Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 83 Entries. Thursday, March 27 View Page It's been a cool winter here. We had total snow coverage from the end of November until the end of February, which is odd for us. Other than a few days of warm weather and wicked winds, it has been a cool spring. The farm got tilled yesterday, and the home patch today. Soil temp is 3 degrees, which is cold for us. Plastic is covering as much as I can to heat things up. This is more for my own records. I'm going to try to get the frames up this week. April is going to be busy, gotta get things done now.   Wednesday, April 16 View Page Started the home seeds yesterday. I'm going with the 522 Zaychkowsky. Eddy's got me convinced they are the ones for me. One opened tonight, still waiting on the second. The hoophouse at home is finished, and hopefully stronger this year. The farm house is almost done. Things are a lot busier this year. I'm amazed I have time for this. I'll start the farm seeds in a few days.   Thursday, April 17 View Page Another nice day, if you call 70km/h winds nice. The hoophouse is holding up nicely and the soil is warming up.   Friday, April 18 View Page Ahh, springtime on the prairies. About 4 inches fell overnight and the wind was just howling. There's a blizzard warning out for later today.   Saturday, April 19 View Page While the snow falls and the wind howls, there's work to be done. Inside the hoophouse was nice and warm, about 19 degrees, and the soil temp was 15 celcius. Gotta get the heating cables into the ground today. Here's my two boys helping to get the job done. My daughter started to help, but there was a spider hanging from the frame and that forced her out to shovel the snow. Both of my 522's have shed their coats and are under lights inside. I'm going to start the farm seeds on the 20th.   Sunday, April 27 View Page Back from Calgary for the weekend, the two 522's are planted at home. April 20th, I started the farm seeds. Two 1011 07 Zaychkowsky's and 2 of my 583 07 Makarchuk squash (848 Mackenzie x selfed)   Sunday, May 4 View Page The farm plants went in today. The two 1011 Zaychkowsky's are in the front, the 583 Makarchuk squash in the back. My oldest finally gets his own plant this year. I showed him all my seeds and gave him the option to pick any one, or one of mine. Good boy, he chose dad's seed from last year. We started 3 of my 579's from last year (354 Makarchuk x 753 Eaton) It should produce something nice and orange. His plant will get about 150-200 square feet in the corner of the farm plot, and won't see a hoophouse. It's his seed, and he's going to do the work.   Friday, May 9 View Page Just cold and crappy. I put the Kozykoats on the farm plant today. They barely fit, but it was snowing and downright frigid. Andrew is doing a great job with his seeds. All 3 are up and under lights in the basement. They'll go in once I get back from Ottawa on Victoria day. I'll be gone for 5 days on a band trip and who knows what I'll come back to. I started an extra just as a backup for me, just in case.   Monday, May 12 View Page I've got some competition in the patch this year. I've given Andrew his own plants to grow. He put in two of my 579's from last year. He'll get about 200 square feet in the corner with a flag patterns. He keeps saying he'll beat me. With my luck, he will.   Friday, May 16 View Page Here's myself leading the St. Mary's Senior Concert Band at Musicfest 2008 in Ottawa. 10,000 other students in concert bands, jazz bands and choirs performed this week. We managed to pull out a bronze award. For our first time at nationals, this is a big deal. We had an absolute great time. Thanks to the 21 students and 8 parents who came with us who made my life so easy and way too much fun.   Sunday, May 18 View Page I got up at 5:30 on our last morning in Ottawa and went for my run. Ottawa is such a pretty place this time of year.   Tuesday, May 20 View Page I'm back from Ottawa. It was an amazing trip. Some of the best musical experiences of my life. Thanks to all the kids and parents who went with us. The two 522's at home were burnt while I was away. We had some intense heat and they got singed pretty good, but they are still going.   Tuesday, May 20 View Page Here's the farm plants. They suffered a bit from the heat, but I've got an old piece of plastic on these and they have some natural ventilation in the roof. One of the farm cats had babies yesterday.We'll have 4 more running around in a few months, and 4 more names to remember. Anyone want a cat?   