Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 19 Entries. Friday, June 7 View Page Purposely started later this year and got the plants in the ground May 7th. I seeded 6 but planted 3 for pumpkin growing purposes., then three for pollination flowers if I need them. One of my pollination plants, the 1679 Holland is a cross of the 2145 McMillan and the 2528 Geddes. Those are two great foundation pumpkins so I thought I might get crazy and pollinate a plant or two with that plant. I only had the cloches on for about 3 weeks this season and I didn't use heating cables. Didn't need to. I also did not till until May 1st. I usually do that April 1st. This year I used a 10-10-10 all over along with my standard dose of Merit. I also applied granular humic. I've committed not to use roundup anywhere. I also have wind barriers up for the first time. My plants all failed last year due to what looked like a mosaic virus, but what I now believe could have been some drift from the farming adjacent to my patch or my own use of roundup on my patch to control weeds. I pulled all of my plants in early August last year and planted mustard which I cut and tilled in the day after Thanksgiving. I also planted my plants at the end of my patch away from the farmers field. I think that combined with the wind barriers will help offset any drift (I hope). My current plants have about 8' mains and all look healthy. No signs of disease. I noted my first cucumber beetle this a.m. on one of my pollinator plants and sprayed all plant with Bayer. I plant to spray again with seven (carbaryl) this evening. I know those damn beetles spread mosaic etc. so I want to make sure to stay on top of that. They attack every year at this time. A couple of my plants have split vines, but they've dried out nicely and I plan to cover them with something that allows some ventilation but keeps the moisture off. This year I'm going to go light on the amount of soil I put over my vines so to keep them a little drier. Also, my bury strategy includes some rootshield, azos, mycos, humic, 10-10-10, and a tad of merit at each leaf note. We'll se how it goes.................................   Friday, June 21 View Page I should have posted this earlier, but I got busy and forgot to do it. My area here is 144sf. I'm not sure if the rules will allow me to reclaim the 6 sf difference later. If they do, I may reclaim the 6sf to accommodate a bulging pumpkin. If not then, 144 is it.   Tuesday, June 25 View Page 2024 Plant Pollinations 150 Sf Plant - 6/16, 1st Pollination 2154 Sperry x Self, 2nd Pollination 2154 Sperry x 1980 Connolly (west patch) 6/20 1908 Connolly (west Patch) x 2154 Sperry 6/20 1908 Connolly (east patch) x 2465 Sperry As of 6/25 my 2465 Sperry is not doing well in the heat. Wilts back by 10 a.m. each day and comes back after sundown. Little, if any growth since the start of a 7 day 95+ heat wave with low RH. Actually thought it was dead. If I can't get it to recuperate and pollinated by 7/4 I plan to pull it. Both Connolly plants are strong as well as the 2154 Sperry. Some limited new growth damage due to heat. Watering every morning and cooling them off in the afternoon for a short period as well. Possible hail and high winds tomorrow night. Hope it misses me. Also, planted my last two 8.65 tomatoes on6/24 using my special sauce: Wow Humic, Rootshield, Azos, Mycos, Merrit, and granular humic, all watered in with some blue mixed with pink. What doesn't kill it makes it stronger. :)   Thursday, June 27 View Page 3 lobed female flower plucked on 6/27 from 1908 Connolly secondary. West Patch.   Thursday, June 27 View Page 2 nice Connolly 1908's . Bother are strong growers, thick secondary vines, 20 plus secondary vines before the pumpkin. Pollinated on 6/20. Great looking plants. Hope they can go the distance. Both held up well during 10 days of vicious 95+ heat with clear skies and blazing sun. Lost just a few tips that the covers blew off. What a difference they are from last years misfortunes.   Thursday, June 27 View Page 2 Connolly 1908 plants. Very nice, aggressively growing plants. Thick secondary vines. 20+ secondary vines on both plants before 6/20 pollinations. Very pleased with these. Hope they can go the distance. I'm hoop hoeing as they grow this year and keeping the weeds cut down with a new Ego weed trimmer (what a great and relatively quiet tool). No more round up for me. Roundup applied on the patch to kill weeds at the beginning of the season is definitely on my short suspect list for my patch going south last season.   Thursday, June 27 View Page 3rd attempt to upload 1908 Connolly's   Thursday, June 27 View Page A new fuzzy photo of my 150 sf patch. I'm using the circle back vine technique so I can get the secondary vines from the main back into the patch. It makes for tight quarters and poor ventilation but this little patch has nothing around it to impede air movement. It also has a little shade in the late afternoon. It was tilled at the beginning of the season but I've been breaking it up again with a fork as I bury.   