Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 9 Entries. Monday, February 26 View Page It's 70 degrees F here and naturally I get into the spirit of things as a result. I raked out the debris from last year's garden. I think we're gonna do a little switcheroo and grow the giant pumpkins on the 'used' side of the garden since it's had some nutrtients returned from unharvested fruits. Should be a good pH to start with anyway. Then I'll just put the general garden stuff on the other/newly tilled area since the pH is probably off there and I don't feel like adding sulfer. Vegetables will grow well anyway with miracle grow...lol. I'll get a soil test done here in a couple weeks and see where we are. Last year went really well for my first attempt. The fruit taped at about 800 pounds before the vine probably contracted yellow vine disease and stopped the pumpkin growing. Had that not happened I may have doubled the weight. That was off of a self pollinated 1739 Strickler. Hopefully I can acquire a few of his 2054's when we have our spring meeting. I actually wouldn't mind growing the 1739 again because it did so well up until the yellow vine, but I'll plant about 9 seeds inside with a new grow light and see how it goes. I have a number of seeds from growers around Indiana left from last year, as well as my own 746 seeds. My hope is that we come up with some strategies for combatting the yellow vine problem because just about every big grower in my area had a problem with it last year.   Saturday, March 16 View Page These are the seeds I got from the club and I think this is great set for just having them show up in the mail. The 2054's will be the ones to keep an eye on given its lineage, but the other seeds are likely better than what I've got in my backlog as well. I'll start 12 in the garage, transplant 6, and narrow down to 2. Likely a disadvantage, but I can't set up tents with heaters outdoors this year. I am investing in a better grow light to keep the stems short and hopefully keep them inside just a little longer if possible UNLESS the weather turns out as predicted and is warmer than average. I will be setting up tents for the pumpkins themselves but thats a late June/July problem. Soil test next week!   Thursday, April 11 View Page The new starting rig. We now have a proper grow light and plastic pots. Soil is Promix BX with some worm castings mixed in. I'll sand, soak, and start the seeds tomorrow!   Tuesday, April 16 View Page All the little guys are starting to come up. First was 2054 Strickler which I'm very happy about. The 25% heavy Barker seed came up as well so I'll be trying that as a pollinator. It's not done anything spectacular for anyone else but I guess I'm just playing the numbers. I'm really happy with the light I got as you can tell they aren't trying to reach on me. Today I got half the patch tilled and amended and...well mostly covered. My plastic sheeting isn't quite big enough.   Tuesday, April 16 View Page https://youtu.be/hGSikJn_yZc Doing videos again!   Thursday, April 18 View Page My 746 finally decided to show up today. So I'm 12/12 on germination which is a nice thing to have. A few seeds came up a little janky so I may have some dropping out of the race early, but for the most part it's close! Also, out in the patch I tried mowing over my rye which began to grow rather agressively once it got warmer. Mower deck couldn't handle it and ripped the belt in two. I have another one on the way but I'm going to have to approach that a little at a time I can see. I've seen people like Mike Schmidt actually knock over the rye and spray it to kill it before mowing or tilling it in. Part of me thinks it would be more beneficial to cut it down live before tilling it in, however difficult that's going to be.   Saturday, April 27 View Page These guys are yelling at me to go outside. I won't have time to do it today but maybe tomorrow if I can finish the patch preparations. I still need to amend the other half of the patch and put some neutral zone weed fabric down.   Monday, April 29 View Page Ordinarily this would be a VERY early time to put the plants outside, but the weather is acceptable and the plants are ready and were on the verge of rootbound. So on the right hand side is the battle of the 2054 Stricklers. On the left is 1753 Hodge, 1964 Friermood, and 1935.5 Caspers. Those were the best looking plants I have going so now we see how they do to narrow it down to once on each side. Back to back formation this year. Also it's hard to see, but back in the corner is the prospective pollinator, the 1363 Barker. That pumpkin was 24% heavy and it looks like it hasn't been used for very much according to Pumpkin Fanatic, so I'd like to how it does for me. I'm still not using any hoop houses this year. Temps are not much of a concern right now. We may see down to 45F a couple nights next week but that won't bother them. The only thing to be concerned about is severe weather with high winds and hail. I WILL cover them with something if bad storms pop up.   Tuesday, April 30 View Page Made another video! https://youtu.be/EFFITTyyUiI