Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 116 Entries. Monday, March 9 View Page Ahhhhhh, March in Pennsylvania! The 2009 season is quickly approaching and just when I'm raring to go and get outside and do some clean-up and prep work, we get the all-too-frequent March snowstorm! Then it's all aboard the weather roller-coaster: 12 inches of snow March 2nd, 3 degrees the following morning, then nearly 70 degrees 4 days later! The snow is all gone already but there is still some seriously frozen soil a few inches down under the top-mud, so I guess I still need to find something else to do for a couple of weeks. I have a lot of grand plans for this season after the long and nasty winter we had, expansion of the pumpkin patch, new insect damage prevention methods and more so stay tuned for an exciting 2009!   Monday, March 9 View Page I'm still trying to figure out how to upload pictures here since I'm using a different computer this year. This photo was supposed to accompany the previous entry, hopefully it worked this time!   Wednesday, March 11 View Page Did the photo work this time?   Wednesday, March 11 View Page How about now?   Wednesday, March 11 View Page Woo Hoo!!!!! Fourth time was the charm! :) I have rewired my brain so I will remember how to upload the pictures in the future, now I'm just about ready for the season! Only 6 more weeks until the journey begins again..............   Saturday, March 28 View Page The expansion of the pumpkin patch is underway - I'm extending it on one side by 1200 square feet, 20 x 60 to be exact. After digging out the multiflora rose stumps and other small trees, it was time to mow down the meadow grasses with our unstoppable push mower dubbed "Frankenmower" (pieced together from two broken lawnmowers)!   Saturday, March 28 View Page About 40 minutes later, Frankenmower stands proudly in the middle of a job well done. I put the deck down as far as it would go and it was practically scraping the soil!   Saturday, March 28 View Page A wide view of the entire 2009 pumpkin patch with the new part in the foreground. The winter rye on the established part of the patch has greened up nicely and is starting to grow a bit. In a month it'll be knee high and ready to meet the mower! It's only about 3 1/2 weeks until this year's seeds will be getting started, and then it's showtime!   Wednesday, April 15 View Page It's already the middle of April, I can't believe how quickly the season is approaching! Even on these chilly, rainy days the cover crop seems to be getting bigger every day. Temperatures in the 40s and 50s seem to be just fine with a cold hardy plant like winter rye. Right now it's the greenest thing on the block.   Wednesday, April 15 View Page Two days ago I spread out a bunch of horse manure and tilled the new section of the pumpkin patch. Notice Larry the cat in the foreground looking over my tilling job. She approved of the job but indicated that the area needs more cat poop. I strongly disagreed.   Wednesday, April 15 View Page It's been a while since the dogs made a cameo appearance in my diary, so here they are. Ella is on the left and her mom Esther is on the right. Esther is now a full year past her major surgery from last spring and still going strong at the age of 12 and a half!   Wednesday, April 15 View Page Larry loves to try to jump up and head-butt the dogs. She really loves the dogs, someone should tell her sometime that cats are supposed to be afraid of Rottweilers!   Wednesday, April 15 View Page Back on March 29th, we got a very sudden surprise - about 20 minutes of non-stop pea sized hail. It was around 60 degrees at the time and despite the fact that it was rapidly melting after it hit the ground, it began accumulating in the yard.   Wednesday, April 15 View Page As the hail bounced off the roofs of the house and shed, it piled up around the edges of the buildings. This was the most hail I have seen in a very long time. Hopefully it is the last we will see, at least until pumpkin season is over!   Wednesday, April 15 View Page This is the cedar tree that was growing in the middle of my pumpkin patch last year. We put it in front of the house as our Christmas tree back in December, and on this day it became mulched with hail. It is one tough tree, it had large chunks of ice falling on it (and frozen to it) all winter, and now it is planted back up in the field where it can return to a normal existence. Hooray!   Tuesday, April 21 View Page Finally, here are the seeds that I am hoping to grow successfully this year. If I'm not mistaken the 522 Ceja has the same parents as the 842 Eaton I grew last year. The 1104 Hester came from the generous Eddy Z this winter, and the 1125 Checkon should have serious potential as well.   Tuesday, April 21 View Page These are my back ups for this year, in case any of my top three don't germinate or something happens to them. They are both certainly worthy of a spot in the garden as well.   Tuesday, April 21 View Page And here are all the others I'm starting either to give to friends in the area, or any of our gardening customers who might be interested. Seeds are going in tomorrow, about 5 days earlier than last year. I am ready to have a great year, with some new strategies and (hopefully) solutions to old problems. It's always a great learning experience though, whatever the heck happens!   