Wednesday, June 4 View Page Life is always fun. I did a half marathon in Lethbridge on June 1st. I felt great and did it in 2 hours, 2 minutes flat. Not bad as a training run, but I really wanted to beat 2 hours. Anyways, shortly after, life gets fun. I ended up in the hospital and had my appendix out. Lying in the hospital bed in pain, all I could think about was my plants. I finally got out of the hospital today and haven't seen my plants since Saturday. Even though I can barely walk upright, here I am today, being an idiot, trying to train vines annd remove an extra plant. Apparently it was quite amusing to my mother who was looking after my kids. So, at home we're down to the 1 522 Zaychkowsky. It's got quite a nice main going, I'm guessing about 5-6 feet. My friend Les at the farm is taking care of my plants, as well as Andrew's. He says they are doing fine. I thought I wasn't obsessed with these pumpkins and was leading a more balanced life. I guess I was wrong.   Monday, June 9 View Page Monsoon season is here, otherwise known as June, or soccer season. We're not looking for rain, but sunshine. The soil is super saturated and more rain is in the forecast. I culled one of the 1011's. They were both identical in terms of their development, so I let my kids decide. They were at 5 foot vines and both developing nicely. At home, the 522 is chugging along at 6-8 inches a day of vine a day and has a female at about 6 feet out. A bit early, so I'm hoping for another one in a bit.   Sunday, June 22 View Page Here's the 522 at home. It has a female that should open in 5-6 days at around 12-13 feet out. My plan is to keep the greenhouse up all year and keep the pumpkin inside the greenhouse. If this one takes, it should just fit inside. That's the plan. The rain finally stopped about a week ago and it has been hot this week, but the wind came a howlin again today.   Tuesday, June 24 View Page A female on the 1011 at the farm opened up today. It was 7 feet out and a little mangled 5 lober. I pollinated it anyways with the 522. It will have another opening in about 10 days I'd rather keep.   Saturday, June 28 View Page The hoophouse at the farm came down today. I'm shocked that I actually built it well enough to withstand everything that was thrown at it. A few hours after this picture was taken, a few cows got our and took a trip through the garden. There was a footprint 2 inches from the main vine of my squash. I got lucky!   Saturday, June 28 View Page Here's the 583 squash. It's at least 10 days away still from pollination. She's not the fastest grower I've ever had.   Saturday, June 28 View Page This is Andrew's 579 Makarchuk. It is starting to take off. He's a lot of fun to work with. He has a lot of questions and remembers everything I tell him. I think next year I might have to give him spot in the hoophouse.   Sunday, June 29 View Page I pollinated the 522 Zaychkowsky this morning. I selfed it as I had no other males from any of my other plants. It's 13 feet out. It hit 34 today and we still managed to get in 9 holes of golf. Geez, it was hot!   Sunday, June 29 View Page Here's the 522 at home. The cover has been rolled back for a week, but can be put back on quickly if there's a threat of hail. Ok, no one make fun of my construction techniques!   Monday, June 30 View Page It was just too good to be true. I had not snapped my main vine on my pumpkin plant out at the farm this year. Well, it would not be the same, so today, it became year three of growing a pumpkin with a snapped main vine. My beautiful 2 1/2 year old son was watching my oldest and myself prune the plants. Well, he just had to get in there. He started tugging on the main vine of the squash, but I managed to stop him. Well, he then proceeded to run around to the other side of the garden and prune off the end of my 1011 Zaychkowsky. UGH! The good news is, I already have one set, but it is only at 7 feet. There is another one about 5 inches behind where he pruned the plant which should open later this week. So, I'll just train another secondary to be the main again. At least he made a beautiful, clean cut. He was very good at that! Plus, he was just too darn cute to get too mad.   Saturday, July 5 View Page I pollinated the 1011 at the farm this morning. A five lobe flower at 10 feet out was crossed with the 522 Zaychkowsky. The squash should open at about 12 feet in 3-4 days.   