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Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 42 Entries.
Tuesday, January 16 View Page
I was given this from a 1996 Canadian magazine. Weights have changed over the years. Hey GPC, I think it's time to bring back the trading cards.
 
Sunday, March 11 View Page
I planned on growing my own this year. There's a couple seeds that I've never given a fair shake. The first one is my 1572 Hoelke that was grown from my 1463 which has done well with %heavy and great colour in the past. A small percentage of 1463's have this blotched pattern that I think looks great. This was the nicest pumpkin I've ever grown and with that sunburst pattern as a bonus. This one split split underneath in late August at Day 60. Weighed with a crane scale at 14% heavy and 1572 pounds with lots of time to grow. I placed all small fruit that year on small pieces of 2x4's in order to get the vine higher up to help as it grew taller. Well, I left the pieces of 2x4 under fruit too long and the weight caused an indentation underneath. Long story short, they all split that year underneath and all had huge concave bottoms from the boards. Brutal lesson learned. I crossed it with Scott Steil's 1873 which is 2009 x 2328 Meier. On paper it looked great. The 2328 did go on to produce the 2096 Meier which in turn produced some nice heavy fruit. I really liked the shape and colour of Scott's 1873 which had the smooth skin of the 1725 Harp from the 2009 side with a shot of colour. I'll be interested to see what I get from this one. Hoping for large, heavy and orange. Every time I look at the 1572 I just feel I have to try it. Love that colour.
 
Sunday, April 1 View Page
This was October 6th last year. Zinnias is full bloom and the hairy vetch vigorous.
 
Sunday, April 1 View Page
This was today :[
 
Wednesday, May 16 View Page
I culled down to one 1803 Hoelke. All three of my plants look good in their cold frames and I have double planted in all. This 1803 has dropped safely so when that happens the knife comes out for its partner. I'll be filling in spaces in no particular order this year for the diary, mostly so I can look back on them even though I don't have as much time to post. I make no notes and wing it most of the time, so these diary posts with dated pictures are all I have to look back on year over year. Looks like I'm about 2 days behind last year's record start which I'm more than happy with in this cold April start.
 
Wednesday, May 23 View Page
Great weather for the last 2 weeks. Lots of sun and 1 day of rain out of last 15 days. As good as it gets here in mid to late May. Plants love it. 1803 Hoelke leading the pack.
 
Thursday, May 31 View Page
The best plant is my 1803 Hoelke. Over 10 feet at the end of May sounds good to me. The 1572 and 2145 are both a couple feet behind, but all plants look very good. Very green and throwing females often already.
 
Wednesday, June 6 View Page
In Nova Scotia for the week. The plants are on their own. Such a nice province from the rugged shoreline to the cities.
 
Friday, June 8 View Page
I'm going to have some vine burying to do this weekend. Plants seem to look good but I can't get a close up on the camera system. We'll see tomorrow. There was a good inch and half of rain so I didn't have to use my sprinkler Wi-Fi switch. It's pretty amazing that we can see and water a garden from thousand of miles away with the touch of a button.
 
Tuesday, June 12 View Page
My 1803 is at a safe 16 feet. We've had some cooler nights for the past week but it looks a we're back to double digit nights for the next few so hopefully growth picks up. 2145 and 1572 are at about 13 feet and 11 feet respectively. Good green on all plants.
 