Sunday, April 26 View Page It was finally seed planting day on Wednesday, and one of my new not-so-secret weapons this year is the use of mycorrhizae, beneficial fungi that help the plant extract more nutrients from the soil and ward off soil-borne pathogens. It's growing in popularity and has helped produce some of the world's biggest pumpkins.   Sunday, April 26 View Page I made a hole in the planting mix with my finger (my favorite tool) and put a teaspoon of the mycorrhizae into the hole and mixed it in a bit. I'm only using it on 5 of the 18 seeds I am starting, so maybe we'll see a difference right away in the plants that have the myco.   Sunday, April 26 View Page All the seeds all nestled in their pots, watered with warm water and placed on a heat mat to give them the nice warm environment that pumpkins want. Some growers file their seeds down first to make germination easier (the seed coats do look pretty formidable) and pre-soak them in water and stuff, but I figure a seed should be able to germinate in the soil, on its own. If it can't do that under ideal conditions, then it just wasn't meant to be.   Sunday, April 26 View Page Here is what you have to do to protect your seeds when you have an indoor cat who walks over everything. Luckily they were only in the house for 2 days, now they are out in the greenhouse. We have to figure out how to cover the entire kitchen this way to keep our bastard kitty off the counter!   Sunday, April 26 View Page Today I moved the fence from the old border to the new border of the patch. It was 90 degrees here today and will be again tomorrow. The temp. in the greenhouse was over 100 for several hours, so at least I didn't have to run the heat mats today!   Sunday, April 26 View Page Six foot metal posts (in the ground about 18 inches) with a bamboo pole in the ground right alongside it to reach a finished height of 7 feet. Keeps the deer out here (dare I say it?) just about 100% of the time. It doesn't take that long to put up, and it removes worrying about the deer from the equation entirely.   Sunday, April 26 View Page The rye is growing by leaps and bounds in this heat. It's over 6 inches tall and has probably doubled in size in the last week. I have been noticing some small vetch plants springing up in the cover crop as well, so it's nice to see that some of them survived the winter, but they won't amount to very much by tilling time.   Saturday, May 2 View Page The 854 Jutras has won the germination race this year, and it wasn't even close. It exploded out of the soil a couple of days ago and clearly has a head start on all the others. This is one of my backups, but if I don't need it I will have to find a good home for it. It looks like a potential monster!   Saturday, May 2 View Page The 1125 Checkon is up as well, one of my top seeds for this year. The cotyledons are tiny in comparison to the Jutras.   Saturday, May 2 View Page A little tough to see in this photo, but the 6 year old 1104 Hester seed is beginning to punch through the soil as well. Very exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!   Saturday, May 2 View Page This photo is a little fuzzy as well (so I've established that I'm no great photographer!), but when I pulled out the wooden labels from the pots with the mycorrhizae you can see white mycelium on the surface of the labels. A very good indication that the myco is doing it's thing already. Also very exciting!!!!!   Saturday, May 2 View Page Here is the entire flat of my giants that I started. A bunch of the older seeds are not doing anything yet (and maybe they won't) but I wanted to give them a chance before they got any older. The Jutras is in the upper left and in the lower right is a 982 Rodonis. The insanity is underway..........   Sunday, May 10 View Page Here is what the cover crop looks like today after 3 and a quarter inches of rain in the last week. Some of the winter rye is now waist high after being only 6-8 inches high two weeks ago!   Sunday, May 10 View Page Some of the rye has gotten so tall that it is starting to fall over. Time to cut it down and prepare the patch for next weekend's rototilling.   Sunday, May 10 View Page An hour and a half later it has been all mowed down and chopped up nice and fine by Frankenmower. It will lay there for a week drying out before it gets tilled in. The next week is supposed to be dry (thank God) so by next Saturday we should have perfect tilling conditions.   Sunday, May 10 View Page The patch-wide view, with guard dogs mapping out their guarding strategies. Actually, they just want to eat some horse manure. :)   Sunday, May 17 View Page Here is the 1125 Checkon as of last night. It's been a crazy week here, as it always is this time of year, so some of the plants are starting to look a little pale since I haven't had a chance to feed them lately. I was going to try to get my plants in the ground today, but the forecast lows might be in the upper 30s here the next two nights. Instead, I think I'll feed them some fish solution today and aim for planting on Wednesday!   