Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 91 Entries. Wednesday, March 30 View Page I've got my two 10 X 16 greenhouses up, planning to get the plastic on tonight. Soil has been tested and the areas where the greenhouses are have already been amended. I added lime to the entire patch, but won't add the additional amendments to the rest of the patch until I till in the winter rye mid May.   Thursday, March 31 View Page Greenhouses completed. Now just need the warmer weather to arrive.   Tuesday, April 5 View Page Not exactly the weather your looking for to get an early start.   Monday, April 11 View Page Started my seeds yesterday. Here's my line-up. Will start some back ups in a couple weeks or so.   Monday, April 11 View Page Starting a new 3500 square foot garden this year in the front of my house. Will be growing some field pumpkins among other things. Spread and tilled in 10 yards of compost and planted winter rye last weekend.   Monday, April 11 View Page Also going to try growing long gourds this year. This is a picture from last fall after the trellis was built.   Wednesday, April 13 View Page I installed my soil cables last night and plugged them in.   Thursday, May 12 View Page Inside the greenhouses this morning. I started two sets of plants one week apart. You can see the difference one week makes. Will be culling each greenhouse down to two plants within the next week or so.   Thursday, May 12 View Page Greenhouse #2.   Wednesday, June 1 View Page 1790 Wallace at 5 feet, side vines just starting.   Wednesday, June 1 View Page 1998 Jutras at about 7 feet   Wednesday, June 1 View Page This is the 1751 Geddes and the 1961 Sperry. The 1961 was started about a week after the 1751. I need to remove one in the next day or so, having trouble deciding which one to keep.   Wednesday, June 1 View Page This is the 1954 Lancaster, at about 10 feet. This was the first seed to break ground and continues to be the fastest growing plant.   Wednesday, June 1 View Page I had some changes to my original lineup as two of the plants I wanted to grow had issues. I'm doing something new this year, I have planted a couple backups around the edges of my patch. It seems like every year I end up pulling a plant mid season for one reason or another, either a sterile plant, an early split or something happens that results in me having an empty space in the patch for the rest of the season. If that happens this year, I'll have a plant in place to replace it for a late season weigh off.   Friday, June 3 View Page Took down the greenhouses last night and put up the wind fences. I removed the 1961 Sperry in favor of the 1751 Geddes. Now we just need some warm weather and hopefully some rain as well. After a spring with little rain, the ground is very dry.   Friday, June 3 View Page Another view of the patch. You can see one of my backups on the far right. I have one on each side that I plan to let grow until I either need it for a backup or it gets in the way.   Friday, June 10 View Page 1751 Geddes   Friday, June 10 View Page 1790 Wallace. This one was started about a week later than the rest and is still a little behind.   Friday, June 10 View Page 1998 Jutras   Friday, June 10 View Page 1956 Lancaster. Still my biggest plant going. I have a female at about 12 feet that should open in the next 5 days or so.   Friday, June 10 View Page Latest view of the patch. Killed lots of cuke beetles this week. Caught my third woodchuck of the season yesterday. Good news is no SVB's in the trap yet.   Friday, June 10 View Page Latest view of the patch. Killed lots of cuke beetles this week. Caught my third woodchuck of the season yesterday. Good news is no SVB's in the trap yet.   Thursday, June 16 View Page Pollinated a perfect 5 lobe female at 13 feet on the 1956 Lancaster this morning. I deleted the picture by mistake before I could post it.   Thursday, June 16 View Page Also pollinated this slightly less than perfect blossom on the 1751 Geddes at 11 feet.   Friday, June 17 View Page 1956 Lancaster   Friday, June 17 View Page 1998 Jutras   Friday, June 17 View Page 1751 Geddes   Friday, June 17 View Page 1790 Wallace   Friday, June 17 View Page View of the patch. Sprayed the plants last night with Talstar & Daconil. I've done a couple sprays & drenches with Merit and Companion in the past month or so. It's that time of the season to start with the regular pesticide & fungicide sprayings. I'll start rotating different products every week or every other week depending on the weather.   Monday, June 20 View Page I pollinated a nice 5 lobe on the 1956 Lancaster at 16 feet this morning. Have a frozen water bottle next to it and a shade table over it. Temp's in the low 90's today. Also pollinated a nice 6 lobe yesterday at about 14 feet on the 1751 Geddes. The Jutras and Wallace plants have pumpkins at good distances that should be ready for pollination in the next day or two.   Wednesday, June 22 View Page Pollinated pumpkins this morning on the 1998 Jutras and 1790 Wallace, both at about 13-14 feet. I have 6 day old pumpkins on the 1956 and 1751 that appear to have set, along with back up's on both plants at about 16 feet. To date everything has been treated with Matt's "Anthesis" and I have one dose remaining to treat the two pumpkins pollinated this morning. Just have to hope now that I have a keeper on each of the plants.   Wednesday, June 22 View Page SVB's are here. Caught 3 yesterday and 3 the day before.   