Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 62 Entries. Sunday, January 3 View Page A new pumpkin patch and compost pile for a new year!   Sunday, January 3 View Page Here is our recipe for home made compost accelerator. It really gets the pile cooking fast! 4 gallons of warm water, 2 cups of ammonia, 2 cans of non diet cola, r packs if bakers yeazt and 1 cup of plain sugar.   Sunday, January 10 View Page Dani and I are spending our free time this winter locating prime composts and additives for our compost piles. This photo shows our efforts from last weekend. Found a nice couple who advertised on Craigslist "garden" that have a huge pile of composted manure from their pet mules. Layered in some of the free leaves we scored from the Liberty Lake leaf drop off site this fall. The piles are cooking nicely and as much as Iwe need LOTS of compost we wont use any in the gardens until it's fully cooked and mature.   Sunday, January 10 View Page Photos are having troubles uploading... oh well seen one poop pile ya pretty much seen them all!   Thursday, January 28 View Page Keeping busy in the new patch this winter collecting goodies from area farms for our compost piles. This fine looking mule poop is getting mixed with some of the mountian of leaves we collected this fall.   Thursday, January 28 View Page Ok...   Thursday, January 28 View Page Actually foung a few red wrigglers at the bottom of the pile :)   Thursday, February 11 View Page Coldes temps of the winter so decided to stay inside and convert our old 8 bulb T5 HO light fixture to LED. Here you see replacing the cheap china shunted tombstones with Leaviton sockets. Bulbs are 5400 lumes T5 6500-K your gonna need sun glasses in this nursery!   Thursday, February 11 View Page This photo dosen't do the lights output pjustice, it took a while for my pupils to adjust down after taking this photo... the LED's pull half the amps and run way cooler than the orional T5 flourcesents. Next we will sterilize and set uo the germination chamber. Have some awezome genetics that we are hoping will germinate in a couple of months!   Sunday, March 14 View Page Dani helping bend hoops for our new "custom" Eastern Washington" greenhouses.   Sunday, March 14 View Page 12 yards of Marle Worm Farms premium compost along with 20 yards of 3 year old composted cow manure should get things going!   Sunday, March 14 View Page Heres the photo of Dani bending pipe. We have 33 pieces of 1-3/8 17 gauge per 20 x 30 greenhouse.   Thursday, April 1 View Page Working on hoops in the great North West!   Thursday, April 1 View Page Ok, Dani wasn't to happy with the "Supprise" pboto. The wind was howling to a wind chill ot 29 today!   Monday, April 19 View Page Chittin my shit   Monday, April 19 View Page With photo.   Saturday, April 24 View Page Greenhouse #1 framed in.   Saturday, April 24 View Page Greenhouse #1 framed in.   Saturday, April 24 View Page Got the greenhouse plastic on and just finishing the endwalls. This plastic has enhanced thermal properties and refracts the light better than standard greenhouse plastic but its much harder to work with!   Saturday, April 24 View Page Heating cables going in   Tuesday, May 4 View Page Transplanting Day! Still have some drip tape to install but all in all we are happy with this planting site!   Tuesday, May 4 View Page 1747.5 Handy looking fantastic!   Tuesday, May 4 View Page 1911 Urena was a second planting as the 1st 1911 didnt germinate ( it had a large crack in at the tip). Started this one on 4/23.   Tuesday, May 4 View Page Here's an over all shot of the patch, still need to trim out irrigation and plant garden veggies. We planned to have three of the large greenhouses up by now but managed to tear my ACL this winter so it slowed me down a bit LoL!   Tuesday, May 4 View Page Pumpkin in the big greenhouse is our last 2145 we bought at auction a few years ago.   Tuesday, June 1 View Page 2145 chugging along in new greenhouse design.   Tuesday, June 1 View Page 1747.5 Handy plant is the king of tbe patch so far. Loves the 90 degree heat today !   Tuesday, June 1 View Page Here's a pic of our little 1911 Urena, I call her " little cry baby" because it wilts so quickly in the sun compared to the other plants. Still you can see the lobe she is getting with the shade cloth, misting system and drip irrigation!   Tuesday, June 1 View Page 90 degrees today, here's Dani weeding in the 2145 in its hoop house. Love this GH plastic it shades the area while increasing sun light refraction!   Tuesday, June 1 View Page Finishing touches on the new 12 zone fertigation system, still need to add Dani's Blueberry patch :)   Wednesday, June 2 View Page Baby Blue Birds fledged today, this cute little guy was hanging out under the 1911 canopy.   Wednesday, June 2 View Page Blue Bird Mansion, thefe wete 4 or 5 of the little cheepers in there yesterday. Now the swallows are trying to move in.   Wednesday, June 16 View Page 2145 x1911 1st pollination of the year at 12' out on main. Have 2 more on the main that will be ready in the next week or so. We have been experimenting with a mixture of kelp, myco and a secrete ingredient for vine burying and the plants roots are the best we have ever had!   Tuesday, June 22 View Page Pollinated our 1747.5 Handy this morning with our 2145 McMullen. The pumpkin is about 16' out on the main.   