Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 130 Entries. Thursday, January 5 View Page link to new revised genetic tree for giant tomatoes https://ibb.co/d4ZYLwY added 2022 tomatoes and cleaned up stuff enjoy   Thursday, January 5 View Page second link----------------https://iili.io/HRIW3N9.jpg   Thursday, January 5 View Page So I was playing with AI (Artificial Intelligence) text to image. this is where you type something and the AI draws it. Soooooo... just for fun I typed "Jack LaRue carrying a giant tomato" :O   Friday, January 6 View Page So when I asked AI to draw "porkchop carrying a giant tomato" I got this.......   Friday, January 6 View Page Then I asked AI to draw me the biggest pumpkin in the world.   Friday, January 6 View Page Then I realized maybe it could predict the future.......OMG "biggest pumpkin in the world 2023" Looks like it will come from the Rodebaugh clone.   Friday, January 6 View Page I might of made a mistake lets try "Worlds heaviest pumpkin in the world 2023" hummmm... Anybody recognize that weighoff? looks european...... Probably British ;)   Wednesday, January 11 View Page gpc-3.90 680 hand lots ds cross extention clone late gpc-3.88 730 hand lots ds cross good mega early gpc-3.11 580 none ds cross big single early gpc-2.66 480 hand some ds cross first mega early uow-2.61 130 hand lots lyons good mega early uow-2.40 100 none strickler old man early gpc-1.76 670 hand lots strickler inside mega late uow-1.51 100 none lyons singleish early   Wednesday, January 11 View Page gpc-3.90 680 hand lots ds cross extention clone late******************************** gpc-3.88 730 hand lots ds cross good mega early********************************* gpc-3.11 580 none ds cross big single early***************************************** gpc-2.66 480 hand some ds cross first mega early**************************************** uow-2.61 130 hand lots lyons good mega early*************************************** uow-2.40 100 none strickler old man early*************************************** gpc-1.76 670 hand lots strickler inside mega late**************************************** uow-1.51 100 none lyons singleish early*********************************************   Wednesday, January 11 View Page Someone save me from playing with AI....."Giant pumpkin farmer dragon" ha ha ha ha.   Wednesday, January 11 View Page I dare you to tell him his marrow is disqualified because it has orange color!!   Friday, January 13 View Page Transporting your giant pumpkins in the future. A.I. is scary good with a few trial and error images.   Friday, January 13 View Page Transporting your giant pumpkins in the future. A.I. is scary good with a few trial and error images.   Monday, January 23 View Page A.I. created "measuring a giant tomato" ha ha ha A.I. is too smart   Monday, January 23 View Page Lest do pumpkins next A.I. "measuring giant pumpkins" wow that plant is huge. :))   Monday, January 23 View Page its scary how real some of these look :/   Monday, January 23 View Page OMG!!!! Not funny A.I.   Tuesday, January 31 View Page A.I. text to image "monster farmer growing giant pumpkins"   Tuesday, January 31 View Page The other amazing thing about AI is it makes great logos. Need a logo for your club :) I typed in "Giant pumpkin with mountains in the background logo" it's crazy   Tuesday, January 31 View Page Another. I selected multiple image so I have several to choose from.   Tuesday, January 31 View Page Just wish it wouldn't put it's weird AI language on the logo.   Tuesday, January 31 View Page Just wish it wouldn't put it's weird AI language on the logo.   Tuesday, January 31 View Page I didn't double post.....:/   Tuesday, February 7 View Page Aliens are stealing my giant tomato!!!!!   Tuesday, February 7 View Page Aliens are stealing my giant tomato!!!!!   Friday, February 10 View Page A.I thinks this is what the 5-gallon tomato bucket challenge looks like. It seems to have no idea what a 5 gallon bucket looks like lol   Friday, February 10 View Page A.I thinks this is what the 5-gallon tomato bucket challenge looks like. It seems to have no idea what a 5 gallon bucket looks like lol   Friday, February 10 View Page Another   Friday, February 10 View Page Another   Friday, February 10 View Page Maybe A.I. knows something we don't. Grow a tomato in a tomato???   Friday, February 10 View Page Maybe A.I. knows something we don't. Grow a tomato in a tomato???   Monday, March 13 View Page Finally got some time in the evenings to finish this thing. It takes a stupid amount of time to do this silly little chart and make everything fit. I'm going to have to expand the 5.71 Lambchop tree next year again I bet. What an amazing seed. It also made it hard to shuffle things around for the insane 9.06 Brown seed (under the Lambchop tree) Both of these seeds are going in the dirt this year. https://ibb.co/CnZkhwt   Saturday, April 1 View Page This is where the 3.90 grew. It was in the extension box I built mid season to give me a place to put the clones in. It was the second biggest tomato ever grown in Colorado. I was trying for the state record but missed it by a little over 1/2 lb. It's time to say goodbye to this extension box and build a bigger better set up.   