn't fare too well as expected. Shade cloth going up over most the plant for the next few days.   Wednesday, August 1 View Page 1791 Werner Day 40, 331 OTT or 800 lbs. according to the 2012 chart. Weather for July has been crazy hot with so many days at or near 100° or even more that I've given up counting. The plant has excellent heat tolerance but with this many hot days it is starting to take a toll on the leaves. Weight gains are dropping off and I will be real surprised if I can keep her growing for another 40 days unless it starts cooling down and that's not likely. Meanwhile, doing my best to keep it going.   Thursday, August 2 View Page Here ya go SDBigMax, this is what finches do to sunflower leaves.   Thursday, August 2 View Page This is finch damage on a pumpkin leaf. The finches were nice enough to leave some bird dropping behind on the upper leaf so it was easy to figure out what did this.   Thursday, August 2 View Page This is what caterpillar damage looks like on a pumpkin leaf. Notice the holes have rounded shapes.   Thursday, August 2 View Page This is the underside of the previous picture. He's been caught in the act.   Thursday, August 2 View Page Oops. Not sure if the picture made it. I'll try again. This is caterpillar damage on a pumpkin leaf.   Saturday, August 11 View Page Day 50 on the 1791 Werner. Not the best growing conditions this summer. The plant is hanging in there considering all the heat we are having this summer. Since the first week of July we have had just a few days where temps weren't at or over 100°. Some of the older leaves are starting to die back and weight gains have dropped. The pumpkin is taping at 350" OTT   Saturday, August 11 View Page Plant is aging way too early. :-( Pumpkin has started cantalouping this past week. Usually cantalouping is a good sign for weigh but with this much heat I 'll be surprised if it goes heavy. Note: The team on the blanket is in no way an endorsement from me. They left town and therefore lost my loyalty. If they didn't win another game this century it wouldn't hurt my feeling one bit.   Saturday, September 1 View Page Day 71. The 1791 has been quite a ride this season and she continues to grow. If she makes it to the scales in sound condition this will be the largest pumpkin ever grown in San Diego, easily smashing the present county record which Team Faith and I grew together back in 2012. She was a nice round shape at day 30 but since then it has taken on a traditional birdbath shape. I hope it goes heavy, but then again who doesn't hope their pumpkin goes heavy . I had a very good nutrient balance in the soil this year and tissue tests confirmed the plant was taking up all it wanted to. 3 weeks till weigh off. 5 gallon bucket on top for size reference. It's growing on a pallet so I can get it out of the patch easier but the pumpkin has had other ideas actually growing partially off the pallet in the front so I've had to put some support under the pumpkin so the bottom isn't stressed too much. It will have to be re positioned at harvest time before moving.   Saturday, September 1 View Page Nice big stump on the 1791. Largest I've seen.   Friday, September 21 View Page Weigh off day is tomorrow! I had a feeling my biggest obstacle was going to be how to get the pumpkin out of the patch. It ended up growing over the back and sides of the pallet so that nearly 50% of the weight was off the pallet. After much thought I came up with an idea and it worked! I even had to have my neighbor sit on the front side of the pumpkin to tip the balance of the weight to the pallet side. LOL Whatever it takes!   Friday, September 21 View Page I even got out the car jack to help.   Friday, September 21 View Page All ready for liftoff!   Friday, September 21 View Page We have lift off! Now hurry up and get that dang truck under the pumpkin before it falls!   Friday, September 21 View Page The Eagle has landed! This thing barely fit in the bed of the truck. 1/4" clearance on each side and maybe 3/4" front to back. Got to love the way it looks back there.   Friday, September 21 View Page Side view. Cant wait to see all my pumpkin buds tomorrow!   Sunday, September 23 View Page This is one of my favorite sights on weigh off day! A line of trucks lined up with everybody’s pride and joy on display with each grower full of hopes and dreams of having the largest pumpkin. Getting ready for a great day of fun and suspense.   Sunday, September 23 View Page Chris and I were sizing up the competition. It was so great to see our growers bring in their pumpkins that were twice and in some cases many times larger than anything they had grown in previous years. A lot of personal bests were set this year and it is exciting to see our local growers increasing in their skill and knowledge of how to grow these giants. One of the great things about our local group of growers is that we share our knowledge freely with each other so that we all benefit and we truly cheer each other on.   Sunday, September 23 View Page This is one of our local growers named Mike. After seeing a picture of how he moved his pumpkin from his patch in the backyard out to the front I gave him the nickname of “Crane Man”. Mike works with cranes for a living so it was only natural that when it was time to move his pumpkin that he brought a crane home and lifted his pumpkin from the backyard to the front going right over his house! I really think all of us as pumpkin growers tend to do a lot of things to the extreme.   Sunday, September 23 View Page Mike doing his thing! Good job “Crane Man”! You're the man!   Sunday, September 23 View Page It’s great to see an increasing number of larger pumpkins being produced from our local growers each year. So.Cal Chris’s pumpkin (the multi colored one) had a menacing look to it. Chris and I were neck and neck this whole season. We both came to the conclusion that if one of us was going to beat the other that we would have to hope our pumpkin went heavier than the others pumpkin. John B. had a nice beauty just behind Chris’s pumpkin.   Sunday, September 23 View Page More of the competition. Kevin D. brought this orange beauty. Nice job! An obvious choice for the Howard Dill Award! My pumpkin is the white “bean bag” in the background. Let the weighing begin!   Sunday, September 23 View Page Chris and John and I were locked in a battle of the scale. John went first and tipped the scale at 1172 setting a new PB for himself, almost doubling his previous best! Chris was next up. As Chris’s pumpkin settled on the scale and the countdown commenced my daughter clung tightly to my arm, anxiously awaiting the reading on the scale. The scale flashed 1283 and Chris is I both knew immediately that he had just gone heavy! Now the pressure was on! My pumpkin taped at an even 400” OTT and Est. weigh of 1412 but I was still in disbelief because that was much larger than what I had taped. (I was probably thrown off on my measurements due to so much of the pumpkin being grown over the sides of the pallet it was sitting on). The one thought that kept going through my mind was that hopefully my pumpkin wasn’t just a big hot air balloon. After all the dust settled, my pumpkin indeed did go light BUT… incredibly I was sitting on top with a weight of 1327! I always wanted to have one of these plaques!   Sunday, September 23 View Page Family picture of the 1327 George. A new PB, largest pumpkin ever grown in San Diego and the winner of this years’ 2018 Southern California weigh off. What more could you hope for! Many thanks to Chris for always being so helpful in so many ways and always there ready to talk pumpkins just about any hour of the day or night! Thanks to Cecil Weston for helping get my soil dialed in. Cecil has helped many growers reach new PB’s and now I am included in that list too. Thank you "pumpkin John" for bringing my pumpkin to the weigh off. I may need to get a bigger truck! And finally thanks to my wife for always being so helpful and always being there to help keep the enthusiasm up when I thought I might take this year off. Sure glad I didn’t!