Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 78 Entries. Friday, January 7 View Page Happy New Year everyone. This the new frame for the new greenhouse. We've had a lot of snow this year and that's why the greenhouse was designed to remove the poly at the end of each season.   Thursday, February 17 View Page Soil sample has been analyzed and the is the 1st attempt at calculating amendments for this season.   Thursday, February 17 View Page A podcast was made about how I grew the 1911 Chan. Warning ! ...its over an hour long. The interviewer herself was trying to grow a giant pumpkin and thought it would be fun to podcast my story. Search" TNP155 Growing Giant Pumpkins with Dave Chan".   Sunday, March 13 View Page A beautiful sunny afternoon to start installing the mister system.   Tuesday, March 22 View Page I've been WOW'd !!! WOW Mycorhrizae used at the transplant site and every vine burying site for the BC record 1911. Will do exactly the same this year??   Thursday, April 7 View Page First cut of the rye cover crop. March was very rainy and wet but April is warming up very fast.   Thursday, April 7 View Page This is the final choice. May the best seeds win! I will grow 3 this year.   Saturday, April 16 View Page Half bag of ProMix and half bag of Perlite spread over the planting site.   Saturday, April 16 View Page ProMix and Perlite spread out   Saturday, April 16 View Page First time cultivating inside the green house frame with the tractor. I had to be soooo careful.   Saturday, April 16 View Page After cultivating, the planting site is dug out and the heating cables are placed about 6 to 8 inches deep.   Saturday, April 16 View Page The hoops are put up, the heating cables and a brooding light are turned on to warm the soil before transplanting.   Monday, April 18 View Page Constructions of a mad pumpkin grower ! The 2 smaller hoops(10'x9') over the planting sites. The frame of 1 of 2 larger hoops(20'x14') over the smaller hoops.   Wednesday, April 20 View Page One of the larger hoops partially covered. Will build the 2nd large hoop as soon as it stops raining.   Saturday, April 30 View Page We have been experiencing cooler than average temperatures. On top of that there have been cool winds blowing almost daily. I mention this because it hasn't affected my plants very much! The large hoop is providing a lot of shelter and insulation for the smaller hoop. Together with soil heating cables and a 250 watt brooding light, I have been able to keep the soil temp to a minimum of 65F and often it goes higher on a warm day. The plant is a Barron 2118....the same seed that I planted last year to grow a 1911.   Sunday, May 8 View Page Getting desperate. My plants in the double hoops are growing a lot slower than previous years. Lower mounts of sunshine and lower temperatures are the cause. So in a desperate attempt to heat the soil more and better I am installing 2 layers of heating cables. This is the 1st or deepest layer at about 11 or 12 inches. I covered this with about 4 inches of soil.   Sunday, May 8 View Page This is the 2nd set of heating cables on top of the 1st or deeper ones. As I said in the previous post, my plants are slow to grow. I started 10 days earlier this year and they are at the same level as last year.   Wednesday, May 18 View Page Posing beside one of my other giants in our back yard, a giant redwood. I love my new jacket ! Thanks to Glenn, Ian, Ron, Cindy, Don, the GPC and all the people who have given great advice for many years. I love my new jacket!   Thursday, May 19 View Page 40 seeds in 40 Ziplocks soaking for the farmer's weighoff. All seeds are different. Only Janet knows the code. Most seeds are 1500 pounds or more and all have been generously given over time. It will be interesting to see how many and how old the seed germinations will be. The names and weights of the seeds will be divulged at the weighoff.   Tuesday, May 24 View Page Old seeds matter!! Of the 40 seeds that I tried to germinate for the farmer's weighoff only 29 sprouted. The seeds that didn't sprout were between 6 and 13 years old.   Tuesday, May 24 View Page Barron 2118. Picture was taken at the peak heat of the day so leaves a little droopy but growing nicely and on the main vine is on the ground.   Tuesday, May 24 View Page Chan 1911. It's 2 ft longer than the Barron and the vine is on the ground with a very large main vine.   