Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 84 Entries. Thursday, February 25 View Page This one and the next four pictures I meant to post in my ’09 diary but never got around to. 10/31/09 Here’s my 352 after carving it on Halloween. Thursday, February 25 View Page 10/31/09 Later that evening with candles in it. Thursday, February 25 View Page 11/2/09 I must’ve done a good job making it scary. My niece sure looked worried. :) Thursday, February 25 View Page 10/30/09 Here’s my 147 lb Prizewinner fruit after squeezing it into the front passenger seat of my car before taking it to my Dad’s the day before Halloween. The front passenger seat was the only opening in the car I could fit it through. It was such a tight squeeze if it were any bigger I probably wouldn’t have been able to get it in there. The pumpkin plus the piece of plywood it was sitting on totaled 159 lbs. The night before, I weighed myself and I weighed 160, so I was moving my own weight basically. I was going to have someone help me but everyone else decided to leave so I had to do it myself. Since it had already been sat next to the driveway I positioned my car so that I could make a ramp with two steel posts straight from the fruit to the front seat. I then dragged and pushed the pumpkin and the piece of wood up the makeshift ramp into the front seat. This was easier said than done. By the time I was done I was red in the face and breathing hard. I need to work out more, lol. Thursday, February 25 View Page 12/26/09 And here it is the day after Christmas, after nearly two months of full exposure to the elements, a few nights of subzero temps included. It looks like a deflated basketball, lol. The seeds were still good amazingly enough, all 867 of them, which was good since I had made my own little cross with it. Thursday, February 25 View Page I did some practice germinations this past week. I sowed 4 of my 352’s and they all sprouted. In total there were 247 seeds in the pumpkin, and a pretty big chunk of them had undeveloped tips. The two seedlings on the right were from fully developed seeds and were the first to sprout, the first one sprouting after only 2 days. The two seedlings on the left were from two of the seeds with undeveloped tips, the last one sprouting after 4 days. Clearly there seems to be a pattern here of the underdeveloped seeds taking longer to sprout, though I wonder if it might’ve had something to do with the fact that I didn’t file the undeveloped portion of the underdeveloped seeds. Either way I still proved the seeds are good and that I’m still good at sprouting seeds. Thursday, March 4 View Page Nursery pot cut in half so I can transplant the seedling with less root disturbance. Thursday, March 4 View Page Duct taped to hold it together until transplanting. Friday, March 5 View Page My patch wasn't getting nearly as much direct sun as I wanted (6-7 hours, maybe?), so I topped off a pear tree that sits immediately to the west in hopes of gaining an extra hour or so of afternoon sun. Before, it stood over 30 feet. It now stands about 12 feet. I would have cut it down entirely if weren't an asian pear tree. Asian pears are kind of expensive in the store, and the ones fresh off the tree taste way better. Friday, March 12 View Page My experimental “Poor Man’s Water Tank” being put to the test. Its basically a 4'x8'x16" box made of plywood and lined with a new peice of black plastic (25 ft roll cut in half) and a 4x8 peice of wood for the bottom. To control mosquitoes I'm going to invest in a pack of mosquito dunks, which contain a strain of bacillus thats deadly to them. Starting from scratch I'm guessing this set up would cost about 100 bucks at most, maybe more if you get a second 4x8 peice of wood for a lid, or if you need the pvc piping. I don't really know the total cost as I already happened to have the box on hand when I first got the idea, though I do know that at a 300 gallon water capacity its a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a tank made for the same purpose, which could run you 3-400 bucks. Monday, March 22 View Page Last October's soil test. After getting the results I hand tilled the following into my 300 sq. ft. patch: -2 yards of compost -1-2 yards of dry, shredded maple leaves -40 lbs. gypsum -2 lbs. muriate of postash (I know its high in sodium but its all I had for potassium at the time) -1 oz. of borax -A few pounds of left over alfalfa and cottonseed meal -A small amount of left over, five years past expiration date, men's daily vitamins that were finely ground (I don't take them anymore and figured I'd put those