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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Wednesday, May 24, 2006
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Tony Pumpkin
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Abbotsford BC
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Entry 39 of 229 |
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Here is the 1446 Eaton at 30 days old. I included a pop can and a tape measure set at 5 feet for an idea of scale.
Males are definitely starting to shoot. Today I saw several (3 to 4) that were about 2 inches in height near the base--I missed these yesterday when I saw some sprouting near the end of the main. Two vines are shooting off the stump and are a little over 1 foot long. Other secondaries are starting to shoot off the main. I will start pruning third growth vines soon.
Today was full of all kinds of weather. Rain, severe wind etc. I ran into a gardener on my street after work and he gave me 6 huge bags of grass clippings--last week he said he had 1700lbs of grass he hauled to the dump--he told me to call him (gave me a business card) whenever I wanted grass clippings—no kidding, this way he doesn’t have to pay the pound price for dumping. I told him to bring me all the maple leaves he can find in Autumn. I threw the 6 bags into the compost to help the many leaves on the bottom start to cook. The grass trimmings were from lawns that had herbicide (scott's turf builder) put on them, I don't know if I will take more of these grass clippings as I have heard that residual herbicides can be quite the problem for some leafy plants--although I think most of that herbicide is killed in the heat of composting. I will do more research to try and find out more before I start accepting huge quantities of grass clippings from him (like 1700lbs!).
I put a couple of wheelbarrows of soil close under the main to decrease the incline and support the main vine as it begins to settle. Underneath the vine by one of the leaves that was a foot off the ground I saw a tap root about a quarter inch start to develop. Boy these Atlantic Giants are aggressive--starting tap roots before the vine even hits the soil!
This weekend I will hopefully work on extending the front and sides of the greenhouse to accommodate the growth.
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