Sunday, July 6 View Page I had to ask myself a zillion times why I did it again, but I am glad I sucked it up this morning. Another Sunday in July, another marathon. I can't believe I did it 5 weeks after having my appendix out. My time sucked, my legs screamed and yelled, but it got done. Yes, I'll do it again.   Wednesday, July 9 View Page Andrew's first female flower opened today. He got to choose the pollinator, and he chose the 1011 Zaychkowsky. The vine position isn't the best, but we'll use this as a learning opportunity.   Saturday, July 12 View Page Wouldn't you know it, probably the only morning this summer where I'm gone, and my friend Les is gone, the first squash flower opens. We got home about 7:30pm from a camping trip and the flower was still open. I added some more pollen from a few males. I hope the bees did their job. There's not another female on the main for another week or so. There's a female a few inches off the main just before this one that will open in a few days.   Saturday, July 12 View Page Apparently while we were gone we got a bit of hail. No damage out at the farm, but most leaves at home look like this. No damage to the pumpkin, though.   Monday, July 14 View Page Here's the pumpkin on the 1011. The pollination of July 5th didn't take. Another female opened today, but it was a mangled mess of a 3 lobe something. I didn't even bother. Since my son pruned the main, it's almost stopped growing. I guess this is the one I'm going with. The shade tent went up later today.   Tuesday, July 15 View Page All I can say is, WOW! There was a rather wicked storm that went through tonight. We were on the south edge of it. Wild, wild north winds howled for about 30 minutes. Just north of us there were tornados and large hail. This was the scariest thunderstorm I have ever seen. On the bad note, the wind snapped the main of my 1011 Zaychkowsky at the farm. It tipped over the BBQ, blew the water tank across the garden, and ripped off several large branches off the trees. The pics will come tomorrow. This was wild.   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Here's what the patch looked like.   Wednesday, July 16 View Page Note to self, another female on Andrew's 579 opened today, pollinated with 1011 Zaychkowsky. First controlled pollination on the 583 squash. This was selfed.   Thursday, July 17 View Page The post pounder got tipped by the wind, the pvc water tank got blown across the garden, siding off the quanset got ripped off, and the BBQ got flipped.   Thursday, July 17 View Page Les has a plane out at the airport north of town. It's the yellow and white one on the right. It sustained some damage, but nothing compared to other planes. An entire hanger, complete with crop dusting planes inside, was levelled. Another plane was flipped over. We were very lucky.   Wednesday, July 23 View Page Here's the pumpkin on the 522 Zaychkowsky. We're back after 5 days away. We had a good dump of rain while we were gone and the patch is saturated.   Wednesday, July 23 View Page The 1011 Zaychkowsky.   Wednesday, July 23 View Page The farm patch. The peas are all done and my daughter started picking her carrots today. My squash and Andrew's pumpkin are looking good...the plants,that is. Hopefully the pollinations from last week will take.   Thursday, July 24 View Page This is why my pumpkins have claw marks on them.   Friday, August 1 View Page Ugh, it's August already. This is the pumpkin off the 522 Zaychkowsky.   Friday, August 1 View Page 1011 Zaychkowsky. It's been a convection oven around here the past few days. Hot and windy. Ugh, it sucks the moisture out of everything!   Friday, August 1 View Page The 583 Makarchuk squash. It was pollinated on the 16th. The plant is huge and all secondaries have been terminated. It's about 18 feet out, just a few inches off the main on a secondary. It never produced a female on the main until 16 feet out, but it, and the others on the main, all aborted.   Friday, August 1 View Page Here's Andrew's pumpkin, it was also pollinated on the 16th. He culled one of the top pumpkins today. His plant has also ran out of room. He's excited he gets to measure it every day, although his measuring skills need to be double checked.   Wednesday, August 6 View Page Here's the farm patch. The pumpkin is off the 1011 Zaychkowsky.   