Sunday, April 2 View Page Last year's dirt into the new box... Ummm I need more soil...   Sunday, April 2 View Page Ok no messing around this year. We are doing this right. One trip to Fort Collins Nursery (I love them). And boom.   Sunday, April 2 View Page I also got some compost that CSU had from their "no waste" program. It looks great. Bre and I agree it smells like hamburgers. Definitely some compost material from the cafeteria. Ha ha ha. Much much better than from the feed lot.   Sunday, April 2 View Page Some of last years leaves to protect it all and done. Just in time as the forecast is calling for snow later this week.   Sunday, April 2 View Page Notice the shadow from the shed. It will be an interesting experiment to see how this effects the tomato growth. A bit of equinox calculations determine that this is what it will look like September 10. I've been watching the shadows quite a bit to determine what it will look like later in the year.   Tuesday, April 18 View Page Today is start the seeds day!!! I'm going with mostly all proven seeds and personal for my first set of tomatoes. I'll stagger a second batch in a several weeks.   Tuesday, April 18 View Page Starting dirt ready.   Tuesday, April 18 View Page This year we are going to get some biology in there. I didn't do any of this fancy stuff last year. Fingers crossed.   Tuesday, April 18 View Page All tucked in and snuggly under the lamp and on the heat mat. Let's see how fast they germinate this year.   Saturday, April 22 View Page This is a true "Spring time in Colorado photo" woke up to 2-3" of snow and this on the black current bush.   Saturday, April 22 View Page This is a true "Spring time in Colorado photo" woke up to 2-3" of snow and this on the black current bush.   Sunday, April 23 View Page We have baby tomato plants. The first two out of the dirt are Dan's 9.44 cross and LaRue 5.08. I think they are a day or two behind because I was not watering them enough.   Sunday, April 23 View Page Last year the cross seed I grew was the first out of the dirt also.   Sunday, April 23 View Page This LaRue seed looks to be strong also.   Wednesday, April 26 View Page most everything sprouted. missing the lambchop 5.71 **CRY** and the 5.70 Macdonald. A couple of my personal seeds were no shows also the 3.10 and 2.66. No biggie tho as I have tons of seeds for them and they are replanted. The lambchop was very painful tho. I replanted another one so finger crossed. I think part of the reason the sprouts are later than last year is i planted the seeds deeper and packed the dirt just a bit. I did this as i had a problem with the seed coats coming off last year. It didn't seem to make a difference i still had seed coats stuck to a few sprouts.   Wednesday, April 26 View Page So this year I'm going to break the colorado state record! I got oh so close last year. I put 3 tomatoes in the top 10 biggest tomatoes ever grown in the state Second, Third, and ninth. Not bad for my first year growing giants. Even tho I didn't get my goal of breaking the state record, I grew the top 3 biggest tomatoes in the state for 2022. All I need is another 3/4 of a pound and the record is mine!   Wednesday, April 26 View Page And this is the beast I'm chasing.......(The Tomato not the guy).... :)   Saturday, April 29 View Page Seriously.......I'm having sprouting problems. Sigh. Time to replant this one. It's the Sutherland cross.   Saturday, April 29 View Page Going to post pictures of the tomatoes that are growing fine So I can keep track of growth over time etc. This is the LaRue 7.94 is it grown from the Lambchop directly.   Saturday, April 29 View Page 4.28 Spaziani. The f1 seed that grew the 6.66.   Saturday, April 29 View Page 9.06 Brown. Last year's hot seed. Grew the WR 11lb Faust   Saturday, April 29 View Page 5.61 Konieczny cross seed that grew the 8.355 Stickler   Saturday, April 29 View Page 5.08 La Rue. This plant is by far the best one. It is the same size as some tomatoes I started a week earlier that I'm giving some other people.   Saturday, April 29 View Page 4.71 Palmer. This seed grew Randy's 2 - 6lb tomatoes. It is just two generations from the Lambchop seed. I think any seed descendent from the Lambchop seed has potential.   Saturday, April 29 View Page 9.65 pork chop. Former WR seed. Has a fantastic tree under it. Has 13 descendents over 7lb including the 9.06 Brown and the 11.65 Faust. Lambchop mother seed.   