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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
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GR8 PMKN
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Salem, OR
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Entry 46 of 65 |
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Well, I'm doing what most pumpkin growers would consider unthinkable--leaving my patch for three weeks in July and August. And I haven't even decided which pumpkins to cull! The pumpkin gods always toy with us and the earlier sets on the 1041.5 and 1689 and perfect shapes and look so temptingly larger than the ones farther out . . . but, I'm pretty sure that I'll have one of my friends watching the patch chop those babies off in a week to twelve days. The 1689 pumpkin is basketball sized (11" long, 8" wide--sorry, no tape measure, just flying by the seat of my pants and estimating measurements by the width of my hand (9 1/2 inch hand) and was pollinated on the 4th of July. So, 13 days old and only a basketball. Not going to win Half Moon Bay with that, probably, plus that's the one the crazed chicked decided to peck. I'll see how big the two pumpkins 6' further down the vine are in ten days and make a decision (but those ones already have the mill fabric under them, so the decision is pretty much made). The 1041.5 pumpkins are a tougher choice: a perfect shaped pumpkin (long and no signs of flattening out or bulging in the blossom end) and the other pumpkin is 2 1/2 farther down the main vine. That one has a shape that is basically the same but shows (or is my mind playing tricks on me?) early signs of possibly flattening out or bulging in the blossom end. We'll see, but, again the second one has the mill fabric under it!
All vines were buried today and watered in and the timer is set to water every morning from 4:30 to 6:09. That's quite a bit of water but, hey, I am growing giant pumpkins, after all, and some excesses can be in order (sometimes--will monitor this)
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