Wednesday, August 6 View Page Good grief! I show up and there's cats on the pumpkins. I leave, and they get back on. I think one sleeps on the 1011.   Friday, August 8 View Page Andrew is excited his pumpkin is finally starting to take off. He's hoping to hit 300 pounds. With some decent weather, he should have no problem. The pumpkin is off my 579 Makarchuk 07, and the squash is off my 583 Makarchuk 07. All three at the farm have their own little tent now.   Saturday, August 16 View Page Back from a little vacation up in the mountains and all pumpkins survived. Days have been hot, nights have been cold. I'm still waiting for my split here at home. This is the 522.   Saturday, August 16 View Page The 1011.   Saturday, August 16 View Page Andrew's 579.   Saturday, August 16 View Page The 583 squash.   Saturday, August 23 View Page Things are starting to cool off. Earlier this week, we hit 39 celcius with a good wind. It felt like a convection oven. Now it's getting close to fall and the overnight lows are dipping. Here's the 1011.   Saturday, August 23 View Page Here's the squash and Andrew's pumpkin. His is starting to look really nice.   Sunday, August 24 View Page The 522 at home. She's starting to show her age.   Sunday, August 24 View Page Things are getting a little cold at night, so it's time to put the cover back on. It's the first time I've tried this, hopefully the wind won't take it out. The heaters are running at night.   Sunday, August 24 View Page The view of the 522 from inside. I had to trim off some of the vines along the fence to get the cover back on. It's been a screwed up year. All the other local growers had bad years. June was brutal and most everyone has total crop failures. I'm the only sucker crazy enough to protect them enough. Even my acorn squash and zucchini are bad. Normally we can't find enough people to take our zucchini, but so far, we've only had 1 small one and nothing on the go. Just a bad year for this stuff.   Tuesday, September 2 View Page Brrrrr, it was nippy last night. Good old Environment Canada, issuing a frost warning for here. I'm glad they issued it at 4:37 this morning. I went to bed thinking everything would be fine, I woke up to find a bit of ice on one of the shade tents at the farm. I don't think it was that bad, but it was a rude awakening.   Monday, September 15 View Page The frost from the second took about 1/3 of the leaves at the farm. Despite that, things are still chugging away, with the 1011 still putting on 5-6 pounds a day at day 80. This one is a fighter, slow and stead. We had a 1 1/2 inches of rain late last week, and now it's summer weather. Hot during the day and warm nights for the next 5 days. Last week I was worried about frost, this week, something else, and it's much worse. The 522 at home is still crusing at 6-7 pounds a day. The skin is pretty old and rough, not the prettiest pumpkin I've ever grown. The blossom end has been completely gone for quite a while. I had to dig out about 8-10 inches down in the dirt just to get the camera under it to check the blossom. I'm really curious to see what it looks like once we lift it out of the patch. It's showing some pretty good stretch marks on the shoulders with some ooze from yesterday, but it's still holding together. I'll try to post more pics this week along with some numbers.   Saturday, September 20 View Page The weather's been great the past week: warm and sunny. It should change next week, so I took the covers off today and did some measuring. Here's the farm pumpkins.   Saturday, September 20 View Page Another view. Top left is the 1011 Zaychkowsky, bottom left is Andrew's 579 Makarchuk, and the squash is the 583 Makarchuk.   Saturday, September 20 View Page Here's a closeup of the 1011 and my dog. It's been muddy the past week and poor Maggie hasn't been able to follow me around the patch. She's happy to be able to come out again and play with the cats. The 1011 today is at day 87 and is still putting on 3-4 pounds a day. She's at 148, 84 1/2, 88 1/2 for an OTT of 321 and an estimated weight of 697 pounds.   Saturday, September 20 View Page Here's Andrew's 579 Makarchuk. It's got a great shape and nice colour. For getting a bad spot in the garden, not doing his weeding and vine burying, he's done pretty well for an 8 year old. His pumpkin, on day 63, is 115, 74 1/2, 75 1/2 for an OTT of 265 and estimated weight of 398. His goal for his first year was 300 pounds. This one got hit by frost the most and is only doing a pound or 2 a day.   