Saturday, February 3
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I have been growing these things called giant pumpkins with my family for 7 years now (got 1000 lbs. in the first year), and just about every year I say I am going to take a year off… but it never happens. Here is the patch covered in a mulch of last year’s vines. On the left is the new asparagus bed where we grew the 1183 Hochstetler DMG last year.
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Wednesday, March 6
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I started a couple field pumpkins in the winter just for fun. The butternut won 1st place at a local show last year and is still intact.
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Saturday, March 23
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In my main patch I have a bit of a cover crop going with some broad beans and the odd rye plant.
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Tuesday, March 26
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Here, the field pumpkin plant has gotten bigger and the butternut has gotten smaller. The latter was delicious.
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Saturday, March 30
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My kids have new respect for my carpentry skills after they saw my new hoop house.
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Sunday, March 31
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Here is the finished article. The whole thing is made from reclaimed materials including the skin which I pulled out of a dumpster/skip.
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Tuesday, April 2
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Seed starting day for my early batch. I am really excited to be growing the Cinderella-AG hybrid: 162 Toboyek. Thanks to Jim Ford for the seeds and to Pete Caspers and Ian Paton for relaying them to me.
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Tuesday, April 9
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Here are my AG's for the year; an all-star line up in my opinion. Clockwise: 2037 Crews, 2020 Paton (1885 x 2907), 2319 Stoeckl, and 2045 Daho. Many thanks to these 4 amazing growers from 4 different countries.
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Monday, April 29
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All plants are in the ground and doing well despite fairly wet and cloudy days. Here are the seedlings before they got planted out. Only the 2037 Crews looks a bit deformed.
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Friday, May 10
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All plants are doing well. The 162 Toboyek is maybe a little less vigorous than the the pure bred AG's but that is to be expected.
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Thursday, May 16
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All hoops are off (our last frost was a month or more ago). Most plants are down and running.
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Monday, May 20
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Here a 1403 Leach and 1716 Leach do battle. They are the reverse cross of each other (1490 x 951 Leach) with epic seeds like the 1501, 2183 Mendi, 2261 Schmit, and 1938 Sperry in their ancestry. I plan to cross some 1885 and/or 2365 into this line.
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Monday, June 24
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I haven't done very well at keeping up my diary. I've got a few pollinations done including both of my 162 Toboyeks.
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Monday, July 1
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2319 Stoeckl x 2045 Daho; that is a selfed 2365 Wolf crossed with a selfed 1885 Werner. Got to grow this seed next year.
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Wednesday, July 17
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I just got back from 2 weeks in the states (worst possible time to be gone) and had a few surprises in the patch. A few fruit had aborted and one had exploded! I think it rained a lot here while I was gone.
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Wednesday, July 17
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Thankfully, I had another one set on the 2319 Stoeckl and it is looking fine.
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Thursday, July 18
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Probably my best one so far is one of my 162 Toboyek's.
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Thursday, July 18
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I have 2 162 Toboyek plants.
One was pollinated with the 632 Hochstetler (my daughters 150 sq. ft. pumpkin which was 1120 Wolf x 2045 Daho) .
This one was pollinated with seeds from a cross I made last year with big and orange potential. The image shows pumpkins grown from both parents of the seed.
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Thursday, July 25
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Here is the 162 Toboyek, pollinated with the 632 Hochstetler. I have a set on the 632 and will post a picture of the fruit when it is a bit more mature.
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Friday, July 26
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My second nicest shaped pumpkin is probably the 2037 Crews. This one was very slow to start. It grew a flat/ribbon main vine but the secondaries are all normal so I set one on a secondary. Pollinated with the 2045 Daho (1885 x self).
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