Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 62 Entries. Wednesday, February 2 View Page Happy New Years and happy Ground Hog day. If there were ground hogs in England, he would definitely have seen his shadow. It feels like spring and some daffodils have been blooming for a few weeks already. I will be growing a few of the crosses I made last year. This is one of my favorites. Seeds are available if anyone is interested.   Wednesday, February 2 View Page Another great orange cross.   Wednesday, February 2 View Page I may grow a couple more big and orange ones if I have the space. 471 Wagler is 1542 Ureña x 2261 Schmit 756 Leach is 97 Ressel x 1501 VanderWielen   Monday, March 21 View Page And these are my "big" seeds. I only plan to grow one big one so it will be tough competition for the prime spot. Thanks to the generous growers who share their seeds.   Monday, March 21 View Page And finally, a couple of crosses I made last year. Fingers crossed they will produce orange. All my patches will be no-till and 100% organic/regenerative, just like last year.   Monday, April 4 View Page First seeds started. 100% germination.   Tuesday, April 12 View Page Not sure which is the best one yet. Most of them look alright.   Thursday, April 14 View Page Some of them have a deformed first true leaf but others look normal (same potting mix, same environmental conditions). Anyone have a clue what might be the cause or if the deformed ones are alright to use?   Tuesday, May 3 View Page Selection has been made. The chosen plant is the 210 Hochstetler 2020 (2183.7 Mendi x 2183.9 Paton). The 1490 Leach was a close runner up and I will still grow that one as a pollinator.   Friday, May 13 View Page Main vine is laying down nicely and has outgrown the mini greenhouse. After one more night in the 40's it is supposed to warm up with lows of 50 and highs up to70. That's about as good summer weather ask we could ask for in England.   Saturday, May 14 View Page The 210 from the other side 1 day later. Just slightly ahead of where we were last year at this time.   Saturday, May 28 View Page Got to show the good, the bad and the ugly. This is the latter. Some nights have been as low as 39 degrees so I tried to cover the plant with a big plastic sheet. However, I didn't take it off soon enough in the morning and I think some of the leaves got scorched. The plant as a whole is fine.   Saturday, May 28 View Page First female with 8 or 9 secondaries behind it on each side. Probably not the keeper though.   Saturday, June 4 View Page View from the back of the plant. My mini greenhouses are quite small and had to come off a while ago, but they make a nice wind break and probably increase the temperature by a couple degrees.   Sunday, June 5 View Page From the front of the plant. Secondaries are taking off and I'm going away for a few days so I moved the barriers back a bit. Weather has been cool, dismal and rainy but there is some sun ahead.   Sunday, June 12 View Page This plant is strange. It has 2 or even 3 secondaries coming out of some of the leaf nodes. Is this a blessing or a curse? Should I cull the extras? I'm toying with the idea of dead-heading the main just beyond the pumpkin and training out the 2 secondaries perpendicular to the main and running the tertiaries forward pitchfork style.   Wednesday, June 15 View Page Pollinated the hopeful keeper today. 210 Hochstetler x 523 Hochstetler. We have four "hot" days ahead and then back to warm days and cool nights.   Sunday, June 19 View Page I picked my broad beans today and one of them was just 5 grams short of the world record! World record is 106 grams and this one was 101 grams. Another one was 88 grams. I'll have to try that variety again next year!   Wednesday, June 22 View Page Definitely the weirdest female flower I've seen.   Saturday, June 25 View Page 210 at 10 DAP. Very small, but definitely set.   Sunday, June 26 View Page 989 Wagler is my chosen squash of the year. The first several females have been attached to the leaf but I plan to grow it anyways.   Saturday, July 2 View Page Here is the 210 at 17 DAP, probably the smallest DAP 17 pumpkin I've ever had. This plant has all kinds of issues (ribbon vines, self terminating secondaries etc.) and has all but stopped growing, so no PB this year, unless something changes drastically. Couldn't ask for much better weather at the moment.   Wednesday, July 13 View Page My 210 (at 28 DAP) is coming a long nice, and picking a bit of golden color along the way. The warm sunny weather we are having is great, but I don't have the plant to take advantage of it.   Monday, July 18 View Page Here is the 989 Wagler at 29 DAP. Not huge but it will still be a PB.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page As well as I green, we've got some orange coming along. This is the 495 Ressel. Thanks Patryk for the seeds. Today has been the hottest day on record in the UK ever. The pumpkins are loving it!   Wednesday, July 20 View Page A new PB tomato at 6.06 lbs. (2.750 kg. x 2.205). It had a 25" circumference so it was just a little bit heavier than estimated (est. 5.5 lbs.). This was from some Domingo seeds I saved from last year.   Wednesday, July 20 View Page "Golgy" (210) is coming along OK but won't set any records. I love the color though.   Monday, August 1 View Page Huge field pumpkin flowers.   Wednesday, August 3 View Page Now at 43 DAP.   Wednesday, August 3 View Page And a huge field pumpkin (22 DAP). This is from the 115 pounder we grew last year. So far it hasn't split   Wednesday, August 3 View Page Looks like I managed to not upload the photo for my August 3rd post. Here is "Golgy" at 43 DAP.   