Saturday, September 20 View Page Here's my youngest and the 583 Makarchuk squash. Alex loves coming out to......"help" He pulled a few carrots and had a good snack. He also picked up a piece of rebar and tried to put a hole in the 1011. The 583 was grown on a secondary and just hasn't performed as well as I had hoped. Today it is day 63 and is only doing a few pounds a day. It is at 105, 75, 71 for an OTT of 251 and estimated weight of 341   Sunday, September 21 View Page And finally, here's the 522 at home. It's got a few problems on the go. Powdery mildew has struck my patch. Quite a few older leaves inside the hoophouse have it, while none of them outside have it. I've never had it before on any pumpkin. The other problem is the stretch marks on the ribs coming from the stem. Some of them are getting quite long and deep. The pumpkin has been secreting ooze to cover things over. So, in my attempt to keep the pumpkin from wrecking itself, I started to cut off all of the powdery mildew leaves. Today I severed the main past the main to the outside. I don't want very much, if any growth any more. 11 more days until it gets harvested, I just want to get her out of the patch healthy.   Sunday, September 21 View Page Side view of the 522. I'm still not sure which one to take to Smoky. Both the 101 and the 522 have not put up big daily numbers, but instead slow and steady. No one has taken the lead and have been very close to each other in numbers. Today the 522 is at 151, 86, 84 for an OTT of 321, the exact same as the 1011. The 522 feels more solid than the 1011. A lot can happen in the next few weeks and maybe I won't have to make a hard decision.   Monday, September 29 View Page It couldn't wait six more days. SIX MORE DAYS! We came home from camping yesterday and I checked the 522 at home. Things looked fine, but then I found the blossom end was starting to turn VERY soft. Today, it has spread to about 1/4 of the pumpkin. Give it a thump and it starts to jiggle. UGH! It couldn't wait 6 more days. It is starting to get too mushy to even pull it out of the garden. I'm disappointed I won't even get a weight on it. It will get chopped up tomorrow and the seeds removed. UGH! I just can't win with pumpkins from my back yard!   Tuesday, September 30 View Page Here's the side view of the 522 Zaychkowsky today. My daughter was playing in the sandbox and asked what that smell was. I think it's time to come out.   Tuesday, September 30 View Page The kids helped me for a while, which means they were allowed to take sticks and hammers and take shots at the pumpkin. Once they had their fun, we opened it up. I have to say, this is one of the most revolting tasks I have ever undertaken. I've cleaned up a lot of messes in my life, but nothing compared to this. The bottom was paper thin in spots. I couldn't figure out where the problem came from, but it has been an abnormally warm fall. I started to gather seeds, but I almost lost my dinner a few times, so I only got about 50 or so. Many seeds were too far gone to salvage. I guess I know which pumpkin is going to Smoky! 2 more days until they are loaded up.   Tuesday, September 30 View Page I thought I'd share one more photo of my pride and joy (up to this weekend) We have big garbage bins in the backyard that we can put compostables in. For the sake of my neighbours, I sure hope they come and empty ours tomorrow!   Thursday, October 2 View Page Another hot day. It's been an abnormally hot fall so far. We picked the pumpkins at the farm today. The comment kept coming up that we always used to do this freezing our butts off. Today, we were sweating. I had quite a scare tonight. We used the lifting ring and we had the 1011 pumpkin just about above the pallet on the trailer, when the knot on the rope slipped and down it came. There was some superficial damage to a bit of the skin and the stem snapped off, but that was about it. The crowd watching was quite scared that the pumpkin could have been damaged, or the trailer could have been hurt. No one seemed to care that this massive piece of pumpkin flesh could have crashed on ME! Thanks guys. We hoisted it back up, checked underneath, and repositioned it.   Thursday, October 2 View Page My 1011 Zaychkowsky and 583 Makarchuk squash are headed to Smoky Lake. Along the way, I'll be dropping off Andrew's 579 Makarchuk at the Greenhaven charity weighoff in Lethbridge. He has hockey try-outs Saturday, so he can't make the trip. He's hoping he'll do well down south. I'll pick it up on the return trip. He's excited to carve it in a few weeks.   