Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 20 Entries. Monday, May 3 View Page After spending my whole life living in Island County, We have moved to the mainland. We have now have 1.83 Acres and plenty of room for Pumpkins! Between settling into the new house and preparing for our daughter's birth in July, I was not going to grow pumpkins this year. I was just going to focus on building my soil and getting a patch prepped for next year. However, at the last second I couldn't resist and threw this guy in the ground. The previous owner had several 4' × 12' raised beds so I combined 2 of them together to create a 10' x 12' bed and planted this guy. No soil test, no amendments, no heating cable, no hoop house. We will see what happens.   Monday, May 3 View Page This is the 642 Grubbs. It is an orange seed. The 642 was grown on a 1200 Engel and won a Howard Dill award. It was pollinated by a 1501.5 Wagner which was also a Howard Dill award winner (808 Grubbs) I am not anticipating anything grand just hoping to get a nice looking orange one that can get me into the Puyallup fair and maybe vie for an HD award.   Monday, September 20 View Page I have pretty much just been sticking to facebook for posting my Pumpkin stuff but since my season is done I thought I'd Throw a few photos over here.   Monday, September 20 View Page Pollination day July 13th. 642 Grubbs x self   Monday, September 20 View Page Day 10 July 23   Monday, September 20 View Page Day 20 August 2nd. 122" OTT, 45 pounds   Monday, September 20 View Page Day 30 August 12, OTT 192" 166 Pounds. It was doing fairly well by my standards up until about day 25 and then it just fell off a cliff for growth.   Monday, September 20 View Page Day 40 August 22, 232" OTT, 286 pounds.   Monday, September 20 View Page Day 50 September 1, 247" OTT, 343 pounds.   Monday, September 20 View Page Day 60, September 11, 257" OTT, 385 pounds.   Monday, September 20 View Page Loaded up for the Skagit Valley Weigh off.   Monday, September 20 View Page My Son is stinkin cute!   Monday, September 20 View Page Came in a bit light to the chart at 375.5 Pounds.   Monday, September 20 View Page Won the Howard Dill Award!   Monday, September 20 View Page The Hardware   Monday, September 20 View Page I Started work on my patch for next year. It's still not a huge patch by Giant pumpkin standards but I will have about 500 Square feet for each plant which is about double what I have ever grown in before.   Monday, September 20 View Page I tilled up the existing ground and then tilled in 6 yards of soil that I brought with me from the old house and then another 6 yards of compost.   Monday, September 20 View Page The Soil is pretty rocky here This just one of the piles of rocks that I pulled out of the patch. I probably had about 4 times this much in total.   Monday, September 20 View Page I added some lime, some pelettized gypsum and some borax and then applied some mycho and planted a cover crop. This photo is from July 13th.   Monday, September 20 View Page This Photo was from August 12th. I have since done another soil test and am in the process of amending right now. I will get another round of Mycho on it and a new cover crop started by the end of the month. I also am adding a bit of square footage to the patch for a 3rd plant.