Sunday, May 17 View Page The 1104 Hester. I was able to get the pumpkin patch completely rototilled yesterday before the thunderstorms came in the evening. Lots of horse manure in there as usual, I'll try to remember to take the camera up there with me today.   Sunday, May 17 View Page The 522 Ceja showing yellow leaf margins on the first true leaf. The next leaf coming looks fine, so I don't think it's anything to worry about, hopefully just an indication of my early season neglect!   Sunday, May 17 View Page The 854 Jutras, one of my backups for this year which I don't think I'm going to need. I have another seed for this one in my collection though, so it might have to find it's way into my lineup for next year. It was the most robust germinator in the bunch!   Wednesday, May 20 View Page Here is the fully prepped pumpkin patch ready for today's planting!!!!!!!!! The last cold snap is hopefully behind us now, we set a record low in this area Tuesday morning (May 19th) and actually had a light frost. Nighttime temperatures aren't supposed to go below 50 for the next week, so pumpkin weather is just about here!   Wednesday, May 20 View Page It is time to begin unveiling my secret organic weaponry for the 2009 season. I became convinced last season that fighting insects organically in the pumpkin patch was not only an uphill battle, but an extremely time consuming process. I began to think about floating row cover and the positives and negatives of keeping it over the plants for the entire season. I quickly came to the conclusion that there were way more positives, but of course there were some hurdles to overcome. One is keeping the row cover elevated high enough over the plants so that I can walk underneath it to perform pollination duties, weeding, fertilizing, etc. I developed an idea which you can see the beginnings of in this photo. I am sure there will be many more kinks to work out as I install it and as extreme weather conditions test the strength of it, but for now I am encouraged and excited for a potentially insect-free 2009. Stay tuned for more information!   Saturday, May 23 View Page Checked on the plants last evening and after 48 hours in the ground, everything is looking good. Gave them their first feeding of fish and seaweed solution since they got planted as well. I have my plants under small row cover enclosures until I can find the time to cover the whole patch. Yes, that is my plan - I will be covering an area roughly 43 feet by 70 feet with one big piece of row cover. I am sure to get some weird looks from the neighbors and passers by!   Saturday, May 23 View Page Here's a closeup of one of my enclosures, the one that contains the 1104 Hester. The other one has both the 522 Ceja and the 1125 Checkon in it - they will be growing in opposite directions. One of the things I do when I'm on this website is check out the diaries of other PA growers, it keeps me informed of problems that other growers in this area are dealing with. Some have had corn maggots in their seedlings this spring, something I've never heard of before on pumpkins. There's no question when it comes to giant pumpkin growing, Murphy's Law is lurking around every corner of the patch.   Friday, June 5 View Page Looks pretty neat, doesn't it? It stayed this way for about one hour, then it got windy and I quickly discovered that there wasn't enough supporting the row cover (especially around the edges) and it started getting holes poked in it by my support poles. So, it is back to the drawing board with my elevated row cover design! I had to take it off before it got completely destroyed, so now I think I will make smaller tents like I did last year and try some different strategies for dealing with the insects later in the summer. I can guarantee you that you haven't seen the last of my wacky ideas! I still think this will work with more supporting the row cover, but at this point I have to put off any new pumpkin patch construction until 2010. Hopefully, I will live and learn. Inside the tent was a very neat place to be for the short time that it survived.   Friday, June 5 View Page In the meantime, my plants are looking good and starting to run. It has been a cool and rainy week here so they aren't quite as big as I was hoping they would be by now, by they will no doubt catch up soon. This is the 1104 Hester.   Friday, June 5 View Page Here is the 1125 Checkon. The tattered looking leaf in the foreground is the result of my feeding the plants one day last week late in the morning. It was cloudy when I fed them and before they could dry off the sun was out and I believe they got a bit of sunburn. They have recovered nicely since then.   Friday, June 5 View Page And the 522 Ceja. No sign of any bad insects yet in the patch, either inside or outside the tents. I'm sure they are just lurking in the weeds somewhere, waiting for me to let my guard down. Keep dreaming, bugs - I am ready for you anytime, anywhere!!!   