Tuesday, May 24 View Page Some fairly heavy rain days are coming our way soon. A section of the roof of the greenhouse was installed to test it's strength and slope. Fingers crossed!   Wednesday, June 1 View Page Barron 2118 Nice healthy plant. Just waiting for some babies.   Wednesday, June 1 View Page Chan 1911. Also a nice healthy plant about a foot longer than the Barron 2118   Friday, June 10 View Page The ends of the large hoop were removed this morning. Barron 2118 is 14'4". Chan 1911 is 15' long. We had a couple of females at 10' but that was too early. Hopefully more sunshine is on its way and will force a few babies to appear.   Sunday, June 12 View Page I'm having a triple whammy day! 23 years ago I met my beautiful wife, the Barron 2118 has a baby at 16 ft AND the Chan1911 has a baby at 17 ft !!   Sunday, June 12 View Page This short series of pics is about vine burying ....the most important thing we do to get really big pumpkins. At the arrow you can see a white root that looks a little like a bean sprout. A few years ago growers knew about this and buried the vines to get an extra root at each leaf node. Check out the next picture.   Sunday, June 12 View Page What growers like IanP discovered, was that there was another root that came out of the top of the vine. In order for them to form they must be covered with enough soil to keep them moist and in the dark. Roots will not grow if the sense light. So now we have a method of doubling the number of roots forming at each leaf node. See next pic.   Sunday, June 12 View Page This my method of vine burying. You can see that there is 4 to 5 inches of soil piled onto the vine. That's it! Sometimes you'll see that top root will pop out of the pile of vine burying soil . Simply add some more soil to generously cover the root.   Sunday, June 12 View Page The vine burying mixture. The darker pile of soil is compost made from recycled greens and food waste at the City of Vancouver recycling facility. The lighter gray pile is a sandy lawn mixture. I add about 25% of the lawn mixture to the compost. It makes the compost a little easier to work with IMO. To the wheel barrow half full of the compost mixture I add 2/3 cup mycorrhizae, 1/4 cup Azos, and 1 cup of Gaia Green. Its a 4-4-4 organic mixture of everything. Happy vine burying. A lot of hard work no matter which technique you are using. Just remember ....2 roots are better than 1.   Sunday, June 12 View Page Sorry pics 30 and 31 are sideways.   Wednesday, June 22 View Page Barron 2118 pollinated by self at 18 feet with 18 secondaries.   Wednesday, June 22 View Page This is a picture of both plants, Barron 2118 and Chan 1911. The plants seem to be in perfect health and size. The fact that I have not given these plants one drench or foliar feed since transplant is, in my opinion, amazing ! Both plants have produced a balance of many female and male flowers with excellent pollen. My point of all this is to emphasize the balance of nutrients provided with the Langley Soil Estimator. Many thanks to Cecil Weston for helping me understand and use this great growing tool.   Sunday, June 26 View Page The misters are running just in time for our heat wave. 2 fried leaves yesterday.   Sunday, July 3 View Page The patch this morning. At or bigger than a "normal" year as we had a very cool spring. The Barron 2118 is DAP 11. Lots of fingers crossed that this is the "ONE".   Sunday, July 3 View Page Barron 2118 Dap 11   Sunday, July 3 View Page For some reason this year the pictures are coming through upside down and sideways. Anyone know why? I've never had this problem before.   Tuesday, July 5 View Page Just a note for novice growers who are pollinating their pumpkins. Carefully look at the male flower to see nice fresh pollen. Obviously the flower on the left is very poor. Success rate should get better with really good pollen.   Tuesday, July 5 View Page Just showing what good vine burying can produce. This top root is on a secondary vine midway up the plant.   Tuesday, July 5 View Page The latest soil test. Everything looks really good. I'll put these numbers through the Langley estimator to see what it needs for better ratios. I still haven't applied any foliar or drenching fertilizers since spring amendments.   