Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 48 Entries. Monday, February 6 View Page Put round 2 of sulfur pellets in the garden. Next month I'll send a soil sample in for testing. I have a rather active mole population in my area which could be depleting the earth worms so I'm attempting to trap as many of them as I can.   Thursday, March 16 View Page Thanks to some very generous people helping out a noob, I now have more seeds than I know what to do with. I think my main plant will be the 1739 Strickler since its the heaviest one I have. I'm not sure if I want to self pollinate it or go with one of the other ones whose parent was a 2000 pounder. It's hard to gage potential when you don't know the methods used by the grower.   Thursday, March 16 View Page My fertilizer for this year....well...and a bag of grass seed. We had a new septic system installed and I need to plant some grass. I'm also waiting on my kelp meal which should be showing up today. Special thanks goes to Cecil Weston for assisting me in figuring what would be best for amendments. I know how to use the soil estimator spreadsheet, but Cecil had a seemingly better approach to balancing the ratios.   Thursday, March 16 View Page On a side note; my soil test revealed that I had successfully lowered my pH to 6.8. Also I put some sonic vibrators in the ground to drive away the moles. It seems to be working so far.   Wednesday, March 22 View Page Making videos of my progress over on the Youtube thingy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC58Q2c-bVSPWbCrdokDjjZg   Monday, March 27 View Page Seeing how many people are using heating cables this year, I am concerned about soil temperature and I may try to solarize the transplant area through the month of April.   Sunday, April 9 View Page Solarizing the area where the transplant will take place next month. Since I don't yet have heating cables in place this should help boost the temperature of that spot of the patch. I've found in years past that things took longer than expected to germinate and usually it was because the soil was just too darn cold.   Sunday, April 9 View Page Here we goooooo! Two black pots are my 1739 Stricklers, and the beige one is a 1465 Weston (pollinator). My potting soil is sloppy and terrible......probably a good thing. I soaked the seeds in water for a good awhile today before dropping them in. No special tricks here, just dirt and seeds!   Sunday, April 9 View Page Oh yeah....the Youtube thingy... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNwNBDZHTRM   Tuesday, April 11 View Page Soil was still stone cold! Sooooo...greenhouse time! I suppose this is what should be done in the first place. I potted my third 1739 in more typical potting mix. If I don't see roots from the other three within the next few days we're changing soil. Still plenty of time as I started a little earlier than I originally planned. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JAD9uXxHlg   Friday, April 14 View Page Let the kiddos outside today since it's warm and humid. The ones coming up will no doubt appreciate the actual light. The one of the far left was planted two days later, so it probably rooted but hasn't popped yet. The other one is the 1468 Weston which hasn't cracked yet. I'm going to assume it's because I didn't sand it as well as the others because that's the only condition difference between them.   Sunday, April 16 View Page We're rockin and rollin now. True leaves are appearing on the two that are fully up and the middle one (two days behind) should be opening probably tomorrow. The Weston (not in the pic) is closer to the heater now. Another possible reason for it's slowpokiness is it was farther away from the heat source than the others. It is starting to crack though so just a matter of time. As a new(ish) grower I'm constantly evaluating what I'm doing. In this case I decided to put the 'gooseneck' lights right on the two frontrunners to keep them from getting too leggy. As far as the other one goes, it is it what it is because I don't have shorter stands for them.   Wednesday, April 19 View Page Still chugging along! The middle one, being in a more airy potting soil, is a bit of a darker green. It's still two days behind though so it probably won't make the cut. RIP to the 1468 Weston. It never opened and I can only assume it was DOA. Looks like we're doing a self pollination.   Thursday, April 20 View Page Alright we're seeing a little bit of crispy burn on one of the leaves. I have decided I will change the soil of those two in the 'dirt'. Let's just be honest...it's fill dirt....I went to Rural King thinking I was getting potting soil and instead I got fill dirt. I should have known as soon as I opened the bag. Hopefully it's not too late and I'll get those changed tomorrow. It's also possible I just fried it with one of the grow lights leaving them on overnight, which is still apparently a topic of debate. Either way, the one plant in the 'good' soil is doing fine and darker green too. Ugh....shoulda known... If it isn't obvious already...I hate making mistakes...lol.   