Despite the Weather the Plants are Doing Okay

It has been a moderately cool and windy spring, so far.  Not bad weather,but not ideal.  The plants wired up pretty quickly after struggling early and my 1825 Sadiq plants are growing relatively aggressively right now.  To look at the pictures you wouldn't think so, if you were comparing with Jim Seamonds photos of his plants and compared, but for when I started and what they are doing, I'm satisfied.

I think I should easily be on schedule right now for a June 15thish pollination, which would then give me 102 days to grow the pumpkin, which is about as long as they will typically grow.  I like to use this handy little calculator to figure days between total days

One thing I like to do is look at photos from my blog from previous years and compare growth rates and the like.  This plant is maybe slightly ahead of my plants from the previous two years.

Color on my 1825 plants wasn't good yesterday, so I gave them just a touch of cheated magnesium, iron, boron, zinc, fulvic acid, aminos and copper.  My spring soil test showed that I was a little low in iron and magnesium, so that and some recent cloudy days may be affecting the plants.  If that doesn't work, I'll give the plants some calmag, which is essentially nitrate form of calcium and magnesium to give them a little boost. 

I've gone pretty light on giving the plants fertilizer so far this year.  My soil is higher in nutrients in the past, so I haven't given as much, but now they are kicking into gear I'm going to get back into my regular fertilizer program more.

These 1825 plants are going to have some big leaves on them.  They are already getting a little big for the stems.

Last year I started covering the hoop houses at night with insulated tarps.  The same ones you see on construction sites that they use to cover concrete in the winter.  They work perfect.  Last night there was snow on the hills just above my house and it has froze here, but the hoop houses never get below 67 degrees is the ceramic heat lamps inside, which is pretty descent.  I wish in the summer I could keep the plants at 67 degrees at night.  Usually I'm in the low 50s.

Finally hooked up the CO2 generator and running it for the first time this morning.  Cold morning so it will add a little extra heat in addition to the CO2.   Carbon dioxide is an essential component of photosynthesis.  CO2 and water gets converted into sugars in plants.  These sugars are then used for growth.  My CO2 generator is not quite big enough for the space and the greenhouse by no means seals the gas in, but I can increase the CO2 levels to almost double the regular levels with the generator.  In the summer I can only run it for about 3 hours a day until it gets too hot and I have to open things up.  3 hours is about the minimum amount to get any kind of positive results from it, so I'm not sure if the cost is worth the value yet.