Tuesday, July 12 View Page Barron 2118. DAP 20. The fruit is a little smaller than last year and the plant is larger.   Wednesday, July 13 View Page This is a picture of the leaves in the middle of the Chan 1911 in patch #2. I'm showing this to show how perfect the plant is growing. Please see next entry.   Wednesday, July 13 View Page This is a picture of the soil underneath the leaves in the previous pic. I think you would agree it is pretty well perfect and weedless. Read on.   Wednesday, July 13 View Page I used Roundup to kill the weeds!! I got the idea, which I have tried before, with great success but it was messy and dangerous. And, I was losing valuable nutrients to the weeds. In other words , I couldn't keep up with the pace of the weeds. I purchased the spray wand on Amazon to see if the long reach would help me deliver the Roundup to the weeds without dripping on the pumpkin leaves. Obviously it worked. The roundup was applied 9 days ago. This wand is all metal including the valve and nozzle and is much more precise than the plastic wands that come with most sprayers. I know that this is not a new idea and many growers have used roundup before. It is wand with its precision that made all the difference....for me.   Thursday, July 14 View Page Just wanted to mention that I only selected very mature leaves and vines to spray round up. This also coincides with the most mature and most weeds . Definitely not brave enough to use it around newer leaves but it is a lot easier to hoe those weeds anyhow.   Friday, July 22 View Page DAP 30 Barron 2118. Ott 237" Fingers crossed for Patons !!!!   Friday, July 22 View Page An update on my roundup experiment. So far no leaves lost from the 1st application on July 11th. Weeds totally under control. 2nd application this morning for stragglers.   Monday, July 25 View Page DAP 30 Chan 1911 OTT 251" This pumpkin will be interesting to watch as it grows over the blossom end.   Tuesday, July 26 View Page At this time of year as the pumpkins get bigger and harder to measure, here is my trick on the measuring tape. In this and the previous picture you can see a piece of steel fastened to the end of the tape. Duct tape works well. It gives the tape end a lot of weight so that when it hits the ground on the opposite side of where you're standing you can easily read the the ott. The piece of steel is 9" long 3/4" wide and 3/16" thick. Or you can use any piece you have lying around.   Saturday, July 30 View Page What is it??? A flying saucer ? A giant mushroom? No ! It's a Chan 1911. DAP 35 Ott 291. But it is a beautiful morning in the patch at 6 am. The Barron 2118 and the Chan 1911 Ott measurements are exactly the same today!! Totally different shapes.   Saturday, July 30 View Page A number of new growers are asking about the best way to treat trimmed leaves and vines. This is the method I learned from Glenn ( North Shore Boyz) and have been using it for more than 10 years. Get a tall plastic jar(no rust) and half fill it with sulphur. Every season use a new sharp disposable blade to do your trimming. After trimming, brush on a liberal coat of sulphur. Cut the brush handle to fit into the jar and store both blade and brush in it. Generally, I feel that this amount of care is only necessary around the stump and main vine to the pumpkin. All other trimming...use scissors.   Saturday, August 6 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 45 Ott 326 She's 88 lbs lighter than the Barron 2118 last year.   Wednesday, August 10 View Page WEEDS.....what weeds? This is the 1st year that I've used roundup for the whole plant....all 3 of them. The instructions called for a 70:1 dilution and a neighboring farmer told that 100:1 dilution works just as well. As you can see things are looking pretty good after my 3rd application. I still pull weeds when I'm burying vines. I think I have every weed hoe made and then some and use them all. Some stats of the plants with roundup. Each plant has a thousand sq ft and is the earliest to fill the space....all 3 plants. So it would seem that roundup hasn't stunted the growth of the plants. My largest kin is 916 lbs on DAP 49. That's better than my average at this time of year. One other fun fact is that I always have a very heavy infestation of powdery mildew. This year so far I have none and the leaves are the best looking leaves for this date in my patch ever!!   