Monday, April 24 View Page I've got backups planted now since I don't know how well the others will do going forward. The little things in the back tray are my peppers. They are smaller pots but at least they're easy transplant kind and they wouldn't be hanging out there for very long anyway. I plan on moving stuff outside May 6 or 7. The backups are an assortment of seeds I got at the Indiana meeting. Although none of them have a track record, most of the parents do.   Wednesday, April 26 View Page It occurs to me I never reported on the problem with the plants. Long story short I overwatered them. I have a meter in there now since I'm not yet a great judge at whether or not the dirt is dry. Spoiler: when using pots, you can't go by what it looks like on the top.   Thursday, April 27 View Page This guy is making a serious comeback. 1739 Strickler coming in clutch despite my bafoonery.   Thursday, April 27 View Page I have half the patch amended now. Man some of that stuff is nasty to work with. Alfalfa meal gets everywhere but I'm told it's a good source of slow release nitrogen. It's going to rain the next couple days so the rest will have to wait until next week. Spreading and raking it in was like actual work....   Monday, May 1 View Page Leggy plus soft soil equals......   Wednesday, May 3 View Page No pics, but I will say the leaves are starting to look like they need some nitrogen. I'm transplanting outside on Friday so my hope is that they start to take off in the better soil. Here's my latest video....if nothing else we can all laugh at the noob who overwatered..haha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDzaPr2-yMk   Friday, May 5 View Page Plants are in the ground baby! I decided to plant all 3 1739's because I couldn't decide which one would better. The itty bitty 1667 Fisk is in there too but...that's mainly just to satisfy my curiosity. I can tell the Mycos helped with the previous transplant so I put some in for these as well. The process was fairly painless compared to what they've been through already. Heater is in there for nighttime but it probably won't be used much as our lows are probably 50's from here on out.   Sunday, May 7 View Page Plants seem a bit stagnant so I've added some worm castings. The middle one (one which was not planted in crap potting soil) looks like it wants to get something going.   Tuesday, May 9 View Page This is probably the one that's going to do the best. It's starting to thicken up now and the new growth on it is looking good. Hopefully this continues and the plant starts to look more like a true giant.   Thursday, May 11 View Page Now I don't have the healthiest plant yet here, but for some reason I've always this problem with my pumpkin plants. It gets around 80 degrees out and we get droopy droop. I know this is usually heat stress but I would think it would have to be in the 90's for that to really happen. Anyway...fan is out so that's the best I can do. The image should show it's been thoroughly watered. The other two I'm probably cutting off pretty soon.   Saturday, May 13 View Page It's growing. Not the most flattering picture with the afternoon droop but it looked real strong when I went out to zip up the mini. I culled the other two so it's gonna be this one or bust. If I can get a fruit or two pollinated by July then I'll be in good shape.   Tuesday, May 16 View Page No pic, but a video update on ye olde Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwvmoudApmc   Friday, May 19 View Page So here we are, pretty healthy plant now. I need to prune off the cots and first two true leaves as they are worthless now. Now If I can get a successful pollination before July we'll be in good shape!   Tuesday, May 30 View Page 1739 Strickler growing well! Would be nice to have it longer but I may be lucky to have a plant at all.   Sunday, June 4 View Page It's about 16 inches from the end of the mini. I'll probably be removing it within the next week. It's really just serving as a pest preventer now. Really big leaves though so it's turning out to be a nice plant. And to think I almost lost this one!   Sunday, June 11 View Page We finally got rain! I bet the garden is going to grow big time this week. I'm question these beans though which I posted about in the gardening board. Somehow they're going yellow and I can't figure out why.   Thursday, June 15 View Page Did a little node burying and pruning of the junk leaf near the stump and some male flowers. Hit it with some nitrogen fertilizer and hoping to really get good growth in the next to get that pollination in before July. Also I had to till again all around because the weeds were just too much.   