Friday, June 28 View Page This is the first year of four I have not applied Roundup to kill weed at the beginning of season. I've done this about a week before taking the cloches off the plants. In correlation, for the last four years I've seen at least some curly of leaves and odd looking deformations that looked somewhat like a mosaic virus. Some plants worse than others, but all had at least a couple of secondaries that exhibited this. Last year it was wide spread showing up on all new growth. It was so bad that I pulled all four of my plants in early July and attributed the problem to mosaic. I even did an assay for cucumber virus which seemed most likely since I always have my share of cucumber beetles. While I suspect overuse of Roundup was the real problem, I decided to change up several things including not using It at all. Here's what I did differently this season. I applied amendments, including Imidacloprid granular on May 1st instead of April 1st. I put my plants in the ground 3 weeks later than normal and used no heating cables. I planted a mustard cover crop August 1st last year, cut it and tilled it in on November 25th. I'm using a bury mix that includes last years Rootshield, Azos, Mycos, granular humic, and a small amount of 10-10-10 or 12-12-12 at each leaf node. So that's it. Roundup seems the most likely culprit to me, but I can't say for sure. I should point out that cucumber beetles have been scarce so far this year.   Friday, June 28 View Page Today I did my 3rd pollination on my 2154, 150 sf plant. I culled the 1st pollination yesterday. 5 lobed flower, not that it matters. Nice cool morning about 60 degrees. Didn't need to put any frozen water bottle next to it. So 2154 Sperry x 1908 Connolly (east patch).   Monday, July 1 View Page Caught up on vine burying yesterday. Cut off secondary and leaf at both 1908's. Photo is the 1908 in the east patch. Added a little extra phosphate and starting using the 12-12-12 in my bury mix. Not much just a little. Plants are growing nicely. I held of watering Friday and Saturday because of expected rain. It rained 1.5 " Saturday night. Also, saw a few cucumber beetles for the first time this year. There amount 3 weeks late I think. Anyway, gave the plants a dose of Sevin to kill them off. I'll check and see how that worked at noon today. I applied it Saturday morning so the rain probably washed most of it off, but it probably killed what was there. Pumpkins on both 1908 plants are about the same size now. I'll probably start measuring in about 10 days or so. I'll be putting some sand under them today or tomorrow. The150 sf patch is doing well but needs some burying and pruning. I have two pollinated on it. I plan to pick the last pollination since it's in a better location. The plant in the 150 is the 2154 Sperry and is doing well.   Monday, July 8 View Page 16 DAP 1908 Connolly East Patch 48.2, 1908 Connolly West Patch 39.7.   Monday, July 8 View Page The first few plants I grew went down to foamy stump. In fact my largest pumpkin to date, i.e. 1100 Lb. was grown on what was left of a foamy I amputated mid season. All of these plant were initial installed straight up in the ground and all ended up with some sort of rainbow, rollercoaster, or pea trap stump/crown. Last year I had four plants in the ground which all did well for most of the season but were killed by either residual use of round up, (operator error) or herbicide drift from the adjacent corn field. Even so, none had a foamy stump. Why? Well, I believe its because I put the young plants in the ground on an angle. I hadn't done that before, not thinking it was important. Doing so caused on the main vines to lay down virtually flat. Since I plant on slight mound that meant all of the excess water that might sit in a rainbow stump gravitates downward. I personally believe this remedies the foam stump problem. We'll see. The photo here is of a 2021 foamy from one of pee trap vines. Lost a nice 2365, 440 lb. pumpkin that year.   Wednesday, July 10 View Page Almost all my vines are dead headed and buried. Wow! That was tuff in the extreme heat. I have about four secondary vines on each side of the two 1908's that are growing to fill in. Today is overcast, so it's a good day for some new growth to open without getting burned up. Sun burn has been a big problem this year. May be next year some shade cloth. I'll be measuring once a week for a while unless there's a problem. I do still need to bury a lot of vines on my 150 sf. That area will be filled within a few days. Pumpkin on the 150 sf is nicely shaped and growing steadily. I'll measure it for the first time this coming Sunday 16 DAP. Which is the same DAP for both of my big plant pumpkins. It will be interesting to see how growth compares with a pumpkin on a full sized plant.   Monday, July 15 View Page Since, everyone seems to have a different opinion regarding how long male flowers/pollen is viable and because at least one experienced grower believes it can be viable to at least 4 days, I decided to do a controlled experiment. On Wed. July 10th, I picked a few male flowers that looked like they would open the next day. I placed the flowers in a plastic container on a damp paper towel, put the top on and stuck them on the middle shelf of the fridge. On Sat. July 13th, I took the flowers out of the fridge, placed them in room temp. water, covered them with an insect proof bag, then set them on the front porch to let them get to ambient temperature. Three of them appeared to be more open than the others and I suspect if I had set them in direct sun, they might have opened fully. Two hours later I used all of them to pollinate a pumpkin on my 150 plant that I had covered with an insect proof bag two days before. So, 3 overnights in the fridge. We'll see what happens   Monday, July 15 View Page Male Flowers, Sat. July 13th. 3 nights in Fridge.   Monday, July 15 View Page This flower was protected two days before opening.   Monday, July 15 View Page Covered males on the porch for two hours to reach ambient temp. before pollination.   Tuesday, July 16 View Page I'm pretty sure the 3 day pollination experiment was a success. I'll let the pumpkin go until Friday then cull it. By then I'll be able to confirm it with confidence. I piked 5 new males yesterday to try and get a five day in fridge pollination. Of course that's assuming I have a female to pollinate in five days. I may have to go 4 or 6. Will see. I'll post a photo later today.