Thursday, June 18 View Page I am past due for an update, so here it is!! The weather has been lousy here for pumpkins lately - this past Sunday I took this picture of a puddle in the pumpkin patch, something that I never thought I'd see in June with our field being such a high and dry location. We have received 5.15 inches of rain so far in June with more falling as I write this. High temps have been in the mid-60s and it has been very cloudy even on the dry days. The plants are holding up amazingly well though, just not growing as much as they would be if the sun would shine once in a while. The 1104 Hester is about to outgrow it's tent, so I should be able to take good photos this weekend. The good news with the weather is that it seems to be curtailing insect populations so far - there have been some cucumber beetles, but not a lot, and so far I've only seen 2 squash bugs. I've also been spraying Neem on some of my other squashes that are not under row cover, not really sure yet how effective that has been. When the summer weather finally gets here, that will be the real test.   Tuesday, June 30 View Page Finally, here are some updated pictures. This is the 1104 Hester - all of my plants are finally reaching the 10 to 11 foot stage with female flowers appearing near the tips, so I'm hoping to have something to pollinate around July 10th.   Tuesday, June 30 View Page Here is the 1125 Checkon. The weather has finally turned a bit warmer and drier although there are possible storms in the forecast all this week. The weeds haven't been minding the weather one bit.   Tuesday, June 30 View Page The 522 Ceja with its wacky side vine trying to keep pace with the main. The cuke beetles are beginning to show up with the sun coming out and temps warming up, so my strategy of spraying Neem and using beneficial nematodes in the soil is about to be tested.   Thursday, July 9 View Page Here is the 1104 Hester last night. All plants looking excellent right now, very few cucumber beetles or squash bugs and no sign of vine borer adults just yet. Neem spray and beneficial nematodes applied to the soil appear to be working beautifully so far!   Thursday, July 9 View Page Here is the first female on the Hester, pollinated the morning of July 4th with the 522 Ceja as the pollinator. This fruit seems to be growing slowly so far, there will be another one on the main to pollinate probably tomorrow. The Hester is the largest and fullest of my plants with complete sets of vigorous side vines.   Thursday, July 9 View Page Here is the 1125 Checkon now, slightly smaller than the other 2 plants although it's hard to tell in this picture. Some of the side vines aren't as long as the ones on the other plants. Still a very nice plant though.   Thursday, July 9 View Page This female on the Checkon surprised me and opened on July 5th when I thought it would wait one more day. I didn't have it covered and it obviously got pollinated by bees, so I'm leaving it for now but I plan on removing it later when hopefully the next one on the main vine is looking good.   Thursday, July 9 View Page The 522 Ceja with some side vines extremely vigorous, some lagging behind.   Thursday, July 9 View Page The first female on the main vine of the Ceja, pollinated July 5th with the Hester as the polliantor. This one is moving along nicely, it is at least as big as the one on the Hester despite being a day younger. All in all, I couldn't be happier with how things look right now considering all the cool rainy weather we had in June and the cool nights we are still getting (it's in the low 50s this morning). If we ever get some real summer weather it could turn out to be a very good year!   Sunday, July 12 View Page 1104 Hester today, July 12th. First sets of side vines are at 12 feet now. Cuke beetle populations very low but still a few around. Will be nematoding again tonight. Is that a word?   Sunday, July 12 View Page Here is 1104 Hester x 522 Ceja at 11 feet out on the main. 8 days old now and not growing especially fast, it has been too cool most nights lately. It is forecast to be 50 tonight so it's entirely possible it will be 48 up in the field. It's mid-July, right????   Sunday, July 12 View Page Here's the second 1104 Hester x 522 Ceja out a couple feet past the first one, at 2 days old. It has better shape than the first, so if all goes well this will be the keeper.   Sunday, July 12 View Page Here's the 1125 Checkon. It's not as big as the other two plants - the main vine is about the same length as the others but the side vines are shorter. It is still filling in its space, though!   Sunday, July 12 View Page The first Checkon fruit, which open pollinated, at 10.5 feet. It is only being kept as a back-up, the shape of it looks like it would be a trouble-maker when it gets big. Too round.   Sunday, July 12 View Page Here's an 1125 Checkon x 522 Ceja a couple feet farther out. This one's shape is a little better, we'll have to see how it develops.   Sunday, July 12 View Page The 522 Ceja. It has the longest set of side vines out of all 3 plants, out to about 13 feet now. You can barely see the tip of it at the right edge of the picture. That one will be terminated soon.   Sunday, July 12 View Page The 522 Ceja x 1104 Hester, 10.5 feet out on the main. It is 7 days old, very nice shape and is at least as big as the first Hester fruit which is one day older. I am thinking about keeping this one, even though it's not as far out as it's supposed to be. We'll see, sometimes Mother Nature decides for you.....   