Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 33 Entries. Monday, January 21 View Page I have a blue Sharpie. I have three pretty little manilla envelopes with three not especially pretty giant pumpkin seeds in them. Yes, I am ready to become a giant pumpkin grower. Except for the teeny, tiny fact that I don't know what I'm doing I keep hoping that being friends of Alan Gibson (OVGPG) for over thirty years will have somehow through passive osmosis rubbed some magic pumpkin growing skills off onto me and made me into a Giant Pumpkin Growing machine. This stated desire might be complicated by several problematic things: 1. My book about doing this has yet to arrive 2. Although my roots are in Ohio the place I have to plant my seeds is the low-Sonoran desert 3. Thus far in my gardening life I have pretty much liked growing flowers Nonwithstanding these minor obstacles (sigh....) I think I'm' ready. OK, off to soak some pumpkin seeds. I read on here some of you file and some of you soak and some of you file and then soak but since I can never remember to even file my own nails I think I'm going to start with simply soaking. Wish me luck !   Monday, January 21 View Page Well, criminy. Already off to a rocky start. My blue sharpie was dried up and I had to use a red one. I think the 1187 and the 1260 seeds are going to be really awesome. This is probably an extremely technical reason (so bear with me) but the name "Rose" is in both of their ancestors and not only is my Moms name Rose, it is also my middle name and the middle name of my oldest daughter. Hey, can't get much more technical then that.   Tuesday, January 22 View Page OK, my three little seeds look sort of translucent from the soaking - I'm hoping that's the way they are supposed to look. I am going to put them into 8 inch pots now with some miracle gro potting soil I have in the garage. Then I am going to cover them with saran wrap and put them in the bay window behind the kitchen sink. I received an e-mail from Ben (the AZ giant pumpkin grower) and he says I can call him. Woo hoo. I hope that everything I've done so far isn't wrong. OK, off to move my little fellers into their new very dirt-y homes !   Wednesday, January 23 View Page Nothing happening.... just slightly moist dirt in three different labelled pots. So I guess the "magic pumpkin seeds" are not going to grow up to the sky today like Jack's. Sad.   Wednesday, January 23 View Page Oh, I forgot to say I was really excited to get an e-mail today from a guy in Tucson (Hi Michael) who is also crazy wanting to grow pumpkins in extreme heat. Cool. I don't think any of us will even come close to the master, Ben B, but it will still be fun to try. Game on, fellas !   Wednesday, January 23 View Page Ummm.... hi. OK, three posts in one day might be a bit excessive BUT SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENED ! The famous Arizona pumpkin grower, Ben, talked to me on the phone today and told me to put a heating pad under my germinating little guys and I did. That was the exciting thing. Nothing else happened with the seeds. I was just excited to have spoken to a real, genuine, State record holding pumpkin grower. I can now never wash the hand that held the cell phone during that call again. I'm wondering if I can sell my actual hand on e-bay?   Thursday, January 24 View Page Nothing. Nada. Zip. No giant pumpkin babies this morning either.   Friday, January 25 View Page Rats ! Nothing is happening here except I've located some used water storage tanks that we can pump flood irrigation water into - woo hoo ! Here is our middle Granddaughter (4 years old) checking out the non-action. I have some pretty large bushel basket gourds drying in the garden and when the four year old went outside she wondered why I had three pots of dirt when I already had "pumpkins" growing in the garden.   Friday, January 25 View Page Uh oh. I didn't crack the pointy end of the seeds. I hope they aren't dying. I am getting some chicken manure from my neighbor this weekend to start composting.... we are so lacking in nitrogen here. We are fortunate that we have a very large irrigated yard for Arizona. I have one almost 1,000 square foot raised bed that has been totally amended and churned out lots of veggies and flowers for the past year. There is a smaller amended raised bed where I planted 9 bare-root antique roses and the bushes were amazing and gorgeous. Our soil is really rock hard here but the raised beds were scraped and then dug down about 12 inches and then the caliche was broken up with a sort of spike thing. The beds are raised almost two feet and filled with compost, manure, mason sand, top soil, etc. so the dirt is pretty prime - at least for growing other things. I did really well this past year with heirloom tomatoes, glads, cucumbers, sweet corn, indian corn, peas and lots of flower varieties. It has taken me a lot of years to even figure out how to grow those things in the low desert. I usually grow birdhouse gourds to paint in another raised bed that is in a cooler spot of the yard - well nothing is truly cooler when it is 110 degrees to be honest but it produces well. I use masonry ladders as support for my gourds and it works well. This year, however, one of my sons is going to help me build a tall trellis so we can plant some long gourds, which will be interesting. OK, enough of the garden tales ...   