Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 24 Entries. Thursday, February 20 View Page 2025 season begins! Looking back on my first attempt at a giant pumpkin in 2022… My 808 Grubbs 19 seed was doing great, growing about 25 lbs a day by the chart when mice ate a hole on the bottom of the pumpkin on about day 50 after pollination. This ended the season in mid August, pumpkin was just under 1,000 lbs by the crane scale. Tried again in 2023 with both plants lost to bacterial disease in late July.   Friday, February 21 View Page 2023 before things went south. Drone view of both plants growing from the center of the garden, one growing to the left, and one to the right. This was taken just before pollination.   Saturday, February 22 View Page 2023s season ended here, rot setting in at the blossom end, not sure where this came from, best guess is that it was in the soil from last year.   Saturday, February 22 View Page A closer look at 2023s dead pumpkin. Plan analysis was sent to the lab...   Saturday, February 22 View Page Western Laboratory analysis showed high pseudomonas, I am assuming this was the culprit, but not sure why, plan was dry and little rain, using drip irrigation. Has anyone else delt with something like this?   Sunday, February 23 View Page 2024. I didn’t try to grow pumpkins last year, instead gave the patch a break and tried to eliminate any disease in the soil. Starting with hydrogen peroxide. Ran 2 gallons of food grade peroxide through my drip irrigation system from the fertilizer injector at the end of 2023 season.   Sunday, February 23 View Page 2024. The next step to prepare for the patch for 2025 was solarization. This is a non-chemical way to (hopefully) sterilize the soil using trapped solar heat. Clear plastic covered the entire garden through the summer months to trap heat and try to kill off any pathogens. Mid-summer the plastic sheeting was removed, and the soil was tilled. Then new plastic sheeting was reinstalled shifted over a few feet to cover previously exposed areas.   Sunday, February 23 View Page 2024. Soil prep continued into the fall with many loads of mulched leaves from the lawn-vac added to the patch. Leaf-mulch was about 6 inches deep. This pic was taken before the mulch was worked into the soil with multiple passes on the tiller. More HP on the tiller would have made this a lot easier. The central area was the last to have the solarization cover removed, and leaves were added here later as well.   Sunday, February 23 View Page The patch viewed from above as it currently sits at the end of February. I have my potted tulips buried in leaf mulch waiting for spring. Next week should be much warmer and hopefully this is the end of the winter weather.   Monday, February 24 View Page Outdoor tulips are just starting to sprout, meanwhile I had forced these tulips over the winter. Chilled in the crisper on 9/30, planted on January 19th, started to bloom 2/16 just a couple of days late for Valentines Day.   Saturday, March 1 View Page Starting to feel like spring, tilled the garden for the first time this year. Too much leaf mulch remaining where I had the potted tulips buried, which I will have to work on...   Wednesday, March 12 View Page Continuing soil preparation. My goal is to do what I can to prevent bacterial problems this year. The final step was hydrogen peroxide treatment followed by adding some beneficial bacteria to the patch. I diluted a gallon of 35% peroxide down to 2% using a hose end fertilizer sprayer, spraying over the whole patch. Then I ran the tiller over the patch to mix the soil, and repeated the peroxide spray treatment with a second gallon of 35%. The following day I added Terragrow, a beneficial bacteria to the patch. Hopefully these helpful bacteria will “crowd out” any harmful bacteria. Lots of calculations on figuring this stuff out. There sure is a lot of math involved with growing pumpkins…   Friday, March 14 View Page Picked up 4 cubic yards of finished compost and worked it in to the patch. Fortunately, the kids helped and we finished before a severe thunderstorm hit, with lots of hail and a tornado to the north of us. No major damage here, but the tulips took a beating from the hail. If this was later in the summer, it would have ended the season. I'm working on a set up for better storm protection this year.   Tuesday, March 25 View Page So I decided to try a few different methods for seed sterilization, but the results were less than ideal. Overall germination was poor in all tests even one without any sterilization, but there were a few take aways from the test. I used the ziploc bag and damp paper towel method to be able to view the seeds, and because I was testing so many seeds at once. This was the problem. So Conclusion #1 is don't use wet paper towel and plastic bags, its impossible to get the moisture just right (in my case it was too dry). Conclusion # 2 is that there was no difference in germination using 10% bleach soak, hydrogen peroxide, or the hot water method. Conclusion # 3 there was no difference in germination after sterilization between sanded and unsanded seeds.       