Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 27 Entries. Sunday, March 31 View Page Well Chris, it looks like I'm already one step ahead of you this year. I got an early start this year. Shes growing great!   Sunday, March 31 View Page Chris this plant is really flying! Just since yesterday, look what I have now! I'm gonna beat you this year!   Saturday, April 6 View Page Start of the 2019 season. It's finally time to get rolling. Patch prep in full swing. Amendments added and ready to till in. Still a bit of remnants from the mighty mustard stalks that grew all winter.   Monday, April 8 View Page Patch is all ready to go. Everything (except the kitchen sink) is tilled in. Soil test looked fairly balanced except for the usual high P and low Mn my soil seems to have each year. New drip tape installed. I don't know which chore I like less, burying drip tape or burying vines.   Monday, April 8 View Page Winter crop of Mighty Mustard. This stuff got way bigger than I expected and gave my weed whacker a tough time. Once I got it all down I ran the lawn mower over it to chop it up better.   Monday, April 8 View Page Yeah baby! This years' choice. Pretty excited to get my hands on one of these. Last year was Quinn's 1791 and this year will be his 1810. Going to have to name my patch "The Werner West Farm". Will be starting the 1810 this weekend.   Saturday, April 13 View Page We had a get together of San Diego's most obsessive giant pumpkin growers to come up with a plan on how we can arrive at the weigh off this fall with the biggest pumpkins. Jon with the plans in his hand, me with thoughts in my head and Jim with the seeds to do it. Little Andrew is our young pumpkin maniac in training.   Saturday, May 4 View Page I went over to Pumpkin Jon's...as he's known around here... and helped him to get his patch all set up for this year. I have a feeling he is going to grow some personal bests for himself this year. His soil test looked very good and only needed a few tweaks here and there. If he can keep those squirrels away, look out! Good luck Jon!   Wednesday, May 8 View Page Pumpkin Jon grew this beauty a couple years ago off the 1297 Young. He's was one happy guy that day!   Wednesday, May 8 View Page Last year Jon was taken out by squirrels so at the end of the season I gave him my pumpkin so he could do his favorite thing... www.cbs8.com/video/news/san-diegos-biggest-pumpkin-1327-pounds/509-34a10db5-a43f-4450-98e1-b04da63d65b0   Wednesday, May 8 View Page Things did not go so well for me and the 1810 Werner that I had planned to grow. I had two seeds and both had issues that caused me to change plans and go with the 1933.5 Stelts instead. The 1933 is looking good but we need some warmer weather to get things going around here. Its been cloudy and cool all week and will continue to be cool through the weekend :-(   Thursday, June 6 View Page I have trouble in the patch. My 1933 Stelts is at least a double vine and I fear may be heading into ribbon vine territory. As you might be able to see in the picture, the main vine is 2" thick and I have 3 leaves coming out at one node. I've also had several double leaves, flowers tendrils...ect but I have been trimming the plant to keep it looking normal. I've read and been told to water the plant heavily to try to help it straighten itself out. I don't know what watering heavily would do to help but I've been trying and so far without any success. I only have room to grow one plant each year but as a last resort I do have a backup plant (1297 young offspring) growing next to this one and it is growing perfectly but smaller in size. I would really like to grow the 1933 if possible. Years ago I grew the 1016 Daletas and it went ribbon vine on me and not a single pumpkin would pollinate on the plant and that experience has me thinking the better choice would be the backup plant. I am going to have to make a decision in the next week or so. If anyone out there has any advice please send me an email. I would appreciate any advice you might have. Thanks!   Sunday, June 9 View Page The problem with the 1933.5 Stelts has been solved. Its a darned shame but had to be done. I gave it every chance I could but it went from throwing doubles to triples to quadruples...it was turning into a ribbon vine. Some secondaries were also showing mutant tendencies.   Sunday, June 9 View Page On to the backup plant. 780 Berndes - Howard Dill award winner in 2017 (1297 Young x Self) This should set me back about a week and a half or two as this plant was started later than the 1933. I should have a good chance at a nice shaped orange pumpkin on this one.   Sunday, June 16 View Page 780 Berndes backup plant has really kicked it into gear this past week. 2 pumpkins are in sight but not far enough out for my liking.   Friday, July 12 View Page Things are going well in the patch. This nice 6 lobe pumpkin on the main looks to be the one! I had 3 pumpkins one right after another on the main that all opened up on the same day. The first one was not on a good position and was culled immediately. The second one was where I wanted it but facing the wrong direction. The third one was in perfect position but as it grew larger I didn't like the uneven shape it was starting to reveal so I redirected the vine and positioned the second one into a good spot and then culled #3. This one is self pollinated on 7/1.   Friday, July 12 View Page I really like the shape of this pumpkin.   Friday, July 12 View Page The plant has nearly filled up its area and then some. Pushing +750 sqft at the moment. As usual, half the plant is out on the cement driveway. Doing all I can to maximize the 300 sqft of soil the plant has to grow in.   Friday, July 12 View Page This is my little buddy Luigi. He's wild but nearly tame. Any time I'm in the patch he's always right next to me waiting to pounce on any bug that moves. I feed him meal worms quite often so whenever I'm outside and he sees me he comes running. He has a girlfriend also that I feed and both of them are so used to me that they will sit in my hand and let me pet them while I feed them. Luigi gets jealous when his girlfriend sits in my hand so he will come up to me and suck in his sides so he looks bigger and give me the look with his eyes and then he will start doing push ups as if he's trying to say Hey! She's mine! These little guys are real characters!   Friday, July 12 View Page At the beginning of the season I was fortunate to get an 1810 Werner. This was going to be my only plant this season. I started it in mid April and it germinated fairly quick and shot out a 1/2" tap root and then for no apparent reason that I could tell it just stopped growing and sat in this state for a week. It wasn't rotting but it wasn't growing either. I hated to trash it so I decided to plant it in a small pot and see what would come of it....   Friday, July 12 View Page ...almost a month later this is what the 1810 looked like. Not dead, but barely starting to show signs of life. At this point I transplanted it into a plexiglass container so I could see if it was starting to build its root system. After 5 weeks it put out its second true leaf so I thought I would put it in the ground at the edge of my veggie garden and see what it would do. Still no roots in sight on the sides of the pot.   Friday, July 12 View Page To my surprise, 2 months from when I first started this seed the 1810 decided it wanted to finally start growing and this is what it looked like.   Friday, July 12 View Page As of last week this is how the 1810 looks now. It is a perfectly flawless looking plant now. It's not in very good soil but looks very good considering the limited space. It currently has 2 small pumpkins on the plant that were pollinated within the last week. These plants are pretty amazing.   Sunday, August 18 View Page Day 48: She's never been the fastest grower for me but at least she's consistently packing on the pounds each day. At 48DAP, daily gains are actually better than last years pumpkin at this point which is a nice surprise. The plant is still in really good shape and should easily make it to weigh off time barring any disasters. Plant size is 1100 sqft...probably a little too big considering its in only 300 sqft of soil.   Friday, September 20 View Page The stump on my plant looks a giant heart!   Friday, September 20 View Page Finally, tomorrow is our Southern California weigh off day! Got her all loaded up and ready to make the trip north. Looking forward to seeing everyone!   Friday, September 20 View Page Got to love the day before the weigh off when we break out the serious lifting equipment Went over to Jim's and could see the boom of this crane from afar off! He needed it for this job. I think this may be a very special pumpkin. Just sayin. We'll find out tomorrow.