Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 38 Entries. Tuesday, April 24 View Page Due to weather and other scheduling conflicts I've decided to start a bit later this year. Melons for grafting are up. Rootstock seeds popping Added a last minute seed to the lineup. Will keep 1 plant of each for a traditional backup. Had good germination on all. Finally settled on 291 Kent, 283.5 Dawson, 272.5 Neptune(K), 267 Edwards,168 Bright, 171.5 Cantrell, 140 Cantrell. AG's started yesterday. Pumpkin lineup: 2112 Skinner, 2002 Tobeck, 1415 Scherber, 1050 Burchette. Squash: 2118 Jutras, 655 Cantrell, 102 Cantrell   Monday, April 30 View Page Light frost on the ground this morning. Latest I can remember. Normally have corn in the 3rd to 4th leaf by now. Not planted yet. Not to fear, highs 70-80 expected next few days. Have some pumpkin seedlings that look POOR and some that didn't germinate. Going to start some more backups today so lineup is changing. Just not sure what it's going to be.   Wednesday, May 23 View Page One of the seeds I really was looking forward to growing, 2112 Skinner, shows early signs of being a problem child. All others went in the patch several days ago when this was taken. Since then she has straightened out just fine and is in beside another plant,1050 Burchette. Cuke beetles are the worst I've seen in several years. Not a bunch of the spotted variety but the striped ones are more than making up for them. Thousands upon thousands have succumbed to imidacloprid. Squash bug tally so far is 19. NOT GOOD!   Wednesday, May 23 View Page If the squash bugs end my season early again this year I may give up AG's and spend the future summers doing some of the things I've been missing out on. Took two of my nephews grabbling or noodling, depends where you live as to what you call it, this past weekend along with my son and a brother. A bit early in the season. Only caught one little one of the three catfish located. Got to hear 6ft 3in 330 pound man scream like a little girl and him 3 ft under water! It really doesn't hurt that bad it's just the fear of the unknown biting you.   Wednesday, May 23 View Page Transplanted 7 tomato plants into outdoor hydro system. Plant roots had just reached the sides of the starting containers. They will be in full sun till about 2 pm then shade from the barn will help to cool them in the afternoon heat. This may be detrimental but going to give it a go anyway. Plants in the system 3-8.22 Porkchop, 2-5.68 Porkchop and 2-4.59 Cantrell. Got several more 4.59 seedlings that may go in the garden just for giggles.   Wednesday, May 23 View Page Finally got the melon plants in for the test plot. Looking for high lobe counts. Lobe count vs weight comparison. Fruit devoid of hollow heart. Straight line length. Plants in this test are from the 283.5 Dawson 17, 238 Holloway 12, 249 Bright 07, 151 Bright 84, 165 Cantrell 10, 140 Cantrell 17   Wednesday, May 23 View Page It's OFFICIAL! I am retiring from growing Atlantic Giants. Watered this morning and saw the first few weeds starting to sprout. Grabbed the hoop hoe and surprise. Day two of the invasion. In a couple short hours since my earlier post the body count on squash bugs went up to 53. This is not on a commercial field, we're talking 6 plants and a couple back-ups. After pinching the heads off every one I could find I stood at the edge of the patch and watched 2 more fly in. They're included in the TBC. Plants will get MIMIMAL care, maybe some water and a regular heavy dose of spray. Going to treat them as a trap crop. I'M DONE FIGHTING.   Thursday, May 24 View Page Sprayed last night with Baythroid. Scouted plants and no bugs this morning after finishing the irrigation setup on test melons. Went back through at 4:30 and found a couple dead, a few struggling and the balance waiting to be pinched. After tossing the first two I decided to start collecting and removing the corpses from the area. 24 more today. TBC 77   Friday, May 25 View Page Went back out at 7pm and found 17 more squash bugs. As with all the other trips about half the bugs found are on the ground on their backs, I assumed playing possum. Always pinched and disposed of them anyway. But this time I looked a bit closer. A couple on their backs were stone cold dead others had twitching legs and were close to death. Several were alive and capable of moving, escaping I'm not so sure about. 2 or 3 were on leaves and 4 or 5 around the stump areas. I'd like to know what did in the ones that died. Residual from Baythroid or jacked up imidacloprid.   Wednesday, June 6 View Page It's been seven years but the day has come. We inoculated all the American Chestnut trees last summer with the blight. Today we checked the inoculation sites and the numbers weren't as good as we hoped for. Total of about eight trees showed some resistance and only 2 of which appear to have good resistance. On average it should have been about 1 in 8 with good resistance. Total number of trees we started with was 120. Non-resistant trees eliminated.   Friday, June 8 View Page Tomato setup complete. Using twine and clips designed for tomato plant support again this year. They are removable so if/when they get to tight I can make adjustments. Pleased with plant development. Using a little different feeding formula compared to previous years.   Friday, June 8 View Page First round of blooms developing nicely with just a hint of yellow starting to show.   