minerals into the soil rather than throw them away) Over the course of the winter (November-January) I aslo periodically scatter coffee grounds over the patch, averaging about a five gallon pale's worth each time. Monday, March 22 View Page The graph. The ammendments I made were done with some guidance from Craig Lembke, though some of the products used were my own choice (MOP, borax, vitamins). Monday, March 22 View Page Got my spring soil test results a few days ago, and boy was I excited when the numbers turned out better than expected. Craig knows his stuff. He and a couple of other people recommended my K be about 400, and it measured 399. Now if I were a betting man.....lol. The high sulfur could have come from three things, the gypsum, the 1 cup of epsom salts (which I forgot to mention in the previous post), and all the coffee grounds I added. I don't know how big a role the grounds played in bringing the sulfur up but I'm guessing this is why they say to go easy on applying coffee grounds dirctly to the soil. Ammendments I plan on making: -1/2 of a five gallon bucket of alfalfa meal (as instructed by Craig) -1 small bag of bone meal (3-4 lbs) -Wood ashes. Not sure how much just yet but I'd like to bring the K and it's saturation number up just a little more. And since wood ashes are alkaline it'll help some to stave off my soil's increasing acidity. -Dolomitic lime. Again not sure how much but I'd like to bring the Mg and it's saturation number up a little too. Will also help against my soil's increasing acidity. -1 tbsp. borax to bring the boron up just a little more. I'm hoping these measures will bring my soil to being as balanced as possible. Monday, March 29 View Page My cold frame. A hell of a lot more complicated than some would do it but I wanted to have something that could also be used for trays of veggie seedlings and be moved around the yard when needed. The veggie seedlings that will be in it will be planted at the same time as the AGs, leaving the the coldframe all to the pumpkin. The shelf is removable for that reason. Thursday, April 8 View Page The pumpkins alotted space dug and ready to go. I plan on planting the seedlings toward the bottom left edge and running the main onto the lawn and toward the fence in the top right, letting the sidevines run rampant on the lawn to the left and right. Some would say, "Why don't you dig the lawn?" Unfortunaly I can't dig much of it because of a utility easement. Cable lines, phone lines, gas lines, sewere lines ect. are running under parts of the lawn, so no digging. Thursday, April 22 View Page Here's a book I would highly recommend to any serious composter, or any person wishing to leave a smaller footprint on our environment. The Humanure Handbook: A Guide To Composting Human Manure by Joseph Jenkins. I've been practicing the methods described in this book since September of 2009 and from what I've observed, it works. Further info can be found on Joe Jenkins website: http://www.humanurehandbook.com/ The Humanure Handbook can be read for free online at: http://weblife.org/humanure/ Thursday, April 22 View Page Here's my humanure compost pile. Six wooden pallets nailed together, four to make the main bin and two off to its side to contain the straw. Off to the left is a pile of partially rotted sawdust from untreated wood. By using sawdust and straw (or hay) in accordance with The Humanure Handbook, there is no odor. None of my neighbors know anything about that compost pile and have never complained. Its that benign of a process when done right. Some people might say that composting human manure is dangerous and that the resulting compost WILL contain deadly pathogens. I guess it would be a bad idea to tell those people that at this very moment, fecal matter containing deadly pathogens is brimming in their bowels. lol. Unless the person/s contributing to the pile are in fact infected with a deadly disease, it will not be present in the pile or the resulting compost. Simple logic. Even if a person did happen to be diseased, done right the conditions inside the humanure compost pile should become hot and more than capable of killing the pathogen. That coupled with a "curing" time of two years should result in compost just as sanitary as any other compost. Thursday, April 22 View Page The internal temperature of my humanure compost pile today, 140°F, more than hot enough to kill any would be pathogens. A well maintained humanure compost pile should have no trouble reaching these temperatures. Bear in mind the humanure compost pile is NEVER turned. When a deposit is made into the top