Sunday, April 30 View Page I think I'll try to start one of these seeds. It might be interesting to cross this with one of the other seeds. Brown....LaRue.... Konieczny with the marv genetics.....hummmm   Sunday, April 30 View Page The club grow this year is sunflower. I'm going to put 3 in the ground. I cut the bottoms off the black pots out and put a nice soil mixture in them. We'll see what happens.   Sunday, April 30 View Page Now what seed to pick.......hummmm.... These are all from the erotic seed exchange.   Sunday, April 30 View Page This one for sure......then one more ...   Sunday, April 30 View Page This one for sure......then one more ...   Sunday, April 30 View Page Wife says she wants the tall ones so this will be our picks. Young and Butler. It will be interesting to see how we do. I don't have a lot of vested interests in these and I noticed in others diaries sometimes the ignored or less fiddled with plants do best. :)   Wednesday, May 3 View Page Time to add dirt to the leggy little tomato sprouts. This week I will start hardening then off as it looks like great weather this week.   Friday, May 5 View Page Guess what.......   Friday, May 5 View Page It sprouted. :O   Friday, May 5 View Page The Sutherland cross also came up better than last time with the weird growth.   Friday, May 5 View Page Looks normal this time.   Friday, May 5 View Page Looks normal this time.   Wednesday, May 10 View Page All three sunflowers sprouted and are growing. They seem to have survived the marble sized hail yesterday.   Wednesday, May 10 View Page Time to add dirt to the 8.41 MacCoy '14. I can't believe it sprouted. It's almost a 10 year old seed.   Wednesday, May 10 View Page Welp.. 3 strikes and your out. Very painful......   Wednesday, May 10 View Page After the problems with germination this year on my second go around I planted 6 seeds of each of my 3.90, 3.88, and 3.10. all 6 of the 3.90 and 3.88 sprouted. Now I'll pick the best 2 of each. The 3.10 seems to have germination problems. My 2.66 also. It's a weird thing. Probably just a coincidence but the 3.10 and 2.66 were NOT hand pollinated.   Thursday, May 11 View Page 5.08 LaRue is just a beast. I am going to put my maters in.the dirt tomorrow or Saturday. This one needs it. The roots are poking up out of the dirt on top :O   Thursday, May 11 View Page Doing good   Thursday, May 11 View Page 7.94 LaRue   Thursday, May 11 View Page Doing just fine   Thursday, May 11 View Page 9.65 porkchop. This one excites me, since my three lampchops didn't germinate.   Thursday, May 11 View Page 9.06 Brown. Yummy! Will it grow a 11lb tomato for me? Fingers crossed. 11lbs would beat the Colorado state record. :)   Thursday, May 11 View Page 4.71 Palmer. I'm really curious to see what this one does.   Thursday, May 11 View Page The replants and a couple others.   Thursday, May 11 View Page So my failed germinations that I tried twice were the 5.70 MacDonald, 7.66 LaRue, 5.71 Lambchop (cry), 2.66 Luers. I got one 3.11 Luers out of 8 tries and it sprouted very slow and late.   Saturday, May 13 View Page Today's the day!!!! WOOOOT!!!!   Saturday, May 13 View Page Oh yah dangerously close to root bound. I'm planting the maters while chatting in the chat room for the tomato draft contest.   Saturday, May 13 View Page The 5.08 LaRue is easily the best during the germination phase   Saturday, May 13 View Page Last mater the lowley 3.11 Luers. The only seed to sprout from my 2.66 or 3.11. it will be an interesting experiment to see how seeds from dud mother grow.   Saturday, May 13 View Page Boom! Done.....Now grow grow grow.   Saturday, May 13 View Page I did quite a bit of research for companion plants with tomatoes. There was a couple scientific papers showing basil increasing tomato yield and size. It is also said to keep the pests away. Plus this fall we are going to eat like Italian kings.   Thursday, May 18 View Page We are headed on vacation for a few days. My wife is so worried about hail on my new plants she got me the trash can cage things. I argued a bit telling her they would be fine but i put them on so she didn't fret about it during the whole vacation. I left one off the lowly tiny 3.10 sprout. My wife asked why and I told her it didn't deserve one. I got "that" look and now it has a cage.   Friday, May 26 View Page Speaking of giant plants. The coastal redwoods in northern California are some of the biggest trees on the planet. This is one place we went. Hiking the trail in jedediah smith redwoods state park was abosutly mind blowing. My wife standing beside one of the bigger trees. OMG!!! Pictures do not do justice to the size of these things.   Sunday, May 28 View Page This is the before photo of my mater patch right before we left and 9 days later..............................   