Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 41 Entries. Saturday, January 7 View Page :) Yes, this year I start my new diary with the results from last year, so letīs see if 2023 will become a more successful year (with some new PBs again). Good Luck to you all and Happy 2023!   Wednesday, March 22 View Page A sunny day...and before you can say "patch prep" the work has begun :)   Monday, April 3 View Page :) Getting ready for the "warm-up", planting sites are covered with clear plastic now, and forecast predicts some sunny days for the next two weeks. That should work.   Saturday, April 8 View Page A slight "cool-down" rather than a "warm-up". Itīs cloudy and rainy today.   Sunday, April 16 View Page Seedlings :) Started nine days ago, 16 seeds, and now there are 16 seedlings...for five plant sites in total. So here is the list: A) 2 x 1066 Wagler 22 (as backups in general) B) 4 x 1007.5* Wagler 21 (for one of my squash sites) C) 3 x 1092* Skubel 22 (for my 2nd squash site) D) 2 x 2447.1 Cutrupi 22 (for one of my pumpkin sites) E) 2 x 1944 Connolly 16 (for my 2nd pumpkin site) F) 1 x 1789 Mendi 17 (started as a backup for the 1944) G) 2 x 1908.1 Baumert 22 (for my kidsī pumpkin patch)   Sunday, April 23 View Page This weekend I transplanted the AGs. Each tent accommodates two seedlings. From front to back: 2 x 1007.5* Wagler; 2 x 2447.1 Cutrupi; 1 x 1066 Wagler (as backup) and 1 x 1944 Connolly; 2 x 1092* Skubel.   Monday, April 24 View Page Finally transplanted the kidsī AG plants today.   Tuesday, April 25 View Page The kidsī plants in the tent (front: favorite plant, back: back-up plant)   Tuesday, April 25 View Page My plants in their huts (always two plants, always favorite plant in front and the back-up plant in...you guess right...in the back).   Tuesday, April 25 View Page Look at this...the cotyledons form a nice "8", which is gr8. This inspired me to give some rather unusual names to my pumpkins this year (basically, I will give the names to the plants, even before they will have set fruit). So what do I have in mind with "unusual names"?...I simply combine the "8" with its neighbors (7 and 9) ascending, and I combine the "8" with the first and the last one of the numerals (1 and 9) descending, so we end up with "78", "89", "81" and "98". Looks like I need to wait for a while and sleep on it to figure out which plant will deserve which "name".   Wednesday, May 3 View Page Patch today, Phacelia plants are growing :)   Wednesday, May 3 View Page The kidsī plants today...   Wednesday, May 3 View Page ...and my AG plants grew a bit, too ;) (Well, what others achieve within 3 days is a matter of 10 days in my case.)   Saturday, May 6 View Page Today I replaced a back-up by a back-up back-up. Before (top) you can clearly see that the back-up one of the two 1092* Skubel plants is dramatically behind. As Iīve had some other back-up plants still in pots in my greenhouse, I decided to replace this weak plant by the 1789 Mendi plant (its seed germinated two days later, but in terms of current plant development it is delevoped as far as the favorite 1092* Skubel plant). Letīs see how they will be doing during the next two or three weeks...then Iīll have to make a final decision.   Wednesday, May 10 View Page Patch today :)   Wednesday, May 10 View Page Kidsī plants today...   Wednesday, May 10 View Page ...and my plants today.   Wednesday, May 17 View Page Patch view of the week :)   Wednesday, May 17 View Page Kiddosī kiddos ;)   Wednesday, May 17 View Page On my patch thereīs something going that deserves some closer inspection. The 1007.5* and the 2447.1 are stronger than the 1944 (which is still doing fine, though, because the plant is two days younger, sort of), and the 1092* is the smallest plant. There seems to be some systematic in the quality of the plant sites...temperature-wise. The sites of the 1077.5* and 2447.1 have earlier sun in the morning (10 minutes earlier maybe) and longer sunshine in the afternoon (again 15 - 20 minutes more sunshine). The combination of the more sunshine and the slightly higher temperatures of air and soil, which result therefrom, seem to make these plants be ahead of the other two. Also, in all cases the development of the backups is slightly behind the development of the favorite plant. In all cases, the latter is closer to an end of the tunnel. Slightly lower temperatures of air and soil could be the cause.   Friday, May 19 View Page Test finished, hypothesis confirmed. Have put some thermometers into the ground (exactly the same depth, been comparing the equilibrated soil temperatures both in the morning and in the evening), and the results are: Same spot (1 ft from northern end of the tunnel) in those tunnels with the slower plants has about 1.5 deg. lower soil temperature. Inside of one tunnel, the side of the backup plant (closer to the northern end of the tunnel) has about 2 deg. lower soil temperature than the soil around the favorite plant (which is in a more central position of the tunnel). Need to make new plans for next year, for better positioning of the two plants in a tunnel for more similar soil temperatures, which should then allow for better comparison as to which of the two should be the inherently more vigorous plant.   Sunday, May 21 View Page Today I opened the tunnels for a while (to let the plants enjoy some sunshine and, the more important thing, I had to do some weeding). Check out whoīs sitting at the red arrow...   Sunday, May 21 View Page ...an occasional visitor to my patch (not mine, a little bugger from the neighborhood, apparently keen on taking care of my pumpkin patch...mice-wise). Good little bugger. :)   Sunday, May 28 View Page Pumpkin patch today :)   Sunday, June 4 View Page Today was a pretty sad (or shocking) day. Returned from a week of vacation and had to see that during the past couple of nights there must have been some frost. All of my AG plants (and the kidsī plants as well) suffered severe frost damage. :(   Monday, June 5 View Page Today I took a sharp knife and... I removed the frost-damaged leaves from my four favorite plants (I left them on the backups, lack of time). Thatīs the bunch of leaves I removed from my four poor little plants.   