Tuesday, July 5 View Page 1790 Wallace - day 12   Tuesday, July 5 View Page 1751 Geddes- day 15   Tuesday, July 5 View Page 1998 Jutras - day 12   Tuesday, July 5 View Page 1956 Lancaster- day 18   Tuesday, July 5 View Page View of the patch   Tuesday, July 5 View Page Long gourds coming along   Thursday, July 7 View Page Caught this guy yesterday, I think he's number 5 so far this season. All the pumpkins are getting to the point where they are really starting to grow now. The 1956 has done 20 pounds a day the last couple days.   Monday, July 11 View Page 1790 Wallace   Monday, July 11 View Page 1751 Geddes   Monday, July 11 View Page 1998 Jutras   Monday, July 11 View Page 1956 Lancaster   Tuesday, July 12 View Page 20 day cc today on the 1790 -70" 20 day cc today on the 1998 - 78"   Tuesday, July 19 View Page Came home from work last night to survey the damage from the strong storms that came through yesterday afternoon. We received about 2 inches of rain in 20 minutes. Very strong winds as well. Overall, the plants held up pretty well. A few rolled vines and a few broken leaves on each plant, but it could have been much worse.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page 1998 Jutras. Est 304 pounds. It grew 25 pounds a day the last couple days.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page 1751 Geddes. Est 314 pounds. It grew 28 pounds a day the last couple days.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page 1790 Wallace. Est 344 pounds. It grew 37.5 pounds a day the last couple days.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page 1956 Lancaster. Est 465 pounds. It grew 32 pounds a day the last couple days.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page Decided to give each of the "backup" plants 400- 500 square feet of space and see what they do. This is a 12 day old pumpkin on the 1552 LaRiviere.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page 1101 Companion.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page View of the patch after the storm.   Tuesday, July 19 View Page Another view   Monday, July 25 View Page 1998 Jutras - 420 pounds   Monday, July 25 View Page 1751 Geddes- 445 pounds   Monday, July 25 View Page 1790 Wallace- 475 pounds   Monday, July 25 View Page 1956 Lancaster- 560 pounds   Monday, August 1 View Page Took end of July measurements on all the pumpkins yesterday. This is the 1552- 25 DAP - 300 pounds   Monday, August 1 View Page 1998 - 595 pounds   Monday, August 1 View Page 1751-- 645 pounds   Monday, August 1 View Page 1790- 700 poounds   Monday, August 1 View Page View of the patch.   Monday, August 1 View Page Not sure where the date came from on that last post for the 1956- should be 8/1/16   Monday, August 1 View Page Long gourds seem to be doing well. Have a few started now.   Friday, August 19 View Page This is the 1552 we got a late start with. It's kind of nice to have a pumpkin that's putting on decent daily gains when all the others are slowing down. This one is around 650 pounds.   Friday, August 19 View Page This little one likely won't see any weigh offs, but it sure is pretty. I can see why some growers try and only grow orange.   Friday, August 19 View Page 1998 around 900 pounds.   Friday, August 19 View Page 1751 - around 1000 pounds   Friday, August 19 View Page 1956- around 1000 pounds. This plant got hit with what I believe is phytophthora this past week. The disease was spreading very quickly. I removed all the affected vines, about 1/4 of the plant in total, and drenched with Banrot. Fingers crossed on this one.   Friday, August 19 View Page This is our biggest pumpkin. The plant on this one is still in great shape. This one is approx 1050 pounds.   Friday, August 19 View Page View of the patch from the deck. Love looking out at all the big white sheets.   Friday, August 19 View Page This is our first year growing long gourds. Got a couple ones going.   Friday, August 19 View Page Also doing field pumpkins this year- we have several nice ones.   Friday, August 19 View Page Another field pumpkin.   Friday, August 19 View Page Sorry, duplicate picture on the other one. This is another field pumpkin-   Friday, August 19 View Page Our largest pumpkin is on the 1790 Wallace- forgot to mention that.   Tuesday, August 30 View Page We are going to have to start digging a hole if this long gourd gets any longer.   Friday, September 2 View Page We took the 1954 Lancaster pumpkin to the Hopkinton fair last night. Came in 2nd at 1140 pounds. Congrats to Bruce Whittier who took first place with his 1326 pound pumpkin.   Thursday, September 8 View Page 1101 Companion- Nice color, it will make a nice front yard decoration this fall.   Thursday, September 8 View Page 1552 LaRiviere- this one just hit the 60 day mark a day or so ago. In the 900 pound range- still growing good.   Thursday, September 8 View Page 1998 Jutras- around 1100 pounds   Thursday, September 8 View Page 1751 Geddes-   Thursday, September 8 View Page 1790 Wallace-   Thursday, September 8 View Page This is our lifting tripod. 16 foot 4X4's reinforced with plywood. It's heavy to set up, but once it's up, we leave it up for the season and it can easily be "walked" from one pumpkin to the next. It's nice to be able to load pumpkins by yourself if necessary.   Monday, September 19 View Page Took the 1998 Jutras to the Rochester Fair on Saturday. Came in 6th at 1230 pounds.   Tuesday, September 20 View Page Sorry, no idea why the above picture is upside down.   Tuesday, September 20 View Page Try this one more time.........   Tuesday, September 20 View Page I give up on that picture   Monday, October 3 View Page Took the 1790 Wallace pumpkin to Deerfield Fair, came in 4th at 1324 pounds   Monday, October 3 View Page Took the 1751 Geddes pumpkin to Topsfield, came in 8th at 1334 pounds   Tuesday, November 1 View Page 1956- 720 pounds