Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 15 Entries. Sunday, May 14 View Page Testing because I haven’t posted since last year. This last September before I planted my first crop of mustard. I’m now on my second crop and it’s just starting to flower. Good luck to all as I watch from the sidelines and get the disease pushed back a bit while enjoying my first year off in 14 years. I’ll also be doing a full remodel to the greenhouse for cooler temps and much more airflow.   Tuesday, May 16 View Page Spring mustard doing its thing. This crop grew twice as fast as the winter crop. I miss growing some pumpkins this year but I have plenty of friends sending me photos and keeping me excited. You can’t just keep growing in diseased soil and if you can’t rotate like a lot of the guys, the next best thing is to take a year off,, grow some cover crops and let the soil rest. To all sending me photos,, keep um coming! It’s keeping me excited and getting me fired up for 2024!;)   Tuesday, May 16 View Page This crop is beautiful and really enjoying the spring weather! We had one our wettest winters in over a decade and my winter crop grew very slow. We did a massive Zerotol drench before this crop and later this year will be inoculating a mixed cover crop to start bringing the good guys back to the soil.   Thursday, June 8 View Page Second round of disease fighting mustard.   Thursday, June 8 View Page Mustard is one of my favorite cover crops to turn under! 2 more to go and the good guys will be reintroduced into the patch just before planting in every form I can think of.:) I’ve done a few other things to combat disease but will keep that to myself until I do a pathogen test in 4 or 5 weeks, just before the next cover crop.   Thursday, June 8 View Page I’ll be the guinea pig this year and see how far back we can push disease in a patch riddled with disease. I’ll try to post as much as possible just incase it works out well. Side note- if it doesn’t work out all the blame goes on my mentor! Lol Just kidding!   Thursday, June 8 View Page I’ll be the guinea pig this year and see how far back we can push disease in a patch riddled with disease. I’ll try to post as much as possible just incase it works out well. Side note- if it doesn’t work out all the blame goes on my mentor! Lol Just kidding!   Sunday, September 24 View Page The Southern California weigh off yesterday went as smooth as it could have! Here’s all 32 entries! Just 8 years ago we had 6 or 7 pumpkins and about 50 people watching the event. It’s Turing out to be quite the weigh off and it’s nice to have a local weigh off we can all bring our pumpkins and other veggies. We also support the GPC so we get recognized and logged into the GPC website. I’ll post more about the event when I have a little free time on my hands. It was quite the weigh off with many personal bests and lots of smiles! We also don’t have 50 people watching our way off like a sideshow, but 500 to 600 excited onlookers! We are growing each year and excited about that! It’s been a long road from Tanaka Farms 10 years ago. Stuart, you are always be thought of and thanked for starting that way off 20 years ago.:) Kevin Donahu and I have taken the reins and are doing the best we can to keep the weigh off going and growing. Hopefully some of the other growers that were there yesterday will post some pictures and words. If not, I’ll post more about the weigh off later this week when I have time.:)   Sunday, September 24 View Page Here’s the leader board of the top 12. there’s great stories from many of the pumpkins that were weighed this year and I’ll do my best to post later this week if someone doesn’t beat me to it Kevin Donahu’s 1708 had to be crane lifted out of his backyard, which was an unbelievable sight to see!   Friday, October 6 View Page My close friend and very first mentor almost 16 years ago went really heavy with his 1953 Daletas! She measured in the mid 1500’s and went 1695! We still run ideas past each other trying to figure out how to push our numbers up down at this latitude. He pushed this thing hard the last month! Congrats my friend, what a fruit! I never would of met this man if it wasn’t for pumpkins and loves the Lord like no other.:)   Friday, October 6 View Page And we can’t leave out Vince George and his new personal best of 1601! Another amazing man of God and one more person to run ideas past. He also loves the science of growing these monsters and I have a feeling much bigger things will be coming from his patch in years to come!!;) Congrats my friend and I’m sure Glenna is very happy with what you did with her 1977!! If this fruit went even a little heavy, it would of made things really interesting.:) Great job Vince!   Friday, October 6 View Page Mike Prager and well over 1000! With his little kids, sports and busy family life he still finds time for his big pumpkins! Great job this year and I feel it figured out a few new tricks, and will be knocking one out of the park real soon! Remember, don’t use the Zerotal at 100%! Not only will it burn your pumpkin, but it will also burn your skin! Lol. Great job this year my friend!!   Friday, October 6 View Page Someone was talking about bringing the orange back. I would say a good percentage of our bigger pumpkins were orange this year! I have a feeling Andy Wolf, and a few others have something to do with this, as they work with genetics and bringing heavy and orange back into the larger pumpkins!! After taking the year off and growing numerous cover crops, I can’t wait until 2024 and give things a try again.   Saturday, December 23 View Page Getting close to Trimming another cover crop. It’s been a year of cover cropping. Now to trim this down, till it under and water heavy. In about 4 to 6 weeks I’ll start incorporating the good guys. Possibly with a variety of 11 or 12 different types of cover crops. In southern California we never get very cold so we can grow cover crops year-round. I’d like the good guys to start talking to each other and getting ready for the 2024 season. Merry Christmas to all, happy holidays and I hope everyone has a fantastic 2024 season !!   Saturday, December 23 View Page From the other side of the patch, where I have boards down all the way across from one side to the other. Aphids, moths, worms, you name it. They will come in here and destroy your cover crop just as easily as your pumpkin plant so you need to keep a close eye Out for this. I had a really bad moth and worm problem, which I had to take care of and it just took one spray to knock him out.! Other than that, each cover crop I’ve planted while taking the year off has been healthier than the previous cover crop. Telling me that whatever I’m doing is pushing back the disease with each crop.