Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 81 Entries. Friday, April 4 View Page After taking a year off to recover from knee surgery, I am going to give growing a giant pumpkin another shot this year. I have not done anything for my soil in a long time so I sent it to UMass for a soil test. Here are my results. Saturday, April 12 View Page I have been saving coffee grounds from work for a couple of years now so I figured it was time to use them. This is a picture of my oldest son helping me spread about 150 pounds of coffee grounds on the patch. Saturday, April 12 View Page I don't know much about how to read a soil test or figure how to select soil ammendments so I called on a couple of growers who do. Thanks to Ron Wallace and Joe Jutras for the help! Here is a picture of some of the stuff I added to my patch besides the coffee grounds. Saturday, April 12 View Page After spreading all the soil ammendments my son helped with the tilling. Saturday, April 12 View Page My youngest son helped out with the tilling too! Saturday, April 12 View Page Finally we had the whole patch tilled and ready for planting. In case you didn't recognize it, that is a genuine Dick Wallace hand-crafted birdhouse in the corner of the patch. I hope it brings me good luck this year! Friday, April 25 View Page This year I will be putting out my seedlings into these beautiful new green houses. Thanks to Joe Jutras, Ron Wallace and Steve Sperry. Friday, April 25 View Page Today we put down an application of Humic Acid from Neptunes Harvest. Friday, April 25 View Page I am going with two world record seeds this year. The 1502 Wallace and the 1689 Jutras. Both seeds were lightly filed and left to soak in water overnight. Saturday, April 26 View Page To sprout the seeds I used a small cooler and hot water bottles for warmth. The seeds were placed into damp paper towels and a ziploc bag. The bag was placed into the cooler after filling the water bottles with hot tap water. Sunday, May 4 View Page Both the 1502 Wallace and the 1689 Jutras germinated within 36 hours sprouting roots on 4/28. For backup plants I also germinated an 1173 Macari '04 and a 1385.5 Jutras '07. This is picture of the 1689 Jutras seedling back inside after spending the day out in the sun. Sunday, May 4 View Page This is picture of the 1502 Wallace seedling. One of the seed leaves has dead spot on it causing the leaf to fold up. I don't think this will be a problem as long as the first true leaf looks good. Wednesday, May 7 View Page Here are my seedlings just before planting them in the patch. The 1502 Wallace on the left and the 1689 Jutras on the right. Wednesday, May 7 View Page My plants are now outside in their greenhouses. Sunday, May 11 View Page 1502 Wallace in the greenhouse. Sunday, May 11 View Page 1689 Jutras in the greenhouse. Saturday, May 17 View Page 1502 Wallace plant showing some leaf crinkle on the second true leaf (maybe from transplant shock). The third leaf looks good, so I am not worried. Saturday, May 17 View Page 1689 Jutras plant growing nicely. No sign of leaf crinkle on this plant. Thursday, May 22 View Page 1502 Wallace plant. Newer leaves looking good. Thanks to my wife for opening the greenhouses for me every day! Thursday, May 22 View Page 1689 Jutras plant still slightly ahead of the 1502 Wallace plant. Friday, May 30 View Page 1502 Wallace with some leaf burn. It has been hot and this plant seems more sensitive to the sun than the 1689 Jutras plant. The main is starting to drop down. Friday, May 30 View Page 1689 Jutras plant with the main vine starting to run. Won't be too long and they will have to come out of the greenhouses. Sunday, June 15 View Page 1502 Wallace plant (in the foreground). My plants have been out of the greenhouses for awhile now and the windbreaks are up. I have already removed one early female from each main vine. Sunday, June 15 View Page My 1689 Jutras plant is still slightly ahead of the 1502 Wallace. Very busy with pruning and burying vines. Sunday, June 22 View Page 1502 Wallace plant. Getting ready to terminate the first couple of side vines. Sunday, June 22 View Page 1689 Jutras plant. I will start terminating some side vines on this plant this week too. Sunday, June 22 View Page Second female on the 1689 Jutras to open tomorrow. This one is 14 feet out. I will pollinate it but I will probably go with the next one down the line if it looks good. Sunday, June 29 View Page I pollinated this female on my 1502 Wallace plant on June 27th. Sunday, June 29 View Page I crossed this 6 lobe female on the 1689 Jutras with the 1502 Wallace on June 27th. Sunday, June 29 View Page This is my first pumpkin set on the 1689 Jutras plant. Here it is 6 days old and starting to show ribs! I wish it would stop raining though. My garden is very wet. Sunday, June 29 View Page Here is picture of my plants in late June. Seems to be raining everyday. 