Sunday, July 12 View Page The second fruit out on the 522 Ceja, nothing wrong with this one either except it open-pollinated on me, I walked out to the patch Saturday morning and there it was with 2 bees inside of it. I just completely spaced on this one and forgot all about covering the flower up the night before. Big fat D'OH!!!! :)   Sunday, July 12 View Page The Ceja's side vines are starting to produce some oddities like this node with 2 leaves, there were also a few nodes with double tendrils.....   Sunday, July 12 View Page .....and a node with no leaf.   Tuesday, July 21 View Page The 1104 Hester plant (or at least most of it) yesterday. Looking good, secondary vine termination has begun, and the fruit you can see in this picture has since been removed. I'm probably going with fruit #2 on this plant.   Tuesday, July 21 View Page And here is the probable chosen fruit on the Hester. A nice looking little fruit. It measured 21" around yesterday, on day 10.   Tuesday, July 21 View Page Here is the 1125 Checkon now. All along it has been a slightly smaller plant than the others, with slightly paler and slightly smaller leaves. It has received the same treatment as the others and looks healthy, so I think it's just the plant's genetics. The first fruit on this plant has been removed (it was going to be too tall) and I think the second one will be as well, also for shape reasons.   Tuesday, July 21 View Page Here is Checkon fruit #2 on day 10, at 22.5 inches. Still too tall and not long enough, but not as bad as the first one was. This plant has been giving me the best early growth rates of my three plants, despite not appearing as vigorous as the others.   Tuesday, July 21 View Page Here is Checkon #3, my probable keeper. It will be the latest pollination of my three keepers, July 14th, but it will be the farthest one out on the vine too. It should be an interesting and exciting rest of the summer!   Tuesday, July 21 View Page Here is the 522 Ceja, now with side vines so wide they don't even fit in the picture. Those vines have been terminated and I am keeping fruit #1 on this plant which is at 10.5 feet out on the main vine. Not as far as some would like but it's growing great and looks great, so what the heck?   Tuesday, July 21 View Page Here is my new girlfriend Josie. My wife has been calling my pumpkin plants "the other women", so I figured I should give the fruit a female name! HAHAHAHA!!!! She is a beauty, though! Pollinated on July 5th, it went from 21" on day 10 to 41.5" on day 15. We got almost 1.5 inches of rain on Friday night and it's raining again today with temps. in the upper 60s. The weather continues to be less than ideal so I am very happy with where my plants are right now. If things continue to go well, soon it could get very exciting!   Tuesday, July 21 View Page Here are the two pumpkins I removed this weekend, Hester #1 on the left and Checkon #1 on the right. Not the prettiest of specimens, but I thought they deserved a photo in my diary in appreciation of their sacrifice.   Monday, July 27 View Page So here is a picture of what I saw on the Ceja plant Saturday morning. Major wilting on all the leaves closest to the stump. Upon close examination of the main stem, there was goop oozing out of it in several places, almost certainly bacterial wilt. This is why I go insane every summer at this time. I now believe that it is virtually impossible to eliminate the cucumber beetles here, the carrier of this disease, because the meadow that surrounds the pumpkin patch probably contains its own population of the beetles and they will always re-invade the pumpkin patch from outside. It is refueling my fire to find a way to cover the entire patch in floating row cover again next year.   Monday, July 27 View Page Despite the awful appearance of the plant, Josie grew 3.5 inches in circumference from Saturday to Sunday! Her resilience inspired me to perform surgery on the plant this morning to try to save part of it.   Monday, July 27 View Page My other two plants still look great, here is my chosen fruit on the Hester plant. This pumpkin will be referred to as Thelma from now on, she was 38 inches on day 15.   Monday, July 27 View Page Here is the chosen fruit on the Checkon plant. Over the weekend I removed the other fruit on the plant, which was apparantly stealing all the water and nutrients for itself, because the fruit in this picture was a pathetic 14.5 inches on day 11. It is starting to move though, it is visibly larger today.   Monday, July 27 View Page Here is an oozing part of the Ceja main stem. Not a pretty thing to see at all. I examined the other two main stems thoroughly and found them to be in fine shape. The weather is warmer now (yay!!!!) but has turned very humid with showers, then sun, then a storm, then sun, then another downpour. And that was just yesterday. Boooooooo!!!! Not good for trying to keep diseases away.   Monday, July 27 View Page The main stem was completely rotting inside, there was probably almost no water and nutrients being transported through this mess. It's no wonder the plant was wilting.   Monday, July 27 View Page Here is the Ceja plant pre-surgery this morning. It's amazing how much the plant bounces back to looking relatively normal in the cooler morning air.   