Tuesday, June 27 View Page Couldn't get a pic because it was muddy out there and I couldn't handle the phone and the flowers at the same time. Got a first pollination on the 1739 Strickler this morning. It was a 4 lober. That and I had about half a dozen FP's. My FP plants are just insane with production to the point where I've had to cull some of them.   Thursday, June 29 View Page Here's the 1739 plant as of today. Obviously bigger growers have plants much larger at this point but I'm glad I got something going now.   Thursday, June 29 View Page And here's a DAP 2 that feels like it took, but we got another at the tip so we have options.   Monday, July 3 View Page DAP 7 on the 1739 Strickler. Needs some fattening up.   Thursday, July 6 View Page DAP 9. I did a fair amount of work in the patch today. I had to remove a lot of crabgrass from around the plant, get some vines situated and bury more nodes. I haven't been able to keep up as much lately because of weather and other things going on. I pollinated a second fruit on the main yesterday so that one's not worth showing yet. The DAP 9 was a four lobe, and the 1 is a 5 lobe. This one seems to be growing well so I'm not too concerned about the plant pulling its plug. Maybe the first one will work out in this case.   Friday, July 7 View Page Here's a shot of the 1739 Strickler plant. I haven't been posting much of the plant lately. Can you believe I darn near lost this thing back in April?   Saturday, July 8 View Page More YT stuff! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gb2WIUQo30   Monday, July 17 View Page I'm at DAP 20 now and kinda flabbergasted at the rate of growth so far. The OTT measurements added up to 183" for a rough estimate of 140lb. I realize that the rate of growth is variable and could slow down, but I'm going to try to keep it going! Fortunately I have another spare bedsheet to cover it with because my tshirts are not big enough now. Also I need to get a little more height on the main vine for support. Good thing Kroger down the road from me has cheap pool noodles!   Monday, July 17 View Page More YT stuff! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAQKVbj8AWE   Friday, July 21 View Page DAP 24. I didn't measure today I'm saving that for day 30. Seems to be getting bigger and getting a flat hump on the top. I know its parent actually was kind of flat and the blossom end ended up facing down. Hopefully that doesn't happen here but we'll see.   Thursday, July 27 View Page Well here are at DAP30! OTT measurement was 269" for an estimated weight of 450lb! Now, its parent, the 1739 Strickler, was 12% heavy. So it could be closer to 500lb if I had the ability to weigh it. Either way, averaged about 32lb a day since DAP20. I am happy with this.   Thursday, July 27 View Page More YT stuff. In this video I managed to move the pumpkin to avoid ending my season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDP1hAckBqg   Monday, August 7 View Page The pic here is DAP 41. I measured yesterday for DAP 40 and it taped at 321 inches for an estimated weight of 762lb. So the growth curve has been pretty linear since DAP 20 which probably means I need to ramp up the water and fertilizer.   Wednesday, August 16 View Page Here's the latest video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWoDNkS8WPQ She really slowed down now and I'm concerned it may have just decided to stop growing. It only gained 7 inches for an estimated weight of 811lb. That's like 5 pounds a day.......I am going to go ahead and cut off most of the vines now except for a few nice tertiaries that will fill in for loss of foliage in the late season. Also I'm going to just ramp up the fertilizer. Basically I'm going to add it in with every watering, as most of the bigger growers do with their liquid tanks....except I don't have a tank so it will have to be separate. I was really hoping to go to the scale so fingers crossed I can keep it going.   Thursday, August 17 View Page Pumpkin Log Supplemental........ I got a new hose end sprayer and it's definitely working. Amazing to me I got to at least 811lb with little to no extra ferts. Now we will see if this thing can really blow up. Hopefully it's not too late to kick it into gear! A smarter man would have given up...but I don't know when to quit.   Tuesday, August 22 View Page And now a word from my 'sponsor'.......actually I receive no kickback from MG, other than whatever growth it promotes. But yes this is basically the 'first year grower who can't afford real fertilizer' package. Honestly it does alright. I'm trying to apply three times per week instead of one. The package says one but then they aren't assuming a 1000 pound pumpkin on the end of the vine.   Sunday, September 24 View Page Took her to the weigh off at Hodge Family Farm this weekend in Alexandria, IN. Having had to pull it off the vine two weeks ago caused it to go light and weigh in at 746lb. I still took second place though and I'm very pleased with what I was able to do this year. I already have plans for next season as to what I'm going to improve on!