center of the pile the material heats up, breaks down, cools off and starts curing and you just keep making deposits on top of the previous deposits. So as the pile builds up a hot layer works its way up too, consuming all the new materials while the older materials are curing below this hot layer. Once the bin is full its allowed to cure for a year while another bin is started. Thursday, April 22 View Page At this point you might be wondering how one's excrements get from your bum to the compost pile. The two videos on the main page of the first link in one of my prior entries do a pretty good job explaining it. In the first video it shows a pretty elaborate set-up that could be used. Though if you're like me and aren't currently handy enough to build one of those things yourself and can't afford to buy one, just the bucket and lid itself will do fine. The minimalist method, lol. In the photo, the contents of the white bucket are about to be emptied into the humanure compost pile. The grey bucket is full of sawdust to be used as a cover material when I do my business in the white bucket. Thursday, April 22 View Page As seen in the second video in that link the humanure pile is always kept covered with a cover material, in my case partially rotted straw. Thursday, April 22 View Page Whenever I go to deposit one of the buckets into the humanure pile, I take advantage of the pile being opened to also deposit foods scraps. Thursday, April 22 View Page Contaray to what a great many compost "experts" will tell you, ALL kitchen scraps can be composted. This includes meat and dairy products, oils and fats ect. Basically everything you might find on a "not to compost" list can in fact be composted so long as they are thoroughly covered just like the humanure deposits. Since the bin will be enclosed no animals can get in, and because the area of the pile where the materials will be deposited will be hot, rodents won't go near them either. Though keeping the materials thouroughly covered should be enough to keep from attracting their attention. It used to be whenever I would deposit food scraps into my conventional compost piles (cow manure and leaves with the pile being turned regularly) some of the food scraps would find their way into the outer layers of the pile before they could decompose completely. This lead to my local mole population digging into the pile to retreive scraps, and their presence was obvious. But ever since I adopted the humanure composting method and started depositing my food scraps along with the humanure deposits, I've found that the moles would stear clear of them because the area with the food scraps would always be too hot for them to get to before the scraps decomposed completely, which, if you were to regularly turn the pile, those scraps could find their way into a cool area of the pile and attract moles, or mice if you have them. Thursday, April 22 View Page In conclusion, if you have any interest in composting your own excrements I would recommend you read The Humanure Handbook in its entirety, or at least watch all the videos on Joe Jenkins website, before attempting to try it. Happy Earth Day! Saturday, April 24 View Page I file and soaked two 1147 Shenoha 08's this afternoon for six hours in a lukewarm 9:1 water:hydrogen peroxide solution. Then sowed them into prewarmed pots containing Happy Frog organic potting soil, with the top two inches being sterile Jiffy Mix. The germination chamber is the same set-up I used last year with the heat mat on the bottom of an 18 gallon sterilite container with the pots sitting on top of the mat and a cheap aquarium light I found at a thrift store suspended above to help generate more heat and for light. I also have a cup of water in there to keep the humidity high so the potting soil won't dry out. With this set-up the temperature of the potting soil where the seeds are can be kept at a constant 87°F. Saturday, April 24 View Page Forgot to mention...thanks shazzy for the seeds you sent me a while back. Tuesday, April 27 View Page Houston, we have ignition... 