Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 10 Entries. Monday, January 1 View Page Happy new year. Got a late start on the soil prep, but I managed to get everything amended and tamped down and groomed in winter rye hours before the rain. No flooding this year and the winter rye is just germinating now   Saturday, January 20 View Page A new innovative method of seed soaking? Lol   Saturday, February 3 View Page New Seed Sauna™, replacing the Seed Hot Tub™. Got a broken mini fridge for $5, drained refrigerant and routed my cables, 200 watt AC ptc heater and an AC circulation fan. The 200 watt heater heats it up really fast, but it has a small heat sink and isn't so powerful as to strong arm the temperature above the set point. First heating cycle it goes over by 4f, then it settles in on the set temperature very steadily. Seems to hold heat pretty well, the heater only turns on for 10-20 seconds every 10 minutes or so.   Sunday, February 25 View Page Winter rye is coming in a bit patchy, some areas are a bit yellow/red. I hope its not one of those nasty soil diseases. It was the same way last winter though, and the pumpkins seemed to be growing fine. There are just some areas that are completely water logged that go a bit anaerobic over the winter. Let me know in the comments what you guys think.   Monday, March 25 View Page Cover crop did alright, still a bit patchy but it filled in   Monday, March 25 View Page Got it tilled today, pretty happy with how the soil's looking, its not water logged like last year. I'll get a soil test out next week   Sunday, April 14 View Page Seeds started April 13 for main patch   Saturday, June 1 View Page Another late start, but I'm ahead of last year and have more plants in the ground, should be fun. I have 5 spots filled this year. This is the 150sf competition site, 2023 Andrusz. Hoping it'll be a nice orange color like its parents   Friday, June 14 View Page And then there was one... Not including the other plants chilling in the background and the backup that I cut back but didn't pull yet. 150sf entry 2023 Andrusz, about 8 feet long. Been busy, let the plants and the weeds get a bit too big, but I did a lot of cleaning today and am down to my final keepers for all sites except the 694*, which has 3 plants playing nicely with decent spacing between them. All 3 are strong, so I'll let them grow a bit longer til I see the first females and get an idea of how green they are.   Monday, July 1 View Page Well the plants aren't looking so hot, looks like they're coming down with disease, and I haven't sprayed any fungicide yet this year. I've been working overtime building a solar race car for a club/research project at school, the competition is on the 12th. Probably gonna be putting in 100 hours this week to get it done in time for competition, so I don't plan for the pumpkins to do spectacularly this year. Oh well