Thursday, June 21 View Page
I haven't been taking enough pictures. It's always nice to look back year to year. Part of the reason I haven't been taking pictures is my disastrous weed situation. You can see how quickly they take over. This year I seem to have crab grass added to the mix, which doesn't like to be pulled easily. I love the drip tubing but the one knock is no more tilling after may. This creates a problem when you have enough weeds to create a new lawn with one cut from a lawnmower. Makes me sick to be honest. I believe they came in from a large load of old manure, which was really a 12 year old pile of weeds that dropped seeds for 12 years before I dumped it in my garden. Anyway, we can't go backwards but I do get jealous seeing many people's weed free soil, or even soil with minor weeds. Mine is awful. So I sprayed round-up 30 hours prior to this picture. Remember, I've killed my plants two years out of 6 with round up. I don't want to use it but there's no other way. I'd honestly rather have no plants than a weed mess in the pumpkin patch and look at that all summer. Yesterday was a great morning to spray. Zero wind, and I stayed back a few feet. I use a blast sheild as well which always stands between plant and spray. I'm confident all is well but we'll know next week. I'm gone for the weekend so it will be an interesting check in Monday. I sprayed all three plants, took about an hour and a half. Hated every minute as the bugs were really hungry at sun-up. Pollinations on all plants and some with two pollinations. Plants are large and look really good. Tissue tests were pretty well balanced.
 
Wednesday, June 27 View Page
1572 Hoelke. Two fruit pollinated. Main vine about 18 feet.
 
Wednesday, June 27 View Page
2145 McMullen. Two pollinated and main vine is about 20 feet.
 
Wednesday, June 27 View Page
1803 Hoelke out over 25 feet and three pollinated. Big heat coming so I'll hold all pollinations until that passes and make my choice. Round-up worked great, no vine damage. I have some hand weeding to do around vine tips but the remainder of the garden is weed free.
 
Saturday, June 30 View Page
Culled the 13 foot fruit and went with the smaller 16 foot fruit on my 1803. Tough to do as the larger one was really taking off at not even 2 weeks old and perfect shape.
 
Saturday, July 7 View Page
Not sure what day this is for the 1803 Hoelke x 2145 McMullen. I have to check my notes. This is my favorite shape, like a football and looks to he an orange one. Crazy hot 7 days just wrapped up. I have leaf scorch on most vines facing south. We got no rain at all and with temps in the high 90's and a range of 105-115 F with humidity for that 7 days I would have expected a storm or three. They all missed. I should have taken down my black wind fence as I think it caused more burn by holding back a breeze and heating the area around the fence. Just figured there would be a storm. Anyway, I lost one pollination of the 2145 so I'm back a week or so on that plant. It looks like the 1803 and 1572 held onto their fruit. I've never seen a week like that.
 
Saturday, July 14 View Page
2145 McMullen. This was a late pollination, on July 5th.
 
Saturday, July 14 View Page
1572 Hoelke x 2145 McMullen. This one is close to day 20. Plant looks fine and the fruit has started to pick up the pace.
 
Saturday, July 14 View Page
1803 Hoelke x 2145 McMullen. Day 25. Moving nicely. Very happy with the shape and looks to be working into orange.
 
Tuesday, July 24 View Page
The roots are really popping on the 2145. It seems to have kicked into another gear, I just haven't seen that on the young pumpkin. Must be my expired mycorrhizae that I'm using.
 
Tuesday, July 24 View Page
Here's an under shot of my 1803. I can finally take vine shots after hand weeding 2 of 3 plants on the inside where I didn't round up. 1 hour per plant and a screaming back. Couldn't believe how many weeds there were. I've really worked on getting my tap roots. This is like a poor man's version to the Patons pot method. I just take 2 handfuls of damp mix and wrap each leaf node. Works well. This year I took a small shovel and loosened the soil at each node so the roots could drive down. I wear plywood shoes all year and never walk on soil and it's still really loose but I wanted to get the roots down quick. I've got most top roots dropped into the soil. I never liked the science of trenching and like my vines high and dry. I can't trench with drip tape anyway so this works for me. My vine burying mix: 1 wheel barrow load of promix. A couple shovel fulls of kelp granular mix, a shovel full of oyster shell, a shovel full of humic acid, a shovel full of greensand, shovel full of Spanish river carbonate, a coffee cup of GreenGro veg, coffee cup of GreenGro bloom, a good spread of GreenGro mychorizal that expired 2 years ago. I mix that up DRY In the wheelbarrow. Then add about 5 pounds of worm castings. Mix that up DRY and then add water. The promix takes a lot of water so it's a bit of a process to get it consistent. It takes about 20 minutes to mix one wheelbarrow. I figure on three plants I'll use at least 24 wheel barrow of mix. It's a lot but the rooting is strong and I figure it's a good area to feed.
 