The test went as follows. I used 2 different types of seeds for the test one was a very hard/thick shell, the other closer to a field pumpkin seed, a little smaller and softer shell. I used 4 seeds of each type, 2 with sanded edges, and 2 without sanding, so that's 8 total seeds in each type of sterilization method. The different methods tested were hot water bath (130 degrees for 15 min https://projects.sare.org/sare_project/gnc15-217/ ), 3% hydrogen peroxide, 10% bleach/water, 50% bleach/water (for an extreme), and just water for the control. All seeds were totally submerged for 45 minutes (hot water for 15). The 40 seeds were then placed on (apparently not damp enough) paper towels and bagged, then kept in my germination chamber at 85 degrees...   Tuesday, March 25 View Page After 6 days, the seeds were checked with poor germination overall, even using just water. The paper towels were completely dry in some cases despite condensation drops on the plastic bag. I added additional water and did get most seeds to germinate after another 3 days with the added water. The exception was with the 50% bleach, in which no seeds germinated. Articles I found show the hot water method to be very effective at sterilizing, but some suggest it might decrease germination rates. I was at least glad to see that in my trial the seeds in the hot water did as well as all other methods. I also found no difference in germination after sterilization between sanded/unsanded seeds, or larger/harder seeds as opposed to smaller/softer seeds. Overall, I would say if you need any more proof not to use paper towels in plastic bags to start seeds, this is it. Also, sterilizing seeds with 3% hydrogen peroxide, 10% bleach solution, or 130-degree water for 15 minutes did not seem to affect germination rates compared to just soaking in water. Finally, soaking pumpkin seeds 50% bleach will definitely kill your seed.   Sunday, March 30 View Page With a couple weeks to go until starting my plants, I've about finished putting up the post and cables for a (hopefully) retractable shade cover. The goal is being able to pull over shade cloth when needed, or a tarp when I need to keep things dry or protect from hail. I set 4x4 post in concrete with 1/8-inch steel cable across to be able to slide the cover back and forth. Also put up most of the wind screen but not quite finished with that. Need to work on irrigation set up next so I can get the hoop houses out there.   Saturday, April 5 View Page Built two new hoop houses early this spring, complete with all the bells and whistles. Larger size of 10 foot by 6, temperature controlled automatic opening vent on the end, 10-inch pneumatic tires for easy movement using a 2-wheel dolly at the opposite end. The back is removable so it can be easily wheeled off of a larger plant without lifting. Will see how all this actually works out...   Sunday, April 6 View Page Solid rain for 3 days, about 6 inches. Lots of flooding in our area so it could have been worse. Fortunately, I had trenched around the patch to divert the runoff before the rain started.   Monday, April 7 View Page Germination test went 4/4 (with one lagging behind a couple days) in straight seed starter mix, but the mix did dry out quickly in the germination chamber at 85 deg. I'll try one more round with a 50/50 blend of potting soil/seed starter to see if this keeps moisture more consistent.   Sunday, April 13 View Page Mini greenhouses are in place. I changed my plan for growing the 2 plants back-to-back in opposite directions at the last minute. With this layout I'll plan on training the secondary vines backwards, adding drip lines as needed and being able to till or rework the soil ahead of the vines. It will take more work in vine management but allow for more access around the pumpkin than in years past.   Monday, April 14 View Page Here is the line up for 2025. I'll be growing 2 plants: 2453 Sherwood and 2006 Wolf with a backup of 2085 Toboyek. At 9:30 PM April 14th started soaking seeds and will plant in a mix of 50% seed starter and 50% potting soil first thing in the morning.   Saturday, April 19 View Page All seeds germinated and emerged 4/18/25. However, the 2006 Wolf has some damage to the very center of both cotyledons. I have not seen this before, and I'm not quite sure what caused it. Possibly the seed was damaged or crushed in the center during transport? I guess I'll see how it goes, but was really looking forward to growing this one so hopefully it pulls through OK.   Sunday, April 20 View Page Day 6 from seed start, 2006 Wolf is just a bit behind the others but has been growing well which is a relief. Current set up keeping air temp in the mid 70's, plants reasonably close to grow lights. Added a fan for some acclimation to wind and help prevent damping off. Two backup plants started a few days ago on a heat mat with sand around the base as insulation, and a probe thermometer monitoring soil temp in the low 80s. I can fine tune the soil temp by how deep the pots are in the sand. Initially they were buried deeper, and soil temp was at 100 so I had to back them out a bit.   Monday, April 21 View Page I have had the hoop houses closed up to warm the soil (no plants inside). After 4 inches of rain in the last couple days today’s high was 70 and sunny. Inside the hoop houses heated up to almost 110. That’s 40 degrees hotter than the air temperature. This evening I attached the temperature controlled vent and will see if this makes a more hospitable environment tomorrow.