Monday, July 27 View Page Here is the point on the main stem where I decided to amputate the rotten portion. It looked very good to me, solid inside and normal looking as far as I could tell. Hopefully the remainder of the plant will recover, but only time will tell. Honestly, I keep flip-flopping between optimism and pessimism.   Monday, July 27 View Page Here is what is left of the plant post-surgery. There are 4 sets of side vines (8 vines) left before the pumpkin. I covered the cut end of the main stem to try to keep it from getting infected by anything while it heals. The sun is blaring down today and the plant is still wilting badly in the mid-day sun, I'm hoping that it just needs to grow some bigger roots and adjust to its new way of life without a stump. There is plenty of moisture in the ground, 3.7 inches in the last 10 days to be exact!   Monday, July 27 View Page Here is the surgical waste from the operation. What a bummer, this plant was showing some excellent potential, but this is how it goes in the world of giant pumpkin growing. As a wise man once said, "It ain't easy to climb to the top of a mountain. It's a hard walk. It's a rocky road. But you better believe I'm gonna walk it. Oh, I will walk - hard." :)   Monday, August 3 View Page I've been wanting to post an update for a few days but the site has been mostly out of commission. There is some good news and bad news - as always! The fruit on the Hester plant has stopped growing and is getting soft, so Thelma is going to turn to mush. I have noticed for about a week that the growing tips on this plant are turning pale and are forming sort of a "rosette" appearance - leaf nodes closer together than normal and the growing tip stunted. It must be a deficiency, but I'm not sure what yet. Levels of everything I've tested for should be high, could be a micronutrient - possibly Boron? As an experiment, I dissolved a little Borax into their fertilizer this morning being very careful not to overdo it. Too much Boron can be toxic just like Magnesium. I think I may have to send some leaves in for analysis this year.   Monday, August 3 View Page Here is a more close-up picture of a vine tip on the Hester. I should also note that this is my only plant that hasn't had the main terminated yet, and all new females on the plant have shriveled up and rotted off. It was the fullest and best looking plant not long ago, my how things can change quickly!   Monday, August 3 View Page There is mostly good news on the Ceja plant. After major stump-removal surgery last Monday, the plant's wilting gradually went away over the next 3 days. It was cloudy with some rain on Wednesday, which helped. I didn't uncover the amputation site to look at it until Thursday, and by then it was oozing again along with another spot where I had cut a leaf off even closer to where the pumpkin is. It wasn't too bad and I didn't want to cut off any more plant, so I just tried to squeeze and scrape out with my finger as much of the mushy stuff as I could. I decided to try placing a paper towel soaked in salt water up against the site to try to draw out more of the bacteria, and then I recovered it for a few days.   Monday, August 3 View Page I know using salt water on a plant wound is certainly unusual, but I wanted to see if it would work on plants like it can on people. I checked the wound again this morning and even after 2.65 inches of pouring rain yesterday it looks wet but good. The forecast looks drier for this coming week, so I guess that means it will rain 12 more inches. If only the forecast could be right this time!!!!!!!   Monday, August 3 View Page This is the Ceja fruit, now at day 28, 78.25 inches in diameter. This plant wants to live and the pumpkin wants to grow! I hope I can keep it going for a while yet, the plant looks like it's getting the same deficiency symptoms as the Hester. It only gained 5 inches over the three days before the torrential downpour on Sunday, so the day 30 measurement tomorrow will be interesting and very telling.   Thursday, August 6 View Page It's time to check in on the Checkon plant and pumpkin. This pumpkin is now on day 23 and it's circumference is 62.5". It has really started accelerating - it gained an amazing 15.5 inches in 3 days! That means that according to the charts, it practically doubled its weight in 3 days. Wow. This is my only plant left that looks completely healthy, so I'm keeping all of my fingers and toes crossed.......   Thursday, August 6 View Page I have to thank mystery e-mailer Tony Vanderpool for diagnosing what is wrong with my Hester and Ceja plants - yellow vine disease. Here's a shot of a diseased Hester vine on the lower left and a healthy Checkon vine above and to the right. It's another bacterial disease, this time spread by squash bugs. I believe some of my regular pumpkins have it as well, and I may have had it in previous years and not realized it. Anyway, at least I have another notch in my belt of knowledge thanks to the helpful people around this great website!   Thursday, August 6 View Page The Ceja pumpkin, a.k.a. Josie, has stopped growing and will be the next yellow vine disease victim. The consolation prize is that my salt-water treatment of the oozing vine seems to have worked, it has dried up nicely and stayed firm. I'm not sure if the rotting vine was caused by the YVD or not - the Hester's vine still looks great with no rot whatsoever. It doesn't really matter, it's just another reason to go forward with my floating row cover plans for next year. As bad as it's been in the pumpkin patch, our summer squash patch will soon be completely empty - 11 plants up and 11 down.   