Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 14 Entries. Sunday, June 23 View Page Not an easy season. The wind beat up a few plants, I screwed up one myself, and about 4 inches of rain in a week has started rotting out a couple main vines already. At least the watermelon plants are looking decent.   Saturday, August 3 View Page So, things haven't been going according to plan here. This is the 247.5 (1211 Alits x 1576 LaRevier). Hopefully others out there did better on these crosses than I did. The 1576 wouldn't set fruit so I had to pull the plant. The 1211 double vined, clustered, ect. So, we took this one to Ohio. Got 5th place (out of 5, lol)but we had fun.   Tuesday, August 6 View Page Had a storm roll through today, plants got beat up. We'll see how things recover, but overall I only have 2 plants I'm caring for at this point, and no shot at a personal best...... except hopefully on watermelon.   Monday, August 19 View Page Not much to report except the pumpkins are still hanging on. This is the 2416, lost the stump and a couple vines to rot a while back. It has the same crazy stem as the 2027 had last year, and started out with the same shape as my 1742 before getting some ribs. Over 1000 pounds.   Monday, August 19 View Page This is the 2145, currently in the lead. The bottom folded up pretty bad - you can actually look at the bottom from the blossom end and see daylight out the stem end, so I have my doubts this one can go the distance. There's a toad living under it so maybe that's good luck. Over 1000 pounds, but no personal best this year.   Saturday, September 7 View Page I gave up growing field pumpkins this year due to too many blossom end splits, and decided to focus on the melons. Lost my best one to a blossom end split at 178#. Lost my #2 to rot. Maybe next year I'll try to split a gourd, maybe a tomato.   Saturday, September 21 View Page It was a coin flip decision on planting the 1742 again this year or trying the 1826. I went with the 1826. It was a robust plant, but the main vine split open and rotted at the end of June. About the time I tried retraining a new secondary or two, the deer found the plant to be rather tasty. So, I pretty much walked away. These three (plus another that rotted around 400 or so) were all grown on the same 1826 plant. The one on the left won the Williamsville weighoff at 1009#. Middle one weighed 645, the smaller one weighed mid-500s. The two bigger ones were pollinated with the 2416 Haist plant.   Sunday, September 22 View Page Pretty much the same story except the wind snapped the main, and the wind / cold combination at just the wrong stage seemed to sap the energy from the plant. This is the 1911 plant's production. From left to right: 821 ( x 1826), 540 (x 2145), and 926 (x 2145)   Wednesday, October 2 View Page My 1801 Berrens plant started off far and away my best. Great color to the leaves, easy to work with. Unfortunately, the first pollination went pear shaped and ribbed up way early. I've seen that before, but I waited longer than I should have to cut it off. Re-positioned the main vine for the next set, and we got hit with two downpours and heat a couple days apart. That set aborted a few days later. I walked away from the plant at that point, and ended up with a bunch of pumpkins.   Wednesday, October 2 View Page The 1501 VW - I screwed up this plant when it was young, and badly. Lesson learned, but although it pulled out of its funk it never totally recovered 100%. Around pollination time, I estimated the potential of the plant to be able to produce a couple in the 6-800# range based on the way the plant looked. Boy, was I wrong - this plant just really wanted to grow pumpkins. The birdbath - 992 Wolf (1501 x 2145) - was grown on a secondary, and the one on the right - 1177 Wolf (1501 x 1229 Seelow) was grown on the main. The 1177 came in 3rd in votes for HD at the Saratoga weighoff against some stiff competition.   Saturday, October 5 View Page This was a nice surprise. I was measuring a little over 1700 in the patch, a little less at the weighoff but either way, this was better than I had expected. Coming home in May to see the wind had completely moved the greenhouse this guy was in........ I thought I lost the plant at that point but it bounced back. Then, I thought the stump had started to foam so out came the knife only to see it was fine inside. Never expected it to make it to scale the way the bottom folded up - I could see from the blossom end to stem end on the bottom it had cupped up so far. Figured it would have split but all good when we lifted. 1911.5 Wolf (2145 McMullen x 2416 Haist)   Friday, October 11 View Page Sad news, my last one went down. 1803 Wolf 19 DMG (2416 Haist x 1229 Seelow). Measurements from last week had it at 412.5 inches, which would be about 18% over chart. No seeds were saved.   Friday, October 11 View Page The 1229 Seelow was Amelia's plant. It was one of the better looking plants around pollination, and unfortunately aborted her main vine pumpkin in early July during the rains and heatwave. She kind of neglected the plant, and ended up with 5 pumpkins on the plant. 701, 525, one in the 400s, a 353 and 308   Saturday, October 12 View Page Massive pumpkin. Great work, Karl