Wednesday, July 25 View Page
Blew the 1572 apart. Not sure when it happened as I haven't lifted the sheet in a few days. We got some heavy rain last night so I'm guessing that was it. Not too sad to see it go. It started to really blob out in a strange shape which is ironic since I grew it for looks. The parents are in the second diary entry at the top. It didn't look too bad on the 14th, but really started to twist into a weird shape the past week. One of the ugliest pumpkins ive seen.
 
Wednesday, July 25 View Page
The light was too bright to get a good look at the shape here but it was a weird one. I'm glad it happened today as I was talking myself into hand weeding the entire plant tomorrow or Friday. I've been running a week behind on all plants this entire season, so I won't miss this one too much. I think this is my first BES ever.
 
Tuesday, July 31 View Page
End of July numbers on the 1803 Hoelke x 2145 McMullen 320". This plant has been steady but not throwing huge daily gains. We'll see how long it will grow. Im ok with steady and consistent if it goes the distance and keeps moving the tape. The plant is pretty much fully grown. If not for a ground hog on the fruit side of plant it would be full size. In a week that area should be filled in. I'm almost 100" larger than I've ever been at the end of July. Early pollination though, so we'll see what that works out to.
 
Tuesday, July 31 View Page
This is the 2145 McMullen x 1803 Hoelke. This one had very modest day 20 numbers that weren't worth measuring. However a week later it's putting on the same weight at my 1803. I don't love these shapes of fruit, ok i hate them, as it looks like it wants to go over on the stem, and any concave blossom worries me more than the convex blossom. I have a feeling I may get to those magical 45 pound days with this one but we'll see if it holds up for it. The rooting on this plant is the best I've ever seen. Very aggressive roots all over the entire garden popping from the soil. I'll be stopping a lot of vines soon on this plant as my plot is bigger than I think the plants needs to be and with the later start I want to send a signal that it's fruit time.
 
Friday, August 10 View Page
2145 McMullen x 1803 Hoelke. 270 pounds for the week, 38 pounds a day. Day 36 Terrible picture into the sun.
 
Friday, August 10 View Page
1803 Hoelke x 2145 McMullen day 52. Cleared the 1000 pound mark. 190 pounds for the week. 27 per day. Plant is large, in charge, and fully dead headed.
 
Tuesday, August 14 View Page
A stunning turns of events has me down to 1 pumpkin. The beloved 2145 is done. The main vine is oozing everywhere and the stump is pretty much hollow. This happened quick as it was doing a great 42 pounds a day from day 30 to 33 then dropped to 16 then to less than 10. She's done. Anyone know what causes this? Soil disease? Too humid and hot with too much water? I went hard on the water trying to push the limits. Email me if you know.
 
Tuesday, August 14 View Page
Stump area rotted out hollow.
 
Tuesday, August 14 View Page
Fresh ooze. Pretty much down the entire main. I've seen it before but it never attacked this fast or as many areas.
 
Wednesday, August 15 View Page
The entire main was foamed inside even where it looked fine on the outside.
 
Wednesday, August 15 View Page
And then there was one. Tough year. Thanks Eddy for the seed.
 
Wednesday, August 22 View Page
I didn't realize it's been 3 weeks since I put up a picture of the 1803. Lots of shape change and ribbing since the end of July picture. It's really quite surprising how quickly they change. This one is still moving the bamboo and the plant actually look really good for day 64. The fruit is really starting to look like my 1800 which was the Gantner 1625 male on the cross. It has the 1803's colour and low wide shape but has picked up the Gantners ribs and cantelouping.
 
Friday, August 24 View Page
1803 Hoelke x 2145 McMullen. The plant looks good for the age. Focused on the leaves at this point in the season.
 