Monday, August 15 View Page Field pumpkin at 34 DAP. Last week it was taping 156 lbs. so this is definitely a PB.   Monday, August 15 View Page Got some nice orange "porch pumpkins" growing on the edge of the patch. This one is from my 629 (756 Leach x 1215 Young).   Monday, August 15 View Page This is off my 198 (471 Wagler x 1297 Young).   Monday, August 15 View Page From my 111 (1215 Young x 721 Gansert). Notice a recurring name here? Thanks to John Young and Norm for the awesome orange color represented here.   Monday, August 15 View Page Last but definitely not least, the 495 Ressel. Still my best shot at a Howard Dill I think.   Monday, August 15 View Page And for the green: here is the 989 Wagler at 54 DAP. With a "hosepipe" in place here, I'm not sure how I'm going to keep these guys watered. It's the driest summer since 1976 and officially a drought here.   Thursday, August 18 View Page I did my orange beauty show just in time because yesterday hail ruined the looks of most of them.   Thursday, August 18 View Page This looks like a photo from America. Never have I seen hail like that in England. We also got 2 inches of rain in less than half an hour. Should help with the drought, but it sure shredded the plants (in a bad way).   Friday, August 19 View Page Before the storm.   Friday, August 19 View Page ...and after the storm. Always a new challenge. First a "hosepipe ban", then a flood. On the bright side, my field pumpkin is taping 187 lbs. today. Only 14 or 15 other field pumpkins (officially weighed) have been that heavy.   Wednesday, August 24 View Page My field pumpkin escaped the worst of the hail damage and is taping 198 lbs. today. If it is actually 198 lbs. this would be a new UK record, and if it goes a few percent heavy...   Monday, August 29 View Page ...well, it was a nice thought but our potential WR field pumpkin has split (taping 205 lbs.) It is not dead yet, but I'm not holding out much hope.   Monday, August 29 View Page On the bright side, "Golgy" is estimating 885 lbs. and looking a nice shade of orange.   Monday, September 12 View Page Orange results are in. I think it's safe to say we've got some beauties on our hands. This is off our 629.   Monday, September 12 View Page From our 198. Not big, but beautiful (with potential to grow big).   Monday, September 12 View Page More solid orange; off our 111.   Monday, September 12 View Page And the belle of the ball: the 495 Ressel, estimating 747 lbs.   Monday, September 12 View Page Now for "the elephant in the room": here is our 113 Hochstetler field pumpkin with the BES (it does not go into the cavity yet). Our most optimistic OTT measurement was 217" so just behind Mark's 168 (way to grow Mark!). Maybe there will be a field pumpkin world record set in the UK this year...   Thursday, September 15 View Page ...but it won't be set by me. I think everyone knows what this photo is saying. It was inevitable that eventually the split would go through. "If there had been an earlier weigh-off in the UK..." well, there isn't, so that is that. RIP.   Sunday, September 18 View Page Well, it's "unofficial" and "damaged" but we picked the fruit and put it on a calibrated industrial scale (with three witnesses).   Sunday, September 18 View Page It went quite light (186.82 lbs.) but that is not all that surprising (accurate OTT measurement on a flat surface was 212" or 197 lbs.) We opened it up and it was quite rotten inside, so it must have started rotting quite a while ago and it maybe even shrank a bit in size.   Sunday, September 18 View Page We put it by the house and the kids have some idea of what to do with it.   Monday, September 19 View Page The final fate of the 186.8 Hochstetler 2022 UOW DMG: my wife and kids made a beautiful autumnal bouquet and stuffed it in the top. They entered it in a Jack-o-lantern competition but it didn’t win.   Monday, September 19 View Page However, three of our pumpkins that other people carved did win different categories, including this tiger (our neighbors carved) for “most unique”.   Friday, September 23 View Page Here is the 495 at Malvern. Looks a little paler in the sun. The judge "lost the piece of paper with the weight on it" (some judge) so it will be just be the EST 747 Hochstetler 2022. At the end of the show they are going to carve it and raise money for charity.   Saturday, October 1 View Page Because Canna chose the 495 for their pumpkin garden at Malvern, that left us with "Golgy" off our 210 with no plans of where to take it. In the end we spontaneously went to the RHS Giant Pumpkin Competition at Hyde Hall, mainly because it is a nice day out for the kids with things to do, see (and buy). It was not too surprising to come in first (you can see the size of some of the other entries!), and we didn't feel too bad as the last time we went there was 3 years ago. It is interesting to note that the weight (1051 lbs.) was pretty much exactly 5 times the weight pf the parent seed: 210. Bang on chart.   Thursday, October 6 View Page Just a couple more photos of our 747 in the Canna pumpkin garden at Malvern.   Thursday, October 6 View Page What a beauty. So glad I grew this seed.   Tuesday, October 11 View Page I'm not sure when (or if) we will get seeds from the 747, but once we do, I would be happy to send them to anyone who wants. Here are my other ones that are available now. Time to start preparing for next year!   Friday, November 18 View Page And more seeds with big orange potential. Happy to send any of these out to interested growers. Best of luck to all in 2023.   Monday, December 19 View Page Biggest snow in about 10 years here. A week later it all melted. Merry Christmas to all!