Saturday, October 4 View Page It's weighoff day. Andrew had his pumpkin entered at the Greenhaven Garden Centre in Lethbridge. They had a charity weighoff. His pumpkin measured 78-78-115 for an OTT of 271 with an estimated weight of 425. The results, first place with a weight of 396 pounds. Great job big guy!   Saturday, October 4 View Page After a long drive, it's time for the Smoky Lake weigh-off. I picked up my parents in Calgary and away we went. Here's the 1011 and the rest of the field.   Saturday, October 4 View Page First up was the squash. It measured 78-72-108.5 for an OTT of 258.5 and estimated weight of 371. Up on the scale it's at 354.5 This surprised me when I showed up, but it managed to bring in first place.   Saturday, October 4 View Page Next up was the pumpkin. Final measurements were 90.5, 91.5, 151 for an ott of 334 and estimated weight of 783. The stem did snap off, so that should have given me at least another half a pound or so. Turns out, that would have come in handy. It weighed 770.5   Saturday, October 4 View Page Well I'll be. Eddy Zaychkowsky's pumpkin turned out to weigh the exact same 770.5 pounds, good enough for a tie for first place. Not the biggest pumpkins to win first, but it was interesting for the crowd.   Saturday, October 11 View Page I think I'm going through withdrawl. The wind was howling earlier this week and all I could think about in the middle of the night was if my hoophouses and pumpkins woudl be intact in the morning. It took me a few minutes to remember that everything is over except for Halloween! So, today it was time to relax a bit. A local farm had a pumpkin festival, complete with pumpkin canon. This was a blast. Literally! My kids kept the pumpkins falling short of the target. I raised the barrel and almost took out a cow over the fence. No one ever could hit the target, but it was a lot of fun.   Thursday, October 30 View Page Well, it's time to open things up. Here's some pics of my crew.   Thursday, October 30 View Page Here's my 770.5 and my youngest trying to get the seeds out. There were about 3-400 inside.   Thursday, October 30 View Page What fun is a giant pumpkin if you can't go inside. I made it almost all the way in, but I'm getting a little older, not as flexible, and almost couldn't get out. My oldest did manage to get all the way in. We opened up Andrew's 396 as well. It had lots of seeds as well.   Thursday, October 30 View Page So here's the pic of Andrew.   Friday, October 31 View Page Here's what we came up with for Halloween. Andrew worked really well carving his.   Friday, October 31 View Page Haul out a few big pumpkins, and you get some good crowds! It was an absolutely beautiful night. I've never seen a Halloween this warm...WITHOUT WIND! I sat on the front step in a light sweater and handed out candy...and answered a zillion questions. My favorite this year was "Where did you buy those?"   Friday, October 31 View Page Finally, here's the pumpkins all lit up. The next day, the pumpkins were chopped up and added to the compost bins. About a yard of compost, 20 bags of leaves and coffee grounds were added to the home patch. So far, I'm up to about 70 bags of leaves for the farm, a few yards of horse manure and more coffee. This will get tilled in later this week. It has been a beautiful fall. November 2nd saw our last golf game. The course is in great shape, but it's time to get it ready for the snow...if it comes.   Monday, December 1 View Page It's been a really warm fall. My petunias and snapdragons are still going strong. I debated on cutting the grass last week, but the hockey schedule was too busy. The ground is far from ready for winter. We tilled in the farm patch on the 22nd of November. About 80 bags of leaves and 3 pickup trucks of horse manure went into the ground. We also started a compost pile (can't belive I never had one out there before). I also did 3 weeks worth of coffee grounds collection. Just too busy to do it longer. I'll start it up again in March. This pretty much ends the year. Both my 770.5 and Andrew's 396 had lots of seeds. If anyone's interested, e-mail me and I'd be happy to get you some. The 770.5 Makarchuk is a 522 Zaychkowsky x 1011 Zaychkowsky. The 396 is a 587 Makarchuk (lots of orange) x 1011 Zaychkowsky.