1147 Shenoha 2008 (1041 Mckie x Self) 15.4% heavy. The second one is following close behind. Thursday, April 29 View Page Both 1147's hardening off. Was really windy here today with winds gusting from 30-40 mph. The wood box I had been experimenting with to hold rain water did a great job protecting the seedlings from the wind. I happened to be standing next to them when a good gust came through and stuck my hand next to them to feel how strong the wind was where they were. All I felt was a gentle breeze while two feet above was 30 mph winds, lol. Saturday, May 1 View Page Planted the 1147's today. I was going to plant them yesterday but it looked like there was a good chance for severe weather later so I waited. *Note to self: Don't use Happy Frog potting soil in the pots, it crumbles way too easily during transplanting. Caused my plants quite a bit of root disturbance and a pumpkin grower to cuss up a storm. lol Saturday, May 1 View Page It was a good thing I waited an extra day to transplant. It got pretty nasty for a breif bit with near constant lightning and thunder and what seemed like 60 mph winds, and it rained so hard I could hardly see beyond the deck. Fortunately I was spared the strongest part of the storm K2, which reportedly had some hail in it. Saturday, May 1 View Page I didn't want the plastic on my coldframe to get torn to shreds before my plants could use it so as a precaution I positioned three plastic pallets around it a few hours before the storm. Two on the south and west sides since those sides get the predominant amount of wind and one on top in case of hail. It stood up to the storm just fine. Thursday, May 20 View Page The 1147's got off to a great start despite the root disturbance. This past week has been slow though with near constant cloud cover. Supposed to get nice this weekend though. The one on the left is the dominant one, but I won't cull the weaker one until they are both down and running. Thursday, June 3 View Page Planted my giant tomatoes yesterday. Front to back: Mortgage Lifter Slankard Big Zac ?.?? Ciesielski (5.58 Timm x Self) Big Zac 2.74 Lovelace (3.9 Catapano x Open) Big Zac 2.74 Lovelace (3.9 Catapano x Open) Seeds were sown April 26. Thanks Treetop for the seeds you sent me. Thursday, June 3 View Page It's funny, the 1147 that I thought for the entire month of May would be the one getting the whack ended up being my keeper. The one with the thicker stem kinked twice on me and showed hardly any sign of secondary vines, while the slightly thinner stemmed one, while it gave me crap while laying down, didn't kink any and is poised to start throwing secondaries here really soon. Just passing 3 feet here in the photo. Monday, June 14 View Page The 1147 passed the 10 foot mark last night and has a baby female in the growing tip. Also spotted the first SVB and cuke beetle of the season today. Wednesday, June 16 View Page Every evening like clockwork for five days, from 6/11 to 6/15, a severe storm like this would come blasting through. The image is of the worst one on the 14th. The blue dot and arrow indicate my location, with the white arrows showing the direction of the storm. You can see a backwards C in the squall line where I'm at, that supposedly was the result of a big downburst that pushed ahead of the main line. A weather station 2 miles south of me reported a wind gust of 70 mph. Two tornado warnings spawned on the top and bottom of the C. No tornado was ever seen thankfully but trees were blown down all over town from the strong straight line winds. The 1147 made it through unscathed thanks to the trees off to my west providing wind protection. Friday, June 18 View Page Dammit. I tried hard not to have a repeat of last year by splitting my main vine. Somehow I messed up again. :insert flaming angry avatar here: Friday, June 18 View Page The split occured at about 11-12 feet right as the main vine was making its way into the lawn. What I had planned on doing was have it grow onto weed fabric to prevent the grass from entangling itself around the vine since I wouldn't be able to cut the grass there. Problem is I didn't know before hand how I was going to pin the vine down once it got there. I was hoping it would be enough to have the tendrils grab onto to some garden staples. I should have tried cutting small holes in the fabric to stick the bamboo sticks in. Lesson learned. Dammit. lol Friday, June 18 View Page That little secondary will have to be my new main. Last year when my main split there was a sudden explosion of growth in the secondary vines closest to the split, so hopefully this one will pick up the pace quickly. I do have that one lone female right at the split that I could try for since it would be my only hope for a true main vine pumpkin, but I won't count on it. I would be happy if it took but last year I had the same situation with a female being at the split and it later aborted. Monday, July 12 View Page The whole season the 1147 has produced only one male flower, and it was deformed with no pollen. All the other males have simply withered and died long before opening. At first I thought it was something I was