Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 20 Entries. Tuesday, April 22 View Page The winter of 2013-2014 was brutal here in Elk County, PA, long and cold. Here's Lily looking for a light at the end of the tunnel...problem was, the tunnel was a "snow roller", a rare phenomenon caused when wind blows snow along the ground and it picks up more snow as it goes. It rolls a snowball in layers, kind of like a jelly roll. They can be hollow, just as this one was.   Tuesday, April 22 View Page We've decided to throw our hats into the ring for the Team Pumpkin 150 Square Foot Challenge. Here's our brand new spot created for the challenge.   Tuesday, April 22 View Page Side view of the 150 patch   Tuesday, April 22 View Page We've decided to really jump the gun this season. We planted our competition plants on Easter morning. Our gains have been so poor once the cooler nights of August arrive, so this year we're moving up the schedule a bit. Here's the 1319 Bouch.   Tuesday, April 22 View Page Here's "Tiny", the 1317 Clementz.   Tuesday, April 22 View Page And here is the 1744 Fulk   Sunday, May 18 View Page 150 square foot contest: Here is our 1429 Checkon...pot-bound but it doesn't care! It is ready to go big in a small space. 1676 Daletas x 1579 Wallace: double dose of 1381 Checkon in there, 1495 Stelts, and the Freak.   Wednesday, May 21 View Page 1319 Bouch. Doing OK so far, seems to have struggled with the cold weather despite efforts to keep her warm.   Wednesday, May 21 View Page 1317 Clementz. Tiny has had its ups and downs. The soil heating cable under it has a mind of its own, going from 74, down into the lower 60's for a period of time, then shooting up to 90 for a few days, now has settled in at 78 degrees. It also seems to have struggled with cold air temperatures like the 1319 Bouch has   Wednesday, May 21 View Page 1744 Fulk. Growing nicely, hasn't been as affected by the cold as our other plants. The main will be peaking out of the hoop house in another day or two   Wednesday, May 21 View Page Last year we had terrible slug problems. This year the slugs have problems.   Tuesday, August 26 View Page Well, I didn't keep up with my diary as planned...in fact, I did worse than in the past. A hectic work schedule and lots of baseball (48 games between Brady's regular little league team, all-stars, and a tournament team, not to mention all the practices for each) didn't leave a lot of time for the pumpkin patch. We still tried hard with the time (and energy) we had. Here is our 1319 Bouch '12 x 1744 Fulk. Its mama was a nice orange color and several other seeds we've grown non-competitively from the 1319 have thrown nice, orange pumpkins. This one has slowed considerably and is currently 360" OTT   Tuesday, August 26 View Page Here is our 1317 Clementz x 1744 Fulk. Currently 377 OTT at approximately 65 DAP, not growing very fast at this point but still growing. I failed to mention in the last post that our 1319 is at approximately 72 DAP.   Tuesday, August 26 View Page In our other patch of AG's I have several other 1319 Bouch plants growing. This pumpkin got covered with this thin, camo patterned fleece blanket due to the many cold nights we've had throughout the summer. I didn't uncover the pumpkin for a couple of weeks and was surprised to see what was underneath...   Tuesday, August 26 View Page ...a camo pumpkin!   Saturday, September 13 View Page Disastrous couple of weeks in our Gardner Hill patch. The first casualty was our 1744 Fulk. It never grew the way it should have, I believe the plant was diseased but I was never able to figure it out. It went down to a BES at about 800 lbs. Next to fall was our 1319 Bouch. It had some deep ribs and I suspect we got a split in a rib and it developed a large soft spot on its side. Final OTT was 365".   Saturday, September 13 View Page Stem end of the 1319. This seed produces some beautiful orange pumpkins.   Saturday, September 13 View Page Our third and final competition pumpkin went down on 9/11. This one really broke our hearts as it was the biggest, prettiest we've ever grown. It is 1317 Clementz x 1744 Fulk, final OTT was 398".   Saturday, September 13 View Page stem end of the 1317 Clementz. Great color, great shape...we were so excited to get this one to the scale   Saturday, September 13 View Page One last shot to show the shape and color of the 1317. Many thanks to Bubba for letting us grow his seed