Friday, June 8 View Page Test melons looking very good. By far the most aggressive family of plants are the 140.5 Cantrell's. The other 5 families are comparable with the 238 Holloway's the least aggressive but only by a smidgen. Will rotate vines onto the plastic and till one more time then finish up the hand work at the edges and around the stumps. That should complete 99% of the weeding that's getting done this year. Made the decision to terminate the 7 competition melon plants. Lack of time is an issue but a couple plants are showing early signs of bacterial spot and I want to stop it now before it gets to the test patch. Haven't had any luck curing it in the past.   Thursday, June 14 View Page First possible set for the year. Plant #5 5.68 Porkchop. The Porkchop plants are performing differently in the hydro system than all the other plants I've had. Leaves are much longer and plants are taller. All plants have had decent blooms and we'll know in a few short days if we have a set. Going to take cuttings from every plant and start a second batch in case something special appears. I want to be able to do a 100% controlled pollination for seeds. I've seen a few tiny little native bees working the blooms a time or two on this group.   Sunday, June 17 View Page First females on the melon plants opened today. Several more to open over the next couple days. None will be left for pollination until plant double their current size or more for some. Average distance out is around 6 feet. Recording female length, lobe count and if it's on the main or secondary. Will collect this data until plants grow together and fruit are set. So far everything has been 3 lobed, 19-24mm and a variety of diameters. One plant has produced 2 FAT ones compared to its sibling plants and on side vines to boot. The first one on its main should open tomorrow. Don't know if I'll learn a THING of importance this year but it sure is interesting to see the differences between families and sibblings.   Monday, June 18 View Page Never had females with this kind of length on such a young plant. Both came from the same plant, longer one from the main, the slightly smaller one from a side. Both 3 lobed. Be interesting to se if this plant can throw more lobes later. These are the first and only females so far from this family group which was selected for length, 151 Bright.   Monday, June 18 View Page Decided to use some of the row numbers left over from our u-pick strawberry growing days to identify each melon plant. It's making record keeping way easier.   Wednesday, June 20 View Page These are pretty good representatives of the females from 2 different family groups. Both are 3 lobed   Wednesday, June 27 View Page Had some wind a few days back but got things straightened up pretty good. Started letting a couple families set some open pollinated fruit for test purposes. Most families have plants with 10-12 ft mains. Well yesterday a real doozy came through and made the plants look like a swarm of squid heading north. Before the wind there was little plastic visible. More rain today so no tromping in the patch scheduled. Have plans to remove about half of the 140.5's. No super high lobe counts have appeared as hoped. Speculating now that the 8 lobe female was a conjoined twin and not a heritable genetic trait. Still could be proven wrong so I will keep the plants that have been prone to throw more 4+ lobed females. Across and between all families there has been quite a variation of the number of females produced per plant along with lobe counts. I've isolated a couple 140.5 and 151 plants that I will self pollinate for seeds for the future if the storms haven't killed them.   Sunday, July 1 View Page Melon plants are bouncing back as best they can. Growth is expanding from the tangles. The plants in general are about the size where I'd expect to start seeing the females I'd use if I was hoping for a competition fruit and those females are appearing. Even though this is only a 3 lober the length was 43 mm, she has produced 4's. A sister plant had a 4 lober at 42 mm also this morning. Selfed both plants. Found the first 5 lobed females this morning on various families. One of the 145.5 plants had a 3 lobed 29 mm, 4 lobed 29 mm and 4 lobed 31 mm female on separate side vines. With luck these will give us an "indication" if lobe count and female length really matter, that's assuming they all had good pollinations etc.   Sunday, July 1 View Page Last photo was on a 151 Bright and the 3 females were on a 140.5 Cantrell. 5 lobes appeared on 238 Hollowaw, 283.5 Dawson and 140.5 Cantrell   Sunday, July 1 View Page LOL. 238 Holloway!   Wednesday, July 4 View Page Heat is playing havoc with watermelon pollinations. Several pear shapes and a bunch of aborts. Nearly all the early measuring and data collecting will not be used due to the aborts. Most of the selfed long 151's have an early pear shape so some seeds should be good eventually. Hope some later good sets appear but measuring is complete. Data collection is basically done till harvest. Have pulled all ag's except 2118 Jutras. Hope she lasts long enough for seed maturity. Crossed with 760 Cantrell (1844.5 Holub x 2075.5 Connoly).   Sunday, July 15 View Page First hydro tomato starting to color up a bit. It's on a 8.22 porkchop. Have noticed that there is a big difference in sibling plants under hydro. This plant set fruit with no problem. One sib got BER on everything early and the third was in-between. Same with a different pair of sibs. Everything is on the same system so feeding is the same. Have set up a second line on the same system with clones for final comparison purposes and have put several clones where the pumpkins were. I want to see if BER shows itself in those also.   