Wednesday, September 5 View Page
So I can control my water pump from my cell phone as I don't live near my patch. Saturday evening I turned on my drip tubing and forgot all about it. Sunday morning at 9am I think, did I turn off my sprinklers? Nope they ran all night. My drip tape puts down about 5 gallons a minute so I figure I watered 2800 gallons into the one plant. I couldn't believe it wasn't split this morning when I checked, especially with this weekend's heat. Glad my pump was still alive as well. That's the danger of mobile watering.
 
Sunday, September 16 View Page
Haven't posted in a while. Not much to update as I haven't really done much with the plant other than stop in and check for issues and run the water pump a couple times a day from my phone. This time of the year can be the easy time if you aren't fighting disease or rot. So far I'm safe on this plant for now. It's still closing the gap on the bamboo stakes that I place beside the fruit and check every couple of days. This one has been pretty consistent. Up here I would usually cover the fruit with blankets at night to hold in heat but this year I refuse to. I hate remembering to take them off and put them on daily as well to try and dry them. This year the fruit is going to have to get used to the cold temps on her own. We get heavy dew this time of year as you can see in this morning picture and the blankets are always soaked. They never get back to dry all year so I gave up on them. Also a group of mice had an orgy in my stack of blankets that I had in the garden shed last winter and most blankets were destroyed when I found the evidence this spring. I haven't gotten a good picture for a while. This picture of from the nest cam that I have attached to a tree watching the garden.
 
Thursday, October 4 View Page
Made it to day 107 with 1803.
 
Thursday, October 4 View Page
All loaded and will weigh on Saturday.
 
Saturday, October 6 View Page
1803 Hoelke x 2145 McMullen became the 1694 Hoelke. Happy with that. About 6% heavy on the tough new chart measuring 420" Good day overall and the rain stayed away surprisingly.
 
Wednesday, October 10 View Page
When I was tilling the garden in late April, I turned up a peach/nectarines seed that was just sending a small root out. I put it in a pot and now it's 3 feet tall. I can't believe how well it grew. I'm in too cold a climate to leave it out all year but I may be able to keep it going if I get it into the garage over the really cold months. I understand the "cold days" needed in order for it to grow. This seed would have been in the compost for a year before being dumped in the garden. I'm not sure if it's s peach or nectarine? The chances are probably a peach since I would say peaches would have been purchased more often. Anyway, I'm going to see how it grows and if I can get it to survive the winter. Any tips? Anyone know if it's a peach or nectarine?
 
Monday, November 5 View Page
I've always been interested in genetics and how some growers are very good at creating very strong seeds consistently. I was more than a little surprised to see my 1803 Hoelke at #10 of the Best Seeds list in the St. Croix newsletter last month. It really caught me off-guard to be so high on the list. This is the first time that I had some really good growers grow my seed. I consider that the greatest compliment. I couldn't believe when I saw a legend like Leonardo Urena grow his 1885 from my seed this year. No idea where he got the seed, but boy I was surprised to see that it made the cut in his southern patch. It's pretty cool to see the names roll in at weigh-off time of some of the top Canadian growers and now also some top American growers. Genetics is a fun thing for any grower to try and figure out especially if the chance of a world record is out of reach. Creating a good quality seed is a pretty cool feeling at least. Thankfully we have the Pumpkinfanatic website to track everything. I'd like to learn more about the genetics side of fruit breeding. When you look at the top growers and how they so often create great crosses that pan out, I think that's a true signal to the research that they put in this time of year in the off season. Steve Geddes is always a guy I've admired and is under rated in my opinion, of seed selection. Well maybe not under rated anymore ha. He always puts together good breeding seeds. When I heard of his NA record this year, I laughed to myself and said I bet he used an unknown seed. Sure enough, he takes the 1911 Urena and makes it a household name. Seed studying is a good way to make the winter pass.
 
Tuesday, November 6 View Page
Forgot to mention the point of the last post...any pictures of the 1885 Urena? I haven't seen any.
 

 

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