Saturday, January 26 View Page Since I was pretty talkative yesterday today I'll just say NO LITTLE SPROUTS YET !   Sunday, January 27 View Page Gosh, it's cold and grey and dreary and icky out all day today. While all my regular stuff planted in the garden loves it I don't think my little pumpkin seeds do because they have not peeped out yet. Soon, perhaps.   Monday, January 28 View Page OHOHOHOHOHOH ! I'm a Grandma. I have two new Grandbabies. Both the 1187 Dawson and the 1327 Parks have arrived. They both look a little shy but they are definitely both very green and healthy.... woo hoo! Cigars for all !   Tuesday, January 29 View Page Wow, these little guys grow fast ! Number three still has not come out of hiding... I'll get a picture of the new babies tomorrow to share, though. I know you are all holding your breath to see it. ha !   Thursday, January 31 View Page Wow, two out of three are really growing.... that last one is still being stubborn.   Thursday, January 31 View Page Just in case you have never seen a baby giant pumpkin plant before....   Thursday, January 31 View Page Hmmm.... I have heard from a few other Arizona pumpkin growers. I think I might be worried now. Although in case you couldn't tell I have some pretty cool giant pumpkin babies happening (but still only two - although the third has been in my oven warming drawer the whole day and is still being stubborn about emerging. I would offer space in the drawer to other heat seeking pumpkins but the rest of the space is taken up with bread dough raising at the moment - sorry ) So, I'm thinking that a lot of the other states have associations and we should, too. What about calling it AGPA (Attempting Giant Pumpkins in Arizona)or some other cool acronym that we can put on orange baseball hats, too. I've been envying the patch tours, etc. that the growers in other less hostile environments have and we could do that. We could even do a mini-weigh-off in June (or whenever our pumpkins (and us) are ready to expire from heat stroke. As a small enticement to starting this new organization should I tell you that I have a wood-fired pizza oven in my backyard and I'm actually pretty good at homemade pizza dough. OK, no bribery here. Just some lonely pumpkin growing occuring in the Valley of the Sun(stroke) C'mon Michael and Ben. You know you want to do this.   Friday, February 1 View Page OK, I think it might be definite. The third seed doesn't want to germinate. The other two are getting bigger. It's neat to see them "follow" the sun in their bright window. Tomorrow we are going to do some more work in the garden getting ready to move them eventually. Both the Superbowl and the big golf thing are happening this weekend so I figure that means it will definitely be raining.   Friday, February 1 View Page Here is my large garden that the two baby pumpkins will be moved too. This was a new garden that we built when we were fortunate enough to expand our backyard into an unused city cul-de-sac. The soil is very well amended there and this garden is adjacent to flood irrigation sod and trees. There is some deep watering that occurs under the garden when we flood twice a week (I'll show you a picture of that in case you haven't seen it). It's good because it is river water and thus not chemically adjusted. I haven't tested it. Haven't even tested my soil. I may not and just treat this like a big experiment. This raised garden was finished a little under a year ago and produced some really nice crops of various vegetables and flowers I have had difficulty growing in previous years.   Saturday, February 2 View Page I have some sad news. Prepare yourself because it is not going to be pretty. (deep breath) The 1260 Dawson seed is (weep, weep) gone to pumpkin seed heaven. My husband seems reluctant to give it a proper burial although I do have a little sad speech and a cotton lined paper box to bury it in. Frankly, I am annoyed at his lack of sensitivity. And you would think that its little pumpkin seed friends would at least stand still and quit growing for a second in mourning.... but no.... the 1327 and the 1187 are just shooting up... over 5 inches now with the secondary leaves definitely forming. I may, in punishment turn off the heating pad today to teach them to show respect to other family members.   Sunday, February 3 View Page Both of the babies are doing well today. They had a field trip yesterday and got to sit and look at their new places in the garden while I did a few other things back there. I can't say that they showed any enthusiasm for the possibility of leaving their warm little heating pad area but they sat outside for several hours and soaked up the sun. They look really perky this morning but it is gray and overcast and dreary (I'm sad for all the Superbowl fans who are not going to get to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the game - Arizona in the winter is very fickle) Don't tell the pumpkins but today my husband and I are going to a g - o - u - r - d show. So far they are a bit insecure. I suspect that all the gourds will pale in comparison to "Jacks" cool gourds in Taiwan but we're going to go anyway ! Happy Sunday !   