Yesterday my father-in-law and myself put up the hail netting over the patch. The 1451 plant is now about 4 inches from the end of the hoop house so it will be coming off tomorrow or Monday. The 1789 has kind of hit a new growth phase. The leaves have gotten real big on that plant and it will be coming out of the hoop house on Monday or Tuesday.
Today I got my rototiller fixed so next week I'll be tilling up the rest of the patch. I've got my Dan Micro sprinkler heads in the mail this week so I'll be installing that sprinkler system next week. There is a great writeup that Thad Starr did on the Dan Micro sprinkler system on
his website that I helped him build a few years ago. With the Dan Micros sprinklers I should get much better coverage under the leaf canopy.
This afternoon I put down some compost, grass clippings, humic acid, blood meal and Bio-Sol fertilizer in the new areas of the pumpkin patch. That soil is nearly completely virgin soil so it doesn't have a lot of nutrients but that extra 60 square feet should hopefully add some better growth to the pumpkin late in the season.
Yesterday my wife, father-in-law and myself put in a gate to the pumpkin patch. Juliann Moore, if you area reading, I hope you are happy now.