Sunday, July 15 View Page Spent the better part of a week with my granddaughter in Louisville KY at Exposure basketball tournaments. This was my first encounter with such. This was an all girls event and all 81 courts were under one roof. Coaches from all over were there to scout. Truly amazing events.   Sunday, July 15 View Page On my way home I thought I'd sneak by Professor Mudd's place and do a bit of spying. When I came around the corner I was surprised to find him napping on guard duty. Thought I had it made and was ready to some serious surveillance but no one told me about the da-gum guard camel.   Sunday, July 22 View Page First of this years tomatoes weighed. Disappointed to say the least in the entire first run. This 2.88 is from a 8.22. Guess the plant is dyslexic. Plants still look ok and no sign of diseases. Clones are coming on strong. Being clones most tried to set trusses early. All were removed along with the next one as soon as it started to appear. I want all the energy to go into the third truss development. Drastically changing the feeding along with lowering the ph a bit. Going to try a couple different sprays to see if I can head off BER early.   Sunday, July 22 View Page Second tomato a tiny bit better but not by much. My apologies to my teammates. Still hope to do better. This 2.965 is off my pb 4.59 which was grown hydroponically also. Shaped similar to mama but not near as big. Only plant that was totally free of BER. I've got cutting to replace some plants with for some more late tomatoes but I'm seeing some really funky growth coming on some of the older plants. Where I took out suckers another has developed and about 6-8 inches up it starts to ribbon like some pumpkin vines. Blooms on these are bazar. Not sure they are even going to have petals. Going to watch and learn.   Thursday, July 26 View Page Weighed third tomato of the year. Getting a little but better at 3.34 pounds. Off plant #3 - 5.68 Marley. Clones are looking good with one having the best set of the year. About silver dollar size right now. It's mother plant has an ever larger bloom to open in a day or two. That plant has been very susceptible to BER so fingers crossed for both. Two tomatoes in early group wont get weighed. Small with BER and using them for experimental sprays. Seems to be working but to late for those individuals.   Thursday, July 26 View Page One of the better looking ones that I've had this year and the first one that I can remember making a complete circle. This is on a 8.22 and a clone from this plant has a bloom just opening that looks very similar. Started another cutting today from the mother plant. Will stick it in line where a plant will be removed. So far sprays have held BER at bay in these later sets. Going to switch my fruit slings to hose material. Currently using old sheet pieces.   Friday, July 27 View Page Went with plan C on tomato slings. Happen to look in a storage cabinet and saw several 5 gallon paint strainers that I've used for the hydro system. It occurred to me that the bottoms were shaped just about perfect. I cut off the desired portion, tied a small knot at the corner of both seams so my twine won't slip off and I had an instant sling. Plenty of ventilation and easy to see through. I should be able to spray through them if needed.   Monday, September 3 View Page Watermelon patch has been done for about a month. Keep in mind all fruit are young compared to what competition fruit would be. In "general" the shape of the fruit was similar amongst siblings but different between families. Unlike the competition plants I've grown in the past very few 5 lobed females were observed, even from the same genetic families. No 6+ lobes from the two lines that I had hoped might produce some (140.5 & 165B). LONG fruit were produced from the two families as hoped (249 and 151). Much longer that the other families. Seeds were saved from a couple selfed 151's that produced fat and long fruit. The 249's were fatter as a family. The 165B and 238 Holloway produced well balanced fruit with good length and shape, about average weight. The 283's were a bit shorter than average but fatter. Very consistent. The 140.5's all had similar girth to the 283 and many looked very similar to the 283's but about 1/3 of the plants produced much longer fruit. Of the 4 best fruit in the patch (68 plants) 2 came from the 249 Bright and the 2 largest from 140.5.   Thursday, September 27 View Page I harvested seeds from melons for a couple growers that had to leave their fruit at the Tennessee Valley Fair. Weigh-off date was 9/6. Not sure of any of the harvest dates or when any stopped growing. This is the 180 Vial. Photo date 9/19.   Thursday, September 27 View Page 200 Kent. Photo date 9/22.   Thursday, September 27 View Page 235 Williams. Photo date 9/21   Thursday, September 27 View Page 272.5 Bentley. Photo date 9/18.   Thursday, September 27 View Page My tomato season appears to be about done. Made some changes with the clones and they out produced the mother plants. This is off a 8.22.   Thursday, September 27 View Page This is from the 5.68 Marley. Long way to go to be a competitive grower doing it hydroponically. I hope to be able to do the winter grow and not lose them to BER now. More tweaking to get really good blooms to set.