Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 9 Entries. Sunday, March 10 View Page Let’s go 2024! This is my 21st year having a diary on this great site that Ken created. Big shout out to Porkchop for creating and supporting the Zeke Demers/BP.com tomato team challenge. I am very fortunate to have won back to back years in the draft division and could not have done it without the great teammates and their hard work. Let’s all make 2024 a season of personal bests while having fun along the way!   Sunday, March 31 View Page Happy Easter. Exciting time of year for us gardeners as Kerry has flower seeds started on the grow bench and our giant seeds are getting organized to start. Today I was able to do a checkerboard subsoil of both patches and then put the tiller on to do a very shallow till to planarize all of the peaks and valleys. Thursday we have 10 yards of compost delivered along with a prediction of 6 inches of snow. Our goal each year is to have hoops on and ready to heat soil by mid April. Fingers crossed!   Thursday, April 4 View Page Mother Nature helped amend the patch. Just shy of 12 inches with a couple more predicted. Compost delivery was cancelled for today.   Sunday, April 14 View Page It is go time for the first round of germinations. We will have 4 plants again this year and we have started 5 different seeds. We were fortunate that Ned shared another 839 and the others are our 1503, 1065, 907 and 691.5. I soak the seeds in 50% water and 50% hydrogen peroxide for 3 hours.   Sunday, April 14 View Page I read all of the special seed starting mixes with all of the amendments and want to let growers know that we have been using Miracle Grow Potting Mix since 1996 to germinate seeds in. Many ways to succeed in this hobby and it is ok to keep things simple.   Sunday, April 14 View Page Our grow bench is starting to fill up. I don’t use a seed starting chamber but do use a heat mat to warm up the pots and use gallon ziplock bags to keep moisture in. Our son built the grow bench for us with each shelf being 3 foot high with the led light bars being fully adjustable.   Sunday, April 14 View Page Hoops are built and ready to go. Patch just needs to dry out more before the final tilling happens. The goal is to have everything in place by next weekend so it will give time for soil heater cables to work before a late April planting date.   Tuesday, April 16 View Page It was dry enough to do a final till this evening and Kerry helped dig in soil heater cables. Tomorrow evening the goal is to run extension cords to start heating the soil. Our goal is as close to 70 degrees possible which helps to hatch the corn seed maggots and we can use less insecticide on the transplants. The hoop houses are 5’x8’ and each patch is 800 square feet.   Tuesday, April 16 View Page The old patch is slowly getting there but is a little wetter than the big patch. One pumpkin will go in the 400 square foot space. We also have 2 trellises that are 14.5 feet tall and a larger hoop house that will hold giant tomatoes. The goal for pumpkins to be planted out is May 1st and the long gourds and tomatoes will be mid to late May.