Thursday, June 24 View Page Weather has been a bit off this year... Here's Dani harvesting alphalfa for the compost pile, its growing between the garden and pumpkin patch fences (3 yards so far). No rain, windy and record heat, plants are doing well despite the weather!   Saturday, June 26 View Page Pollinations on all three competition plants today! 2145 x 1747.5 Handy 7-males, 5 lobe female 18' on the main. 1911 x 2145 nice 5 lobe female 15' out on main vine 1747.5 x 2145 McMullan this is number 2 on the main niw and is a nice 5 lobe female. Hope they all take, its been really hot and heading north of 105 degrees this week!!!   Tuesday, June 29 View Page It was 110 today and had lots of visitors to the bird bath. Heres a photo of a female Yellow Bellied Fly Catcher taking drink. Pollinated another female on the 2145 main with males from the 1747.5 Handy. Looks like all the pollinations took now if the dont abort in this prolonged heat wave...   Saturday, July 3 View Page 2145 keeper on the main vine its 2145 x 1747.5 Handy.   Saturday, July 10 View Page Little extra protection for the pumpkins.   Sunday, July 11 View Page Pumpkin on our 1747.5 Handy is on a tear!   Sunday, August 8 View Page Dani's Sweet corn is rocking it! Love the soil on our new farm.   Sunday, August 15 View Page Beautiful Giant Banded Garden spider chilling by the shop.   Sunday, August 15 View Page Day 50 on our 1747.5 Steve Handy fruit. Right at 1000# today ans gaining nicely. I kinda screwed up my drip irrigation lay out by not realizing how quickly the crushed glacial rock that makes up the majority of our soil drains. Probably could have gotten away with the wide spacing if it wasnt for the historick heat and drought we are enduring in the Pacific NW this year. Still happy with the new gardens and a new PB is still in sight!   Monday, August 16 View Page Huge fire heading towards the Gadberry farm! About 20 miles away but its windy!   Wednesday, September 8 View Page Dani shatered the Spokane County Interstate fair and the Spokane County record today with her giant pumpkin! She has held the County record witn her 1112.5 pumpkin she took to Fir Point in 2006. Cant reveal the weight just yet as its a guess the weight contest. Her really big one is still brooding in the patch waiting for an October weigh off...   Wednesday, September 8 View Page Dani shatered the Spokane County Interstate fair and the Spokane County record today with her giant pumpkin! She has held the County record witn her 1112.5 pumpkin she took to Fir Point in 2006. Cant reveal the weight just yet as its a guess the weight contest. Her really big one is still brooding in the patch waiting for an October weigh off...   Wednesday, September 8 View Page Dani shatered the Spokane County Interstate fair and the Spokane County record today with her giant pumpkin! She has held the County record witn her 1112.5 pumpkin she took to Fir Point in 2006. Cant reveal the weight just yet as its a guess the weight contest. Her really big one is still brooding in the patch waiting for an October weigh off...   Saturday, September 18 View Page Christensen Nursery GPC weighoff   Saturday, September 18 View Page Skagit   Saturday, September 18 View Page Cindys new national record marrow 142!   Saturday, September 18 View Page Cindys big pumpkin   Saturday, September 18 View Page Team Gadberry's big pumpkin (Christensen's)   Saturday, September 18 View Page Cindys 1452!   Saturday, September 18 View Page Gadberry's 1527.5 Christensens winner!   Saturday, September 18 View Page Christensen's weigh off leader board.   Saturday, September 18 View Page Cindy with her beauty of a national champ marrow!   Saturday, September 18 View Page Dani and me with our 1527.5 Christensen winner! It went 15% heavy.   Saturday, September 18 View Page Trying again with Cindy's champ...   Sunday, September 19 View Page Photo of Suburban Gardeners cool cucumber. Sorry I didn' get a better photo. I'm a commercial HVAC electrician not a photographer LoL!   Friday, November 12 View Page 5" of snow last night the greenhouse held up great. The winter rye inside it is 6 to 8 inches tall while the winter rye in the open patch ins only a couple inches tall and not nearly as thick.   Friday, November 12 View Page Inside view of the greenhouse. This greenhouse is our prototype and I wasn't sure how the snow would shed off so I added a temporary post brace last night beform the storm hit just to be safe! The rye didnt like being walked on but will perk back up.   Friday, November 12 View Page Just an update on our season. Dani's Spokane Interstate Fair Pumpkin 1st place winner weighed #1126 it was 10% heavy to the chart. Female was a 2145 McMullan. Pollinator was the 1747.5 Handy. Only had a couple dozen viable seeds. This one was grown in the new greenhouse. Our Christensen Nursery weighoff 1st place pumpkin weighed #1527.5 it was grown from the 1747.5 Handy and was pollinated by our 2145 McMullan. It was a beautiful white pumpkin that weighed 13% heavy to the chart. It was a building year on the new farm and we learned alot about our soil, weather and growing in a full sized greenhouse. Made a lot of mistakes along the way but we were pleasantly suprised by our results.