Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 66 Entries. Sunday, February 10 View Page I'm starting the 2008 season with a new tea brewer. I use a 35 gal. food grade plastic barrel. Sunday, February 10 View Page After reading Thad Starr's post I decided to use the 25' soaker hose as an air diffuser. Sunday, February 10 View Page A trip to Home Depot for some fittings and it was an easy transition from 3/8 tubing to soaker hose. Sunday, February 10 View Page Pictured is my new air pump next to last years fish pump. I have a Hailea HAP100. I found it on eBay. 80 watts and 100L/M Sunday, February 10 View Page Not sure if this picture shows it, but this setup really gets things moving. Having enough oxygen will not be a problem this year. Sunday, February 10 View Page I'm going to try 5 gal. paint strainer as a compost bag. Sunday, February 10 View Page Compost in the bag and ready to be suspended in the brewer. Sunday, February 10 View Page And that's it. The temperature is cold and I do not have a heater soooooooooo........... I'm not expecting much with this batch. I do not claim to be an expert at making compost tea. Just thought I would share my method. Sunday, February 10 View Page One more thing. For me the easiest way to get the tea from barrel to plant is with a garden hose hooked up to a submersible pump. Again, I'm just sharing what I do. There are probable better ways but this is mine. Monday, February 11 View Page 16 hours later. I'm surprised to see the tea foaming over the top of my brewer. No heat source and our over night lows were in the upper 30's. I'll let it brew another 12 hours. Monday, February 11 View Page Me at the end of my compost tea delivery system. A sump. pump placed inside the barrel and hooked up to a simple garden hose. I'm spraying my nitrogen fixing cover crop. Two minutes later I can start the clean-up. Tuesday, February 12 View Page I had three big eucalyptus trees blocking some of my morning sun so they had to go. The man-lift I rented was worth every penny. Tuesday, February 12 View Page Here Vineman, aka The Lumber-Jack, gets one of the trees ready to fall. I sure hope he knows what he is doing. Tuesday, February 12 View Page Success. The house and fence survived the day. Tuesday, February 12 View Page After the trees were down I went back up in the man-lift and took a few pictures of my yard. You can see my cover crop growing in the center of the picture. I also grow plants to the right and left of the picture. To give you a sense of size the white picket fence at the top right is 50' X 40'. Monday, February 18 View Page I double-dug this 600sf area in December before the heavy rains started. Gave it a compost tea drench today. With the Eucalyptus trees gone, this is my favorite spot. It just screams new personal best...........at least the chickens and rabbit will be amused. Saturday, February 23 View Page I made a modification to my brewer today. I needed a better way to keep the soaker hose from floating to the top of the barrel once the air was turned on. I added to the pvc pipe used to hang the bag of compost. This idea came from Stan Pugh. Thanks Stan!! Saturday, February 23 View Page The old way was 2 bricks......not so good for many reasons. Saturday, February 23 View Page The new way is much better. None of the fittings are glued to make cleaning easy. Tuesday, February 26 View Page Here are the results from my soil test. Finally my Ca levels have come up. Maybe this will be the year of fewer splits. The gypsum has also raised the sulfur levels way up. I hope this is not a problem. Sunday, April 20 View Page I'm ready!!! Sunday, April 20 View Page My 2008 line-up. 1041.5 McKie, 991 Urena, 1144 Hester, 1180 Daletas, 639 Pugh, 1446 Eaton, 805 Pukos, and my own 703 Pingrey(1180 X 1068) Tuesday, May 13 View Page All the plants are in their hoop houses and doing well. The 1041 McKie did not germinate and was replaced with a 985 Werner which was set out on 5/8. I started my first batch of ACT today. Pictured is the 703 Pingrey (1180 X 1068) Tuesday, May 13 View Page Temps are to be close to 100 for the next few days so I put up some tarps to shade the plants. The misting system is set to go on for 5 sec. every 2 min. from 10:30AM-5:00PM. The ends of the hoop houses will be wide open. I hope my young plants will be OK!!!!!!! Wednesday, May 