doing wrong, like too much nitrogen, but then I saw this. The first female flowers were dead as soon as I found them, weird. The female flower in the prior photo was the first one not to do that, after that all the females have been fine. I made a stupid mistake with the one in the prior photo, though. I have a lot of birds on my property and so to keep them from pecking at it I put a white wash clothe over it to hide it. Well one morning a few days before it would've opened there was a brief downpour, and even though I had a patio table over the flower, the cloth became heavy with moister and broke the petals off. Not using wash clothes again. Monday, July 12 View Page Here is one of my promising kins. Pollinated on July 4th with pollen from a 1503 Neptune a fellow B-town grower has going. I have a second one that was pollinated on the 4th but it hasn't grown any for a couple of days and so is most likely an abort. I didn't care to much for it anyways. It had some of the narliest lobes I've ever seen and had seeds in the blossom. Out of ten female flowers I've seen on this plant, at least half of them have had some narly lobes with seeds in the blossom. My two most promising ones happened to have the best looking lobes and had no seeds in the blossom, and I realy lucked out because these two also happened to be in the very best positions on the plant. Monday, July 12 View Page My other promising kin. Pollinated on July 5th, again with the 1503 Neptune. I can tell right off the bat that if this one ends up being my keeper it will have a realy fat ass, lol. Monday, July 12 View Page Not something I like to see. I found this yesterday on a couple of secondary vines were they were running into the lawn. It seems to be exclusively on the vines and a couple of leaf stalk bases. There were no holes or cracks anywhere. I cut the vine and leaf stalk open and they both looked perfectly healthy inside, with the brown spots only going about half a millimeter deep. The problem is isolated to the part of the plant where sencondaries had been allowed to grow into the lawn right up to some grape vines. I've been fighting a never ending battle with anthracnose on these grape vines so I'm wondering if it might've spread to the pumpkin. The symtoms are similar, necrotic splotches on stems and leaf stalks, the only difference being that the grape leaves have suffered spots from the disease while the pumpkin leaves have not. I'm thinking it probably has to do with the fact that the pumpkin's leaves are the only part of the plant that have been treated with fungicides. If you have any input on this it would be much appreciated! Monday, July 12 View Page Underside of a vine. Monday, July 12 View Page July 5th 3 segmented megabloom on my Slankard giant tomato. Thats my thumb nail for size comparison. Monday, July 12 View Page July 12th One week later, this one has SLUNGER written all over it. Going have to build a sling. At least if my AG goes to hell I still have the maters going for me, lol. Same thumb nail by the way. Wednesday, July 14 View Page When the secondary vine that "Mr. Fatass" is on first layed down to run, it developed a small split on top where it meets the main. It scarred over and was fine for a few weeks until last nite I just happened to look at it while spraying insecticide and noticed it had started to rot. I had gotten a half inch of rain in a breif downpour earlier in the day and I think thats when the rot started, because when I started scraping off the rot I found it was still mostly superficial. I packed the area full of sulfur and put a fan on it all night. I think I caught it just in time because today the area was firm and dry. I got lucky there. And luck is what I need, because the 7/4 pollination hasn't grown any for two days and it looks like Mr. Fatass will be my best shot, and keeping its vine attached to the rest of the plant is now a priority. It's skin is still shiny and its pushing sand so I will have to cross my fingers and try my best to keep it cool in this 90+ degree heat so it doesn't abort. Thursday, July 15 View Page Mr. Fatass stem view. Not much for shoulders... Thursday, July 15 View Page ...made up for with a huge ass, lol. Thursday, July 15 View Page Top view. I don't see stem stress being an issue with this one. For day 10 it measured 35.5 inches in circumference. Tuesday, July 20 View Page I've decided to change Mr. Fatass' name to Mac Daddy. Mr. Fatass was just a spur of the moment name that reflected my lack of imagination, lol. The fat end isn't quite as apparent as it used to be anyways. For day 15 Mac Daddy measured 