1689 Jutras in the front and the 1502 Wallace in the back. Thursday, July 3 View Page Pumpkin on the 1689 Jutras at 10 days old. Thursday, July 3 View Page Pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace at 6 days old. Monday, July 7 View Page Here is a picture of the root growth between the vines. This is not from under a board, just between the vines! I am leaving in all the side vines between the base of the plant and the pumpkin so the leaves shade all of the ground between the vines. I think the Symbios mycorrhiza is working! Tuesday, July 8 View Page It has been really hot after a period of heavy rain. I came home from work today and noticed the middle of my 1689 Jutras plant was losing a lot more of the older leaves than normal. Upon close inspection of the stump.... Tuesday, July 8 View Page I found ROT! The rain must have found a place on the top of the main vine to pool up and rot had set in without me knowing it. I pushed on the stump with my finger and it went straight in. The picture shows the stump after I pulled on the rotted section and it came right off. I could see the rotten goop filling the entire stump. Looks like my shot at a 1000 pounder will have to be with the 1502 Wallace plant. Tuesday, July 8 View Page The worst part of this is the pumpkin on the 1689 is doing so well. Here it is at 15 days old. Tuesday, July 8 View Page Here is picture of the plant. You can see the dying leaves in the center. To stop the spreading of the rot I cut out the stump on the 1689 Jutras. The rot had gone right through to the bottom of the stump. Tuesday, July 8 View Page Here is picture of the pumpkin on my 1502 Wallace plant at 11 days old. Thursday, July 10 View Page Unbelievable! The stump on my 1502 Wallace plant suffers the same fate as the 1689. The base of the stump was OK but rot set into the main vine just a little way down. Since I only have two plants I decided I had to try surgery instead of removal. Now my season looks to be pretty much over. Thursday, July 10 View Page I cut out as much of the rotted vine as I could. Then I used a syringe to get all the liquid rot out of the stump. Finally I loaded the vine with a captan based fungicide. Thursday, July 10 View Page I also put a fan on it to dry it out. After this I had to walk away for awhile. Thursday, July 10 View Page Again the worst part is that the pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace was doing well just like the 1689. In this picture the pumpkin on the 1502 is 13 days old. Monday, July 14 View Page Stump or no stump this pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace is looking good at 17 days old. The circ is 69 and the total inches OTT are 165 or 105 pounds. Monday, July 14 View Page Don't count out the 1689 Jutras with the stump completely removed either! This pumpkin is 21 days old with a circ of 78 inches, total OTT of 187 or 149 pounds. Monday, July 21 View Page They are still going. This pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace is 24 days old with the circ of 99 inches, total OTT 223 or 243 pounds. Monday, July 21 View Page This pumpkin is on the 1689 Jutras and is 28 days old. The circ is 101 inches and total OTT 244 or 314 pounds. Monday, July 21 View Page This is the blossom end of the pumpkin on the 1689 Jutras. The blossom fell off a little early. I will put some Captan on it and try and keep it dry. The whole blossom end looks like it is going to be concave. Monday, July 28 View Page This pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace is 31 days old with a circ of 116 inches, total OTT 258 or 369 pounds. This pumpkin continues to grow between 15 and 20 pounds per day without a stump. Monday, July 28 View Page This pumpkin on the 1689 Jutras is 35 days old with the circ of 119 inches, total OTT 283 or 482 pounds. The blossom end looks like it is going to blow out at some point. Way to concave for my liking. We continue to get too much rain. Monday, August 4 View Page This pumpkin on my 1502 Wallace plant is 38 days old. It has a circumference of 128.5 inches and a total OTT of 282.5 inches (estimated weight: 479 lbs). Monday, August 4 View Page This pumpkin on my 1689 Jutras plant is 42 days old. It has a circumference of 129 inches and a total OTT of 307 inches (estimated weight: 611 lbs). Monday, August 4 View Page Here are some of my giant sunflowers. The tall section of fence on the right is six feet. Monday, August 11 View Page My pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace is now 45 days old. It has a circumference of 135 inches and a total OTT of 296.5 inches (estimated weight: 552 lbs). Monday, August 11 View Page My pumpkin on the 1689 Jutras plant is 49 days old. It has a circumference of 138 inches and a total OTT of 324.5 inches (estimated weight: 719 lbs). Wednesday, August 20 View Page The nights have been in the forties and grow has slowed way down. I am using blankets on the pumpkins at night. This pumpkin on my 1689 Jutras plant continues to slowly grow. In this picuture the OTT is 334 inches (estimated weight: 783 lbs). The weather is supposed to warm up so maybe the growth will come back some. Tuesday, August 26 View Page This is my pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace on day 60. Circ = 144.5 Total OTT = 315 estimated weight of 659 pounds. This pumpkin continues to grow but very slowly. Monday, September 8 View Page This is day 73 for my pumpkin on the 1502 Wallace plant. It measures 147.5 in circ. and 322 OTT for an estimated weight of 703. Monday, September 8 View Page I went to measure this pumpkin on my 1689 Jutras plant today which is day 77 and found a hole in the blossom end that goes into the cavity. I plugged the hole with a fungicide paste until I can figure out where to get it weighed. Quite a disappointment as this pumpkin is estimated over 830 pounds and my personal best is 840. Saturday, September 13 View Page I found a farm that will weigh my pumpkin for me so my wife and I began clearing out the plant to make room for the lifting tripod and truck. This is the pumpkin on the 1689 Jutras. Saturday, September 13 View Page Here is a side view of the pumpkin on the 1689 Jutras. The ribs are very thick. Mice had begun to chew on the sides near the bottom of the pumpkin. Sunday, September 14 View Page Here we are laying out the tripod in the patch. I used the tripod design found on http://www.team-pumpkin.org. Sunday, September 14 View Page Now we are pushing the tripod into the upright position. Thanks to my Dad, Ron and Mark for the help! Sunday, September 14 View Page Next I attached a chain to the top of the tripod. Sunday, September 14 View Page Once the chain was up we hung the hoist and lifting ring. Then we put all the straps around the bottom of the pumpkin. Sunday, September 14 View Page Up went the pumpkin. Much easier to lift than anything I have used in the past! The bottom of the pumpkin was nice and flat with no holes. Sunday, September 14 View Page Bring in the truck! Thanks to my brother for helping out too. Sunday, September 14 View Page Off to the Harkens Market in East Windsor to get it weighed. This forklift driver did a great job, a real pro. Moving a big pumpkin around always draws a few on-lookers. Sunday, September 14 View Page Amazing! My pumpkin from the 1689 Jutras weighed in at 934 pounds! That is 10% over the estimated weight of 843. Sunday, September 14 View Page Me and my sons with the 934. Sunday, September 14 View Page A close up of the hole that brought my 934 down. The blossom end just rotted and opened up. Never really split. Sunday, September 14 View Page The 934 had a pretty good sized stem on it too. Friday, September 19 View Page I brought the 934 to my youngest son's school and showed it to his class. Sunday, September 21 View Page Time to open up the 934 and try and get some seeds out of it. Sunday, September 21 View Page The rot had really spread all through out the inside of the pumpkin at this point. There were very few mature seeds anyway. Most of the seed casings were hollow and soft. Sunday, September 21 View Page The kids were really into looking for seeds. They didn't seem to mind the wonderful smell of rotting pumpkin! It was like a treasure hunt for them. Sunday, September 21 View Page This is all the seeds I got out of the 934. As you can see most of them don't look very good. Sunday, October 12 View Page I brought my other pumpkin, grown on the 1502 Wallace, to the Topsfield Fair GPC weigh-off. It weighed in at 852 pounds. Both of my pumpkins this year beat my prior personal best of 840. Wednesday, October 29 View Page I decided to carve my 852 for Halloween. I got a much better seed count out of this pumpkin. Friday, October 31 View Page My oldest son and I with the carved 852. It was a big hit on Halloween! Friday, October 31 View Page It looks better lit up in the dark!