Monday, June 5 View Page Thatīs what the patch looks like today. Well, the mustard and phacelia a flowering nicely, and the bees are happy, but the other plants (the more important ones) are making a rather sad impression.   Monday, June 5 View Page Here you can see that my potato plants also suffered frost damage. Usually the frosty air is outside my patch (on the meadow), and the flow of icy air into my pumpkin patch area should have been hindered by the tall cover crop (phacelia and mustard), but this time it hasnīt helped too much. Well, maybe it has helped, maybe without that cover crop my pumpkin plants would be completely dead now.   Monday, June 5 View Page Hereīs the set of pumpkin plants...poor little babies. Fortunately, the secondary vines survived without any greater damage. Unfortunately, the vine tip of the main vine was frost damaged in most cases. From the two squash plants I removed the main vine tip, I will wait and see which secondary wants to become a new strong main vine. In case of the other two plants I left the main vine tip on the plant (so far). They had been a bit closer to the ground, a bit further away from the icy air inflow. Want to see how they are doing in a couple of days. Maybe I will also remove them and let a secondary vine play their role.   Friday, June 16 View Page This is...or has been...my favorite plant from my 1007.5* squashies. Looks like the frost damage to the main vine tip has triggered a signal like "hey guys, itīs cold, itīs fall, you vine tips better stop growing". You can see how much (how little, actually) growth has happened within 11 days, in spite of decent weather. Now it was the day to make room for the (initially smaller) backup plant. Its main vine tip was more protected in the shade of the (then frozen to death) leaves of this brave pioneer. It was a tough decision...oh well...but decisions need to be made.   Friday, June 16 View Page Same fate in case of the 2447 Cutrupi plants...the race horse, now with cluster side vine tips growth like in late fall (no sign of race horse behavior after 11 days), here it goes to the butcher for the sake of making room for the oh so tiny backup plant which is still growing a decent main vine, still having a regular appearance of the vine tips and demanding some room now.   Tuesday, June 20 View Page Thought I better post something more beautiful now (looks so much better than a view of my pumpkin patch). In some years I neglected my cacti and dedicated much more time to the pumpkin plants. Right now, the pumpkin plants cause frustration and this beauty here makes my day.   Saturday, July 1 View Page Time for an update. This is the patch today. Well, too much of bare soil visible. Because of the frost damage (and the need to remove the initial racehorses), plant development is about two weeks behind. Could be worse, I agree, but the combination of being two weeks behind and having weakened plants makes it worse...at least worse than being two weeks behind because of a late start. Anyway, we will see...   Saturday, July 1 View Page Also, in addition to being two weeks behind and having weaker plants, only two out of four plants on my patch are on that level (the ones you can see here). The other two are so much weaker, not competitive at all any longer. Nonetheless, I will keep them. The 1092* will be kept as a pollinator for the 1007.5* and maybe for a little genetics fruit of the reverse cross, and the 1944 will be used as a genetics plant (planning to grow two tiny pumpkins on that plant, a 1944 x 2447.1 and a 1944 x 1908.1 (my kidsī plant), because I know (from the aggressive development of the 1944 plant before the frost) that its genetics could be awesome. (Planning for line-up in 2024, as you can see.) Being down to just two moderately competitive plants now, because of a down in this pumpkin season, only two of the "names" can do it justice. 78 and 89 are running uphill, so the only appropriate "names" are 81 and 98.   Sunday, July 16 View Page Patch today, the plants grew bigger (my intention was to have a patch covered in green by now, though...oh well), and some chairs are shading some tiny secrets...   Sunday, July 16 View Page So, this is the first fruit which I would call a keeper, it has set and is growing (and will keep on growing for the next two months, hopefully). The 1007.5* x self (pollinated on July 2nd, main vine), so this will be the first racehorse this year, #81...and I will call her "Golden Girl" (but keeping my fingers crossed that she will stay green and wonīt turn golden in color) :)   Wednesday, August 2 View Page Patch today. More GREEN now :)   Wednesday, August 2 View Page The kidsī patch with the 1908.1 Baumert plant. Looks like the plant is growing an orange fruit :) (Because of the frost damage in late May/early June, this plant was a bit behind, should have filled the entire patch and parts of the lawn by now, so it will be something like an accidental '150+ sqft plant' experience.   Saturday, August 19 View Page Patch after two weeks absence...   Friday, September 1 View Page Patch today...itīs fascinating to see how fast some PM can develop.   Friday, September 1 View Page Another fascinating thing...two vines (from two neighboring AG plants) running through the fence, and, even without following the vines back to their plants, I can easily tell who is who. The one on the left side (all vine tips of that plant do the same thing) grows with virus symptoms since about two or three weeks.