60" in CC. Wednesday, July 21 View Page I saw a cicada chase a cardinal through the patch while making that loud noise they make. The cicada eventually took off and the cardinal landed on a branch near me. I've never seen a bird so scared shitless, lol. Friday, July 23 View Page Spotted first little bit of powdery mildew today. Way too early. Heck last year I didn't see a single trace of PM until Sep. 30 and that was because I got lazy and stopped spraying, lol. Sunday, July 25 View Page Day 20 first OTT measurement for Mac Daddy was 185.5" for an estimated weight of 145 lbs. My PB 352 last year didn't reach this point until day 31 on August 20th last year. So this pumpkin is almost a full month ahead. I'll get a picture posted tomorrow. Monday, July 26 View Page Starting to take on features similar to the 873 Naylor 09. Sunday, August 1 View Page Day 27 measurements for Mac Daddy; CC: 97" SS: 57.5" EE: 61.5" OTT: 216 for an estimated weight of 222 lbs. I'm not sure if I posted it anywhere but my goal for the season has been to double my PB of 352 to 704. So far that seems feasible. Anything more is just gravy. Monday, August 2 View Page Here's a photo of my slankard tomato I took after picking it last Wednesday. In the process of removing it from the vine I managed to damage the area where the stem meets the tomato, which caused it to rot before I could get a certified weight for it. It weighed 2 lbs on the dot on my home analog scale. A 1/4 lb less than my PB 2.25 lber I grew on a Mortgage Lifter last year. I did salvage a few seeds from it though not many. Now known as the 2.0 UOW Morrison 09. Sunday, August 8 View Page Day 34 measurements for Mac Daddy: CC: 107.75" SS: 64.75" EE: 69" OTT: 241.5 for an estimated weight of 305 lbs, at about 11.5 lbs a day for the last two weeks. At this rate I'll have a new PB by the time I measure again next Sunday. Monday, August 9 View Page I've got a new problem. Big brown splotches showing up on several leaves. It starts out as yellow splotching like on the right then becomes necrotic like on the left. Monday, August 9 View Page Turning into this. Eventually the necrotic area opens up, creating a hole. Monday, August 9 View Page I first noticed it on the 2nd or 3rd on two leaves next to each other, and by the 6th they were on 1-2 dozen leaves. I sprayed Mancozeb that night and here on the 9th its spread seems to have slowed down significantly. I had this exact same mystery disease pop up in late August last year. While it didn't kill the plant, by the end of September many of the leaves had large gaping holes in them. I never did get an ID on it. I thought it had just been a bad case of spider mites. I was wrong. Definately not spider mites. Monday, August 9 View Page Big gaping holes in last years leaves. Some leaves were so shot with holes I had to cut them off. Monday, August 9 View Page Again I'm not concerned about the disease killing the plant, but man it sure makes it look like crap. Sunday, August 15 View Page Different angle. Day 41 measurements: CC: 116.25" SS: 68" EE: 72.25" OTT 256.5" for an estimated weight of 363 lbs. A new PB! The daily gains took an unexpetedly big dip, about 8 1/4 lbs a day this last week, but I think that probably had to do with the fact that every day since I last measured went over 90, with a couple of days making it to 95. I hope it was just the heat and that the cooler, better temperatures this coming week will bring those daily gains back up a little. After getting my first daily gains estimate on 8/1 I set up a series of benchmarks my pumpkin would have to make in order to reach my goal of 704 if the fruit were to go 25% heavy. Heres what I came up with: D34: 300 - Actual: 305 D41: 360 - Actual: 363 D48: 415 D55: 453 D62: 485 D69: 510 D76: 531 D83: 548 D89: 560 x 1.25 = 700 so just a wee bit over 25% heavy would be needed. My first two guesses were almost dead on. I hope I'm right about the % heavy, lol. Wednesday, August 18 View Page Here's what I consider my personal best when it comes to fishing. This largemouth bass weighed in at 9 lb. 10 oz. and was 25" long. It put up a hell of a fight. Caught 5 years ago today at a private pond in the middle of nowhere. Sadly my fishing poles have been collecting dust this summer. It doesn't help that I'm broke, my cars broke, my bikes broke and the city bus won't take me to the fishing hole. :) Sunday, September 5 View Page Day 62 OTT 278.75", 462 lbs. Doing about 4 lbs a day now. Sunday, September 19 View Page The pumpkin currently estimates about 489 lbs, averaging about 2 lbs a day the last two weeks, so is probably doing