Thursday, August 6 View Page Here's a cool shot of the Checkon fruit in the foreground and the Ceja fruit in the back. It's too bad Josie stopped growing, she'd be pretty impressive by now.   Thursday, August 13 View Page Here's an update on my Checkon fruit - as of tonight, it has a circumference of 91" and an OTT of 224" for an estimated weight of 246 lbs! It's picked up 12.5 inches of circumference and est. 68 lbs. in the last 3 days! It also rained all 3 of those days and 4 out of the last 5. I put some supports in to lift the vine up off the ground near the fruit so there is less stress on it. It's my new personal best and I want to keep it going!   Thursday, August 13 View Page Here's a closeup of the huge stem of the fruit where it attaches to the vine, and you can see there's a gummy substance at the base of where the leaf stem was. It was more gummy than oozy, but I still didn't like the looks of it, so I used my patented salt water technology on it. The Ceja wound that I used that on a few weeks ago still is dry and solid. The leaves are turning yellow and the pumpkin (Josie) has rotted, but the stems look great!   Thursday, August 13 View Page Here is a picture of the Hester plant showing the progression of yellow vine disease. A few side vines continue to try to grow and set fruit, but I don't think they will succeed.   Thursday, August 13 View Page The Hester main vine, still looking as healthy as a horse.   Thursday, August 13 View Page A nice shot of the Checkon fruit (she needs a name........hmmmmmmmm..........I will call her Trixie) surrounded by the still healthy Checkon leaves and some of my regular pumpkins in the background. I especially like the way the sun creates the illusion that all of the plants in the photo are healthy! Unfortunately they are not, but all things considered I am fortunate and happy that the pumpkin patch looks as good as it does.   Thursday, August 13 View Page The Checkon plant has developed a few of these open cracks in a couple of secondaries, most of which don't look like they will be a problem, but I did have to shorten 2 seconary vines that were short and twisty to begin with. They were getting slimy on the ends where they had been previously terminated, so they got cut back some more. I'd much rather lose a few small leaves now than a lot more later.   Thursday, August 13 View Page This is the grandaddy of the splits but it actually looks healed and in decent shape now. I only discovered it a couple of days ago and it didn't look so good then.   Sunday, August 16 View Page Here's an update on Trixie - the stem oozing continues and I discovered another spot on the underside of the stem. I'm still not sure if it's a normal situation caused by too much water in the ground or an infection of some kind, so I will continue to use my salt water technique for one more day before I try to get it to dry out and heal over. There has definitely been a couple of spots on secondary vines (mostly at the cut end where they were terminated) that were getting slightly mushy so I definitely need to play it safe with the fruit stem. Despite the stem issues, my measurements last night put the circ. at 97.5 inches and the OTT at 239.5 for an est. 298 lbs. That's a 52 pound gain in 2 days. Yesssssss!   Sunday, August 16 View Page Just a quick note here about the weather - it is beginning to dry out for the first time in a long time with sunny skies, high temps. in the upper 80s, lows in the mid-60s. Perfect weather really for weight gains and disease control, so I am praying that it continues. With over 5 inches of rain already this month and nearly 19 inches since June 1, I won't even think about watering until we go 7 days without any rain.   Monday, August 17 View Page Here are day 33 measurements for the 1125 Checkon x 522 Ceja fruit: 102.5 inch circ., 78 inches side to side and 73 inches end to end. Yes, Trixie is a tall one. That's a 253.5 OTT for an estimated weight of 351 lbs. Still averaging 26 lbs. per day right now. Awesome.   Monday, August 17 View Page Here's a shot of the whole plant from the side. I finally chopped away at some of the yellowing Hester plant today to give me more room around the pumpkin. Air circulation around the plant isn't so great and I starting seeing mildew a few days ago, so I sprayed with Soap Shield tonight.   Monday, August 17 View Page The stem of the pumpkin still doesn't look so great, so I am taking a bit of advice from my wife and trying a baking soda paste on it. The stem is also covered now to keep it as dry as possible. If the forecast for tomorrow is correct it'll be five days in a row without rain, so now is the time to get this sucker healed or it could still be curtains for Trixie. The plant also lost another section of a side vine today containing about seven leaves. One single leaf was suddenly wilting badly today and when I uncovered the vine below it, the mush had set in already so I lopped off the bad part. The rest of this season is all about keeping as many vines and roots healthy for as long as you possibly can. All the while the forces of nature are lining up against the plant to complete the cycle of life. The Longwood Gardens weigh off isn't until October 17th this year, 60 days from now. I've got my work cut out for me...............   