14 View Page Day 1 of our heat wave. The shade and misting has worked great. Pictured is the 639 Pugh at 4:45PM and the temperature is 93• Thursday, May 15 View Page Sweet Niblets it's HOT!!! This picture of the 1144 Hester was taken at 5:30PM and the temperature is 101 degrees. I'm happy with the shade and misting combo. All the plants appear to be unaffected by the heat. Friday, May 16 View Page I'm taking down the shade tarps tonight as our heatwave is just about over and I don't want my plants to become wimpy. I must say the old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" come to mind. My plants came out of what could have been a season ending week unscathed. Pictured is the 805 Pukos. Monday, May 26 View Page Two of my eight plants have mains on the ground (703 Pingrey & 639 Pugh). I'm hoping to have most of them down by the end of the week. The 985 Werner was started late and is a little behind. Pictured is the 991 Urena (1420.5 Larue X 1446 Eaton) Thursday, May 29 View Page 1446 Eaton went flat than double vine on me. If I had the room I'd consider doing a Y pattern and grow 2 fruit on a big plant. I'll let it grow for awhile before a vine is terminated. Thursday, May 29 View Page Tea after 24 hours. I like the new brewer!!! Thursday, June 5 View Page 639 Pugh is about to exit it's hoop house and has the first female of the season. I think this is the earliest I've had a female and is just over 5' out. Saturday, June 14 View Page Sun setting on the 991 Urena with the main vine at 13 feet and looking good. Last weeks weather in the 90's has the plants growing fast. Sunday, June 15 View Page For those of us short on "pumpkin funds" but find ourselves wanting to play like a Heavy Hitter, I found a solution. I read about this on BP.con during the Winter and thought I'd give it a try. I bought a Mosquito 86 Universal Kit at Northern Tool for $70+ shipping. Sunday, June 15 View Page It is really made for a hand held blower but I already owned an Echo backpack blower. Mounting the tank on top of my blower was easy using the straps that came with it. Then it was just a matter of connecting the pipe assembly with the right adapter. The poor man's (or lady's) mist blower. I sprayed some kelp and calcium and the plants and thought it worked pretty good. Monday, June 16 View Page Tea after 36 hours. I've been using less molasses and more fish emulsion in my receipt.25 gal. water, 8 cups compost, 4 cups worm castings, 1/4 cup molasses, 1 3/4 cups fish emulsion, 6 tbs of Maxicrop kelp powder, and a splash of liquid humic acid to help condition my city water. Water is aerated for 1 hour before adding ingredients. I add some biomin calcium and more kelp powder at the end of the brew cycle. Sunday, June 29 View Page Side view of the 991 Urena. Best looking plant I have had in 4 years of growing. I have 3 fruit set between 14'-16'. Today I culled a June 21st pollination at 11'. It should be fun watching what this plant can do. 991 Urena (1420.5 Larue X 1446 Eaton). Sunday, June 29 View Page This is my 805 Pukos. It has a pumpkin set at 12' and another one set to open tomorrow at 14'. I crossed it with the 991 Urena. Sunday, June 29 View Page I tried to get a picture of the rest of my patch, but it was late in the day and the 1446 Eaton is in the shadows ( back right). The plants are filling in nicely. I have at least one pumpkin set on all but the 1144 Hester and 985 Werner. I have pollinated 7 pumpkins in the last 3 days. Each day after work I spend 3 to 4 hours in the patch. No work today so I spent the better part of 10 hours burring vines, adjusting misters, applying tea, watering, ect.. I don't know how people find the time to grow more the 8 plants. Sunday, June 29 View Page This is my attempt at growing a giant pear gourd. http://bigpumpkins.com/displayphoto.asp?pid=5193&gid=-19876 I have no idea what I'm doing but when I saw the picture of them I had to give it a try. Thanks for the seeds Leonardo. Tuesday, August 5 View Page 703 Pingrey (1180 Daletas X 1068 Wallace)at day 35. Ott = 275" or just about 450 pounds Tuesday, August 5 View Page 991 Urena (1420 Larue X 1446 Eaton) at dat 38. 121cir - 74ss - 79fb ott = 274 or 439 pounds Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1144 Hester (846 Calai X 1260 Weir) at day 31. 107cir - 62ss - 69fb ott = 238 or just shy of 300 pounds. Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1144 Hester should be day 32. Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1189 Daletas at day 29. 90cir - 67ss - 63fb ott = 220" or 234 pounds Tuesday, August 5 View Page 805 Pukos at day 30. 94cir - 58ss - 64fb ott = 216 222 pounds Tuesday, August 5 View Page 1180 Daletas not 1189 Tuesday, August 5 View Page 639 Pugh (500 Wallace X 1068 Wallace) at day 37. 110cir - 64ss - 70fb ott = 244 or 314 pounds Wednesday, August 20 View Page 991 urena with an ott of 337 or just over 800 pounds Saturday, August 23 View Page I lost my 805 Pukos on thursday ot a rib split. 123-82-84=289ott 512 Pingrey est. DMG (805 Pukos X 991 Urena) Sunday, August 24 View Page Cut open the 805 and harvested seeds. Sunday, August 24 View Page I took the time to make a few seed drying baskets like I saw in the Larue's growers diary from last year. Now I need to make a Larue rack. Or is it a Jack Rack? http://bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=77084 Friday, August 29 View Page 991 Urena. 166-94-96=356 ott. or 946 lbs Sunday, September 14 View Page I made a lifting tripod today. With this thing I can easily load a 1k pumpkin all by my self. Sunday, September 14 View Page This is one of my giant pear gourds. It's two feet long and very heavy. I have 3 nice ones on this plant. Maybe over the Winter I'll build a taller trellis and try long gourds next year. Wednesday, September 24 View Page 991 Urena continues to grow. Over the past 8 days it has put on 6 inches. Today it is 89 days old. I'm hopping it grows a few more inches before the weigh-off on Oct. 4th. Wednesday, September 24 View Page Double digging the area where the 805 Pukos was growing. It's a lot of work, but this is how the patch with the 991 Urena was prepared. Once the digging is finished I will add compost and gypsum, give it a lite tilling and plant a cover crop. Friday, October 3 View Page It took a couple of tries to get the 991 in my truck. On the first attempt my tripod legs sunk as we tried to lift the pumpkin. We used some plywood under the legs and some t-steaks to keep them from slipping. Friday, October 3 View Page Once loaded it looks very impressive. This is what it's all about. Friday, October 3 View Page One last shot. Final ott is 381" or an estimated 1157lbs. What ever the final weight is will be a new pb. Sunday, October 5 View Page Wow!!!! What a great weigh-off. I came in 5th place at Elk Grove. 2nd place pumpkin was also grown off a 991 Urena. Thank you Vineman for pushing me all the way to the end. 1214.5 Pingrey 2008. Saturday, October 11 View Page Laoded the fruit off the 1144 Hester yesterday for Uesugi Farms weigh-off. It tapes at 353in. ott. Saturday, October 11 View Page I will need some luck to reach 1k on this one. Needs to go about 8% heavy. Nice looking fruit though. Sunday, November 23 View Page Season summary. Fourth year of growing Atlantic Giants has been my best by far. Going into the season it felt like my patch was in the best condition ever with my soil balanced and healthy. The previous Fall we decided to switch from a compost with manure in it to an all "green compost" made from yard waste and no manure. This year I'm doing the same and have double dug another planting area. I have also added 50# of gypsum per planting area and will add another 50# in the Spring. Sunday, November 23 View Page This year I grew 4 pumpkins bigger than my previous personal best of 736lbs, the biggest being my 1214.5 grown from the 991 Urena. I plan on growing the 991 again next year and encourage anyone lucky enough to have this seed to do the same. I think it has just as much potential as the 998 Pukos. Sunday, November 23 View Page For the first time this year I sold some of my pumpkins. The money will go back into grow AGs. I'm still somewhat sorry I don't have the seeds from the pumpkins sold, but the truth is there are so many great seeds available I doubt they ever would have been grown. Sunday, November 23 View Page My growers tip....Keep on pushing your fruit to the end. Come September don't be satisfied with your 1k pumpkin and cruse through the month. Whether it's compost tea or whatever you use keep it going. With the encouragement of a friend (you know who you are) I probably got an additional 150# out of my biggest fruit.