Sunday, May 28 View Page What the frickin can of crazy sauce is this??????????????? Colorado has got way way way more rain than usual this year. Now I need some sunny hot days to grow the maters... please. I also need an industrial weed puller. I know what I'll be doing on memorial day.   Monday, May 29 View Page sunflowers are plugging along.   Monday, May 29 View Page Time to weed the garden and see how the maters did in the week we were gone. The 4.28 Spaziani has out performed the other maters during the vacation. It was cramped in the hail cage.   Monday, May 29 View Page 5.08 La Rue doing nicely.   Monday, May 29 View Page 5.08 La Rue doing nicely.   Monday, May 29 View Page 9.06 Brown. 11lb mater? :)   Monday, May 29 View Page 9.65 Porkchop plant has taken off and is second best growth after the Spaziani   Monday, May 29 View Page 5.61 Konieczny   Monday, May 29 View Page 5.61 Konieczny is doing very nice also.   Monday, May 29 View Page 7.94 La Rue. One of the only non proven seeds Im growing this year. It was grown straight off the lambchop seed so good chance at producing.   Monday, May 29 View Page 4.71 Palmer My pick for a sleeper seed. It is the healthiest looking plant in the patch. We will see how good my intuition is. Tho I guess it is a bit of an educated intuition. It grew 2-6lbs maters for Randy. It was grown from another sleeper seed the 5.32 MacDonald '20, that was grown from the 5.71 Lambchop. If you have a 5.32 I would grow it.   Monday, May 29 View Page The 8.41 MacCoy It was started a week and a half later but this 2014 seed looks like it will survive. I am eyeing this plant to produce a cross.   Monday, May 29 View Page Sutherland cross. I had to restart the plant so it is a week and a half behind the others.   Monday, May 29 View Page 3.88 Luers Personal seed doing fine.   Monday, May 29 View Page 3.90 Luers is also doing fine. The 3.90 and 3.88 were both planted week and a half later.   Monday, May 29 View Page This 3.11 tiny sprout did not survive. I couldn't even find its corpse. Got eaten? Blew away? Thanos snaped his fingers? Heard me talking bad about it and ran away? Abducted by aliens? Bigfoot? Interdimensional rip in space time? Sand Worm? Darth Vader? Transporter malfunction? Maybe it was answering a distress call, that is always a good way to get in trouble. *shrug*   Saturday, June 3 View Page Stupid hail.....stupid rain. .....stupid weather.......I don't know which one of you sent your rain this way but you can have it back now!   Sunday, June 4 View Page Minecraft IRL! *Your kids or grandkids will find this funny* (If you miss the joke)   Sunday, June 4 View Page The 3.88 Luers are doing quite well. This is one of the back up plants I have. Look at the roots! Good thing I decided to transplant them.   Sunday, June 4 View Page Finished the extra raised bed this weekend. Look at that blank canvass. Oh yah   Monday, June 5 View Page Got support posts for the sunflowers. They are 15' tall. We will see. I think all this rain and clouds has stunted the growth a bit.   Monday, June 5 View Page Just after I got finished with the sun flower support the rain started again. I had to cover the maters again cause the storm had some hail in it. It missed us. The 5 gallon bucket I have outside had 3" of rain in it from this weekend and it is calling for rain all week..... :(   Tuesday, June 6 View Page I spy with my little eye.......   Tuesday, June 6 View Page I spy with my little eye.......   Tuesday, June 6 View Page If you can guess the plant the megabloom is on I'll give you a years worth of rain for the next week. Pick it up from my patch :/   Tuesday, June 6 View Page If you can guess the plant the megabloom is on I'll give you a years worth of rain for the next week. Pick it up from my patch :/   Tuesday, June 6 View Page And the winner is..... This plant is the biggest and the furthest along. The very young megabloom looks great so far.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 9.65 Porkchop. It has a megabloom on it.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 9.06 Brown. It looks to have a megabloom.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 5.08 LaRue It has megabloom on it.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 7.94 LaRue It has oversized flowers but unsure if it's a mega or just a big single yet.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 5.61 Konieczny. It has a magabloom on it   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 4.71 Palmer. It has a megabloom on it.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 4.28 Spaziani. Best plant has a very nice megabloom.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 3.88 Luers. second round planting.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 3.90 Luers. Second round planting.   Tuesday, June 6 View Page 8.41 MacCoy second round planting   Tuesday, June 6 View Page Sutherland cross seed. Second round planting