Monday, August 17 View Page The stump got a trim and a covering today too, I took off old tattered leaves and a few stubbly secondaries trying to sprout out of it. It still looks great, although I'm kind of surprised at how small it still is. I've seen some stump pictures that looked like tree trunks! I don't care as long as it does its job!   Thursday, August 20 View Page Checkon fruit update - first of all, I need to correct myself as to the age of the fruit. Somewhere along the line I missed counting a day so these are actually day 36 measurements, and the last update should have said day 34. Anyway, now we have 107.75" circ., 81" side to side and 75.5" end to end, for an OTT of 264.25". It seems to be filling out more now, getting wider but not much taller. Estimated weight 395 lbs., so it has slowed a little to 22 lbs. per day at least partially because the soil is drying out. We got a little rain last night and more in the forecast today and tomorrow.   Thursday, August 20 View Page Side view. The shoulders of the fruit are pushing on two of the bamboo poles supporting the shade covering, which is stretching the covering and causing all of the poles to lean forward. I had my back turned on the fruit last night and I swear something pushed me when I wasn't looking. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....................   Thursday, August 20 View Page The view from the other side. The stem is still looking better but not dry yet. I will do a little more leaf trimming around the stem today to improve air circulation and remove the covering during daylight hours, which should help quite a bit.   Saturday, August 22 View Page I don't have a picture for today's update, it's raining here and supposed to continue most of the day. Day 38 measurements for Trixie - 112.5" circ., 84" side to side, 78.5" end to end. OTT is now 275" for an est. weight of 444 lbs. Still putting on over 20 lbs. a day, stem still not looking so great so I may have to break down and put a fan on it after the rain is over. I'm now putting dry baking soda all over it to try to keep infections out and maybe soak up some of the moisture leaking out of it. It now looks like it snowed around the stem. :)   Wednesday, August 26 View Page Day 43 measurements for the Checkon fruit - 117.75" circ., 88" side to side and 82" end to end. OTT is 287.75" for an estimated weight of 505 lbs. I have unoffically made it to the 500 club!!!!!!!! It's growth has slowed considerably the last few days, and when I look back at my records I see than we've received only .55 inches of rain in the last 12 days. I still haven't watered the plant lately, my efforts have been concentrated on the stem and drying it up before rot travels into the pumpkin. So far it's going OK, I have had a fan blowing on it for 2 days now and plenty of baking soda all over it which seems to be working but it is far from being out of the woods just yet. In retrospect, I should have had the fan on it a week earlier. Some rot has traveled down into the vine which is certainly hampering weight gains even more. At this point, I will be very happy if the pumpkin stays solid for the rest of the season even if it stops growing right now.   Wednesday, August 26 View Page A nice shot of the blossom end. The ribbing is beginning to deepen and there are some small skin checks developing between the blossom and the ground, which I believe is an indication of slowing growth and maturation of the fruit. I can't perceive any color change yet but that should be coming soon as well. I think I will water the plant tomorrow and then possibly cover the whole thing with row cover for the stretch run. Temperatures are supposed to start dipping into the 50s soon at night and if the pumpkin wants to keep growing, keeping it warmer under row cover will help.   Saturday, September 5 View Page Finally, a final update on Trixie. She stopped growing about a week ago as the stem rot won the battle and it cleverly used gravity to seep down into the vine of the plant, which became total mush rather quickly after the final huge rainstorm of August put us over 9 inches for the month. If only Sir Isaac Newton hadn't discovered gravity, this never would have happened. The final measurements put Trixie at 505 lbs. estimated.   Saturday, September 5 View Page She has been slowly developing some color despite being cut off of the plant now for almost a week, and despite the rot that has set in around the stem. There should be some mature seeds in there, so sometime in the next week she will get the axe so I can save them for next year. I'll defintely be growing one, I really ended up liking the shape and growth rate on this one. I have to remind myself how slow it started out - it was only 14" around on day 11, and made it to over 115" on day 40.   Saturday, September 5 View Page A gross picture of the oodles of ooze still bubbling up out of the plant. I hope the cuke beetles and squash bugs had their fun this year, because in 2010 happy fun time is over!