less than a pound a day now. Will probably estimate right about 500 come weigh-off day. If it weighes as heavy as it thumps, 600 isn't out of the question, though to reach my original goal for the season it would have to pull a 706 Knauss and go 41% heavy, lol. Sunday, September 19 View Page "Puhkay," she says. :) Friday, September 24 View Page Me and the pumpkin. Yeah, I know, same shirt as the last photo of me, lol. Friday, October 1 View Page Final estimated weight in the patch: 496 lbs. This is how I got it out of the patch. I dug a hole big enough to fit a pallet in next to the pumpkin, with one side of the hole dug like a ramp. Continued... Friday, October 1 View Page Next I put the pallet into the hole and fitted it with a peice of foam. Then I filled the gap between the pallet and the pumpkin with dirt and some extra peices of foam. After that I dug some sand from around the pumpkin to create a sand trail onto the pallet so the pumpkin could be slid more easily. It proved very effective, as once the pumpkin reached the end of the sand trail it became more difficult to slide until more sand was layed down in front. Me and three other guys barely managed this. Once on the pallet, I took a 2200 lb test tow rope and wrapped it around the center beam inside the pallet. My mom's car was then brought around the side of the house and the rope was hooked up to some hooks on the underbody of the car. The pumpkin was then very slowly dragged up out of the hole, around the side of the house, up to the curb. It probably would have looked pretty funny to someone else, lol, but hey, it worked. A little while later fellow Bloomington grower David Ray showed up with his trailor, his pumpkin already loaded (bigger than mine), and him, me and the three other guys were able to lift my pumpkin into his trailor. Saturday, October 2 View Page Final estimated weight on the pallet: 514 lbs. When the pumpkin and pallet were first sat on the scale it read 628. I was hoping the pumpkin itself would weigh over 600 but alas, that wasn't the case. Say hello to the 594.5 Morrison 2010 (1147 Shenoha 08 x 1503 Neptune 09) 15.7% heavy. My new personal best. Tuesday, October 12 View Page Here's David's pumpkin. It was only estimated to weigh 840 lbs. It ended up weighing 956 lbs, so it went 13.8% heavy. Now know as the 956 Ray 2010 (1503 Neptune 09 x Self). The plant it was grown on was the pollinator to my 594. I've got to give a big thanks to David for helping haul my pumpkins to the weighoff the past two season's. Getting them to the weighoff would have been much harder otherwise as I don't know anyone else with a truck who would be able to haul them. By this time next year I hope to have a truck of my own so I don't have to keep bugging people to use their's. Sunday, October 17 View Page Here's my soil test. I only had a basic test done. I ordered some potassium sulfate a couple of days ago. I'll also use a bit of epsom salt. One thing I don't get is how my organic matter didn't change much. I was expecting it to have dropped into the single digits. The only organic matter I added last spring was a not very thick cover crop of winter rye and some alfalfa meal. Sunday, October 31 View Page The 594 had no seeds. I'm actually not all that surprised though. This past summer the plant showed every flag in the book of being a sterile plant.....except for when it grew me a 594 lb pumpkin, lol. It had occured to me a couple months ago that the pumpkin might be at a high risk of not having any seeds. I was surprised to have been right. I'm really kind of disappointed because I liked the cross and had seriously considered growing it next year. Oh well, it happens. On a positive note, I think I really outdid myself carving it. I'll get some photo's up later. Tuesday, November 2 View Page My favorite pic here. Now the backround on my computer. lol Tuesday, November 2 View Page Ghost. Tuesday, November 2 View Page Pumpkin monster. Tuesday, November 2 View Page Candle lit. Tuesday, November 2 View Page Candle lit ghost. Tuesday, November 2 View Page Candle lit pumpkin monster. Tuesday, November 2 View Page Stem end. Not the most impressive wall thickness, but it stayed just about the same thickness all the way around the pumpkin, except for the blossom end. There weren't any flaws in the pumpkin's structure. It was bombproof just like its mamma. Tuesday, November 2 View Page Blossom end. Tuesday, November 2 View Page Gotta love those 1041 Mckie genes. Here's a side wall. Wednesday, November 17 View Page Cross section. The 1147 seems to be a good seed for throwing uniformaly thick pumpkins.