Friday, August 12 View Page Going Going Gone !!! Blossom end Chan1911 DAP 48 946 lbs   Monday, August 22 View Page May the guy with the largest crack win!!!.........NOTHING   Monday, August 29 View Page It works!! A retractable roof on the pumpkin greenhouse. The idea was to have as much natural sunshine on the plants as possible. It was necessary for this year as we are having a late August hot spell. With the roof on the greenhouse, it could easily get over a 100 degrees in a very short period of time. It can be rolled it up or down in 5 minutes. Every evening it goes down to keep the plants as warm as possible. Hopefully this translate into pounds.   Sunday, September 4 View Page The retractable roof was a disaster when it rained today. 2000 sq ft of poly can collect many gallons of water per second and it pooled in 3 sections. We had to scramble to secure it permanently and keep the poly tight to prevent it from sagging and creating pools. Another day in a pumpkin grower's life. Happy to say the kins are growing well.   Wednesday, September 14 View Page The challenges of growing !!!   Thursday, September 15 View Page Number 2 in as many days !! How many rats could be in there?? Lol. My 24"x24" rubber mats separated by the growing pressures of the pumpkin and created a space for the rats to gain access.   Sunday, September 18 View Page This pumpkin has been a lot of worry and work. The Chan 1911. It grew over the blossom end. Because of that, it stretched the main vine so much that it really stressed the stem. It got a stem rot which might be under control. And it got attacked by rats.   Sunday, September 18 View Page #3   Monday, September 19 View Page #4 this morning!! You won't need a picture. They all look the same. And ...they all love peanut butter !!! lol   Saturday, October 8 View Page I guess rats like hazelnuts too !! This is what was under the Chan1911 when we lifted it. Fortunately they liked nuts more than pumpkin. Not a scratch.   Saturday, October 8 View Page Just a follow up picture of the Chan 1911 patch. There were at least 4 applications of round up sprayed at a dilution of 1:100. Recommended rate is 1:70 . So results on the weeds is clearly fantastic ! Check out the results on the pumpkin next entry.   Saturday, October 8 View Page This is the Chan 1676 . 8% heavy. 1st Place   Saturday, October 15 View Page Thanks to the PGVG in Tualatin for a wonderful, super well organized and fun weekend at the Terminator. As you can see the weigh off was held inside the Stickmen Brewery and the event was called "Pumpkins and Pints"! Now how civilized is that !! Hard to tell which was better....beer or weigh off LOL.   Saturday, October 15 View Page The setup inside the brewery.   Saturday, October 15 View Page Jack LaRue and his big tomato.   Saturday, October 15 View Page The smallest pumpkin ever to be officially weighed at a weigh off possibly in the world....3.5 lbs. The story goes something like this. You need 3 weigh offs with 3 pumpkins that total over 4000 lbs to get a GPC jacket. But Mohammed already had more than 4000 lbs with 2 pumpkins so why bother with the 3rd ! NOT!! You need to attend 3 weigh offs so Mohammed picked a stray from his patch and flew to Tualatin to earn his jacket. A grower has to do what he has to do as the saying goes!   Sunday, October 16 View Page A great day at the Terminator Weighoff in Tualatin Oregon. The Barron 2118 gave me a Chan 1728 enough for 1st place. She's 5% heavy.   Sunday, October 16 View Page Hollowing out the giants for the big race.   Sunday, October 16 View Page Taking great care to make the giants sea worthy.   Sunday, October 16 View Page A scary paddler.   Sunday, October 16 View Page Getting ready at the start line.   Sunday, October 16 View Page One of the best days that the races have been held. This is the view from Trevor and Joanne's balcony over looking the lake.   Sunday, October 16 View Page While driving 300 miles back home to Canada someone took our picture. He sent it to his friend Josh who also attended the Terminator. Josh forwarded the picture to Trevor who also attended the Terminator who then sent it to us! The internet is amazing...eh? The end of an amazing and fun and memorable pumpkin year !   Sunday, October 16 View Page Sorry for the sideways pictures. Don't know why its happening. Pics are all good in my folders Cheers!