Monday, February 4 View Page It's grey and dismal out. Collected rainwater yesterday to water the little pumpkin babies with. I think I may have to name them. They are outgrowing the baby stage and enering the toddler stage. The 1327's first leaves looked a little "crumpled" but the new leaves look just fine. The ground temp has definitely improved with the black plastic so we are just about ready to plant these two. I think I may start another couple of seeds just to be safe. The gourd show was quite interesting yesterday. My favorite were these extra long neck bottle gourds that had a knot tied in the neck. Definitely cool. I had to buy some seeds to give it a try. Happy growing.   Tuesday, February 5 View Page I think we are officially moving past the baby stage and heading into toddlers. I am a bit frustrated because it has been raining the past two days and I can't go into my garden. I am going to try the pvc pipe thing to protect the stems when we transplant into the garden which will hopefully be on Thursday. I'm thinking I started the seeds too early. In the garden is already growing sweet peas, poppies, broccoli, bok choy, asian vegetables, lettuce, shelling peas, bachelor buttons and assorted herbs and other flowers. The roses are sending out a lot of new growth after their heavy winter pruning. And actually we are having lettuce from the garden for dinner tonight along with some fresh oregano and bay leaves thrown into the spaghetti sauce. I don't know whether trench type planting would be good for the pumpkins. I use it for all my tomatoes, eggplant and peppers but since I only have two pumpkin babies I'm worried to try it. If anybody has tried this method I'd like to hear if it killed your plant. OK, this might be turning into wayyyy too much stress.... sigh....   Wednesday, February 6 View Page Wow, serious frost this morning. The pumpkin babies were looking out the window this morning and shivering. They are quite happy they didn't go outside already.   Thursday, February 7 View Page The garden is almost dry enough to plant the babies. They are having a morning sunbath right now. I think they're anxious to get into the ground. I'm anxious to get them there as well.   Thursday, February 7 View Page Oops, I forgot to say that I'm planting my Big Zac tomato seeds today, too !   Saturday, February 9 View Page Today is the day. The soil seems pretty warm. The pumpkin babies are going outside. The 1187 is definitely the strongest, most aggressive plant at this time. Hopefully we won't snap their little necks when we move them. I'll be using my Grandma's secret transplanting technique and I rarely lose a transplant but I still have my fingers (and toes) crossed. It's a gorgeous day here and almost makes up for our summers.... almost.... we're heading off to Florence for a historic home tour and then it's pumpkin relocation time.   Saturday, February 9 View Page ACCCCKKKKK ! I did it. They are outside! ALONE ! IN THE GREAT BIG GARDEN ! ACCCKKKKKK ! I think they are probably scared. My husband thinks I might be over-reacting, but, gee, they have only been out of the kitchen window on controlled field trips. I will check on them again before it gets dark but they look pretty darn perky and happy in their warm little homes. It is just so hard to let go. I survived empty nest with all of our kids and now this. Sigh.   Monday, February 11 View Page OK, one pumpkin is loving it outside and one is just sitting there pouting. It is getting beautiful here during the day but still cooling off a bunch at night. I think our little "warming" device is working well. It is definitely toasty in there. Happy Growing.   Thursday, February 14 View Page I think the pumpkins are enjoying the little boost of heat we had for the past several days. They seem to be doing really well. They aren't quite as green as I think they should be but I'm just going to leave them alone for now. The giant tomato seeds have sprouted - well, 9 out of 10 have sprouted. It's interesting to watch them. I suspect we are going to have to increase the size of our little greenhouse at least on the one pumpkin. The other is still just sitting there - although there are indications of a second set of leaves just bumping out. It's supposed to be gray and drizzly and cooler for the next several days !   Friday, February 15 View Page It's raining, it's pouring. It's been just coming down like crazy all day. I didn't venture out to check on the pumpkins but I'm sure they are enjoying the moisture in their snug little greenhouses !   Tuesday, February 19 View Page Rose (the 1187 Dawson) is really doing amazingly well. She is just about growing out of her "starter" greenhouse. I think we will be building something bigger this weekend for her. Julia is finally, finally getting a few secondary leaves that amount to anything. Not sure what's up with her but we'll see what the next few days bring.   Sunday, February 24 View Page Julia has finally taken off ! She is starting to grow like crazy. Later (much later) this morning my husband and I are heading to Home Depot to buy some PVC to make a bigger hothouse for Rose. We'll take a picture of her before she goes into her new bigger home. The giant tomato baby plants are probably about three inches now and moderatly spindly. I think they need some additional sun baths which they will get later today.   Saturday, March 8 View Page Rose and Julia seem to be thriving in their little green houses. I think Rose could be getting some flower buds on her. Could that be? There are several little nodules at the branching in the top leaves? I can't find my camera download cord thing or I would post a picture. Am I supposed to be doing something now if these are buds? Yikes !