Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 26 Entries. Sunday, April 13 View Page This will be my first year growing pumpkins. So this is my first attempt at a hoop house. Sunday, April 13 View Page This ia a picture of the four that i made. Sunday, April 13 View Page This is just another angle. I think i made them a little too big. The base is 4ft x 4ft, and i used 10ft pvc to tie them in. The hoop houses are all made from 1/2 pvc. Seem to be pretty sturdy, but i wish i had used thicker sheating. I'll know for next year! Wednesday, April 16 View Page first attempt at starting seeds. i filed them, soaked them, then planted directly into 4" peat pots with starter mix. added a pinch of mychor to the mix. Friday, April 18 View Page checked seeds today. hate to say, as a newbie, i was a little curious if they were doing anything. to my surprise, after only 2 days, they all germinated. i did a little digging to check them. might be a newbie mistake, but i'll learn from my mistakes! Sunday, April 20 View Page after 4 days (not quite-technically), all plants have broken the surface. looking pretty good. i might have started them to early, but they'll be in the hoop houses next week. i was anxious to start them! hope it wasn't a mistake. Sunday, May 11 View Page Haven't posted in my diary for awhile.Plants seem to be doing good. Had a minor problem, as you will see in the other photos. Other than that, healthy. Sunday, May 11 View Page Plant still looks good. Had slugs on 3 of them the other day. Picked them off and sprayed Sevin on them. I think my solution was too strong. Notice the yellowing cot leaves. They turned yellow 2 days after spraying. I made a post in pest, disease and other for any advice. Hopefully the 3 can recover, the rset of the leaves look good. Sunday, May 11 View Page These are back ups i planted less than a week ago. If my main plants survive, these will go to a friend down the road. Don't want to waste them! Sunday, May 11 View Page This is also a back up that i planted when i started my originals. Its in a 5 gallon pot now. This one will also go to the friend. But my pollen plant is going real slow, don't know if it will make it. Will use pollen from this one for my main plants. Its an 810 Kuhn, great genetics! Friday, May 16 View Page All plants seem to be doing good. This is the 742 Wolf(05). Looks to be the strongest grower, compared to the other plants in my patch. Friday, May 16 View Page This is the 811 Gerchy. Also doing good. Had a few issues with it, but it seems to be bouncing back. Sunday, May 25 View Page Planted all my sunflowers yesterday. Took a couple of hours to do. They all look great and they average in size like these. I put in 46 of them, all of them will be groomed for size (height and head size). I had to cover them last night, temps got down to 38'f. They were all good this morning!! Thursday, May 29 View Page This is a picture of my 742 Wolf (05). Its the strongest plant i have. The other ones are trying to catch up after some problems. Thursday, May 29 View Page This is just another pic of the 742 Wolf (05). I put supports under it, it is starting to lay down, at least its leaning, i'm assuming its gonna lay down. i don't want to chance it falling over to quickly. Wednesday, August 13 View Page i haven't updated in a couple of months. so i'll try to get my diary up to date, i've been working alot and trying to renovate my house. there's never enough time to get it all done. this is the only plant that i have left, lost all my other ones to mistakes that i have made, my first year. this is a 742 Wolf (05) (1005 Mombert x 1097 Beachy). Wednesday, August 13 View Page this is another angle of it, very hard to tape it, because of the shape. good orange color, i would say its due to over fertilizing it. but its still putting on weight, slowly!!! it tapes out to 178 ott (est wgt-130#). i'm still happy with it. i've cut back on the ferts. Wednesday, August 13 View Page pic of the blossom end. notice how concave it is. it has a few splits in it, but they healed up. they were just on the surface. i've also been battling with downy mildew. wiped out alot of the leaves until i got it under control. was using immunox religiously, didn't seem to prevent it. now i'm using ortho garden disease (clorolanil), it appears to have slowed it down dramatically, i also alternate with the immunox. but all the damage has been done. plant is only 250 sq ft. definately a learning experience for next season!!!! Wednesday, August 13 View Page top view of the pumpkin. the 742 Wolf is crossed with the 916 Wolf (07)(329 Wolf x 1217 Bailey). neither seed has been grown before according to andy wolf. a friend is growing the 916 down the road from me, i haven't been there to see it lately. even though the pumpkin is "small", it has some good genetics. hopefully, i have learned from my mistakes and the knowledge from fellow growers. Saturday, August 30 View Page updated pic of the 742 Wolf(05). good orange color. still gaining a little weight. i'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. Saturday, August 30 View Page here's a blossom end shot of it. notice how sunken the blossom is (at least 6 in.). it's hard to measure it because of it's shape, but it tapes to 153#. hopefully i can gain a little more!! Saturday, August 30 View Page here's a side shot to show the shape of it. real nice orange color. Thursday, October 2 View Page final measurement on my 742 wolf. circ=81.125 ee= 59.00 ss=58.00 ott total= 198.125 est. weight=174 actual weight was 164# ( 6% light ) not bad for all the mistakes i made and first year. cross was 742 Wolf (05) x 916 Wolf (06). Wednesday, October 15 View Page went and cut my pumpkin open today. walls were pretty thick for a pumpkin only weighing 164#. Wednesday, October 15 View Page here's a picture of the bottom. my pumpkin was very concave on the blossom end. the dark spot in the pic is the backside of the blossom, how close was it to splitting there ! Wednesday, October 15 View Page pulled all the seeds out (466 seeds). nice looking tan colored seeds. my pumpkin is now the 164 Vunak(08)uow. it went 6% light, due to my inexperience. the cross is 742 Wolf(05) x 916 Wolf(06). the picture is the genetics tree for my seed. should have potential!! sorry about the image, i had to write it out, i couldn't convert the the original to a jpeg image.