18% Heavy on the Scale! Great End to a Tough Pumpkin Season.

Yesterday I took my pumpkin to the Old Colorado City Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off.  I've never been to this event before and had heard good things and since my pumpkin was growing slow I figured I would give it as much time as possible to grow, as this is the last weigh-off of the season in Colorado.

To my pumpkin's credit it grew long.  Was still growing when I picked it and considering I thought I lost the pumpkin 75 days before when I had irrigation problems and it never did over 11 pounds a day after that and it had the biggest Dill Ring I've ever seen, I am amazed by that.

My pumpkin was estimating in the low 600s by the measurements, but ended up at 747 pounds.  Although that is about half of what I was hoping for this year, it as a lot heavier than I expected.  A pumpkin that goes 5-7% heavier than what the charts indicate in my book is very heavy pumpkin, but for this pumpkin to go 18% heavy is crazy.  My pumpkins typically, like most Colorado growers, go a little light.  A very nice suprise on the scales.

It makes me wonder now what this plant could have done if I didn't have all of the problems that I did.  When you look at the picuture above it isn't difficult to image how the lines of the pumpkin would be different.  This pumpkin grew on a side vine because I lost the main and then it got really jacked up by the water issues.  Would love to have another shot with this seed again.  I'm considering very strongly growing the seeds from this pumpkin next year.  I liked the 282 pollinator and this plant was the best looking plant I've ever had the first part of the season.  May give it another shot.

Now it is time to start prepping for next year.

Reflections at the Half Way Mark

We are about at the half way mark for most Colorado growers.  At about this time the pumpkins will have put on about 2/3 of their total weight that they will have when they go to the scale.  Some lucky growers may have pumpkins that put on even more weight than that.  No big pumpkins will come out of my patch this year.  A combination of factors, both in and out of my control, have limited my pumpkins potential.  You can't do much about a curios dog that decides it will take a bite out of a female flower that is primed to grow on two separate occasions. 

For the first quarter of the season I think I did things about as well as I have any season in the past.  Then a couple of miss-steps, without question, will have caused me a couple of hundred pounds on the scale at the end of the season.  A busy work and summer schedule opened the door to these mishaps.  Something to learn from for future years.

I'm still scratching my head some on the 1985 pumpkin.  I'm not sure I fully understand what happened with it.  I know that 4 days of poor watering messed up that pumpkin in some way, but I'm not sure why it was so affected and I suspect there is still something going on with that plant that I haven't fully discovered yet.

The 282 pumpkin is growing average.  Nothing special with it so far.  The plant itself doesn't seem to have that extra gear to really drive it along, but it is young so will have to see what happens two weeks from now.

I keep taking care of the plants like they are champs however.  Gave the plants some fish & seaweed with RAW Full Up and RAW Yucca included in the foliar application.

Compost Tea & TKO for the Pumpkin Plants

I watched a very interesting video today on soil biology from growuniversity.net.  If you haven't schedule yourself to attend one of the growuniversity.net webinars do so.  They are very well done.

After watch the video I went out and gave both plants some aerated compost tea that I had been brewing for 36 hours.  The plants should like that.

This evening I gave the 282 Scherber plant some TKO.  That should help the plant push the pumpkin along. It is 11 days old now and growing fairly well.  It had the same day 10 measurement as my big pumpkin had two years ago.  Doesn't mean anything, but you would rather have it bigger than small.  The unfortunate thing with this pumpkin is that it will just be starting to pack on the pounds when we go into September.  Colorado's Septembers can have very sketchy weather.  Typically not snow, but cool fall like weather will slow the pumpkin down when it is really starting to grow.

1985 pumpkin is having problems and I'm not sure why.  Growth has fallen off.  No signs of disease yet and the vines are still growing well, but not seeing the kind of giant pumpkin growth that I would have expected from this plant.

Loading Up the Pumpkins

I'm going after a big pumpkin on the 1985 Miller plant.  Ada the pumpkin is growing nice, but I gave it a little nudge this evening with a foliar application of TKO.  I haven't used TKO in the past, but one of the RMGVG club members gave me some during the off season and I've wanted to try it for years, but it is kind of expensive.  TKO is a good source of potassium, but also contains phosphites that can help ward of disease.  The 1985 will be getting into its rapid growth phase so the extra potassium should help satisfy the pumpkin as it starts ringing the dinner bell.

I discovered last night that the 1985 plant has been getting under watered.  A setting on the under the leaf canopy irrigation system on that line was off so it wasn't getting nearly the water that it should have.  I'm impressed with the growth of the pumpkin on that plant knowing that.  It will be interesting to see how it does, now that it is getting more water.

The 282 female may be opening tomorrow morning.  Might finally be getting a pumpkin on that plant.   I sure hope so.  In preparation for that, in the fertigation bottle I put some calcium, RAW Full Up, RAW Humic Acid, just a little RAW Omina and RAW Yucca.  Like I previously mentioned, the goal with this is to help get calcium into the fruit in the first 10 days after pollination.

Thanks Joe & Lisa! Finally a Pumpkin Pic.

I've been in Canada for the last 8 days with my wife's family having a very nice time, but missing the pumpkins.  Joe was good enough to watch my plants again while I was gone and did some pollinations for me while I was away.  Very grateful for that.  My sister also helped with watering the plants in my absence.  A big thanks to both of them for their help.

The 1985 plant ran wild while I was gone.  Vines have popped up all over the place.  I was expecting that.  After terminating most of the plant, the stump had a lot of new growth popping up prior to my leaving and although I took all of that off before going out of town I knew that plant was looking for places to put all of its stored energy.  I'm hoping it can focus that energy into pumpkin growing and if it does we should be good shape.

This is the 1985 pumpkin named Ada after my niece.  It is 16 days old now and about about beach ball sized.  I like the look of that stem and the shape of the pumpkin.

The 282 plant will be pollinated tomorrow morning.  A month behind schedule so I'm praying this pollination takes.  Never would have thought we would be this far into the season without a pumpkin on the vine on this plant.  I've got a gut feeling this one could make up for lost time, but we are too far into the season now to see a state record off of this plant.  I plan to pollinate it with my son's1689 Daletas which has a nice pumpkin growing on it.

This evening I gave the plants a foliar application of fish & seaweed with some RAW Humic Acid and Yucca.

Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Pumpkin Growing

Einstein would have been a giant pumpkin growing genius, because he understood one of the basic premises of pumpkin growing.  That is that everything is relative to the growers position in the universe and how well their pumpkin plant is growing.  Sometimes as growers we are too close to the plant.  We are over watering, over fertilizing or under watering or under fertilizing because we get too focused on the one thing or the wrong thing and as a result we are missing what would be obvious to everyone else.

I often find that "slow" plant growth or pumpkin growth is sometimes relative to what I want rather than the reality of what is happening.  I can't count the times that it seemed like early in the season that the vines are growing slow until I looked at a picture of my plant on this pumpkin blog (I'm this blog's #1 reader) from 5 days before and only then realized how much the plant had grown.  It is all relative.

This perspective in pumpkin growing often makes us a "moreon" (pronounced moron).  I can't count how many times, after seeing another grower's big pumpkin the grower goes home and pours on a bunch of fertilizer on their plant.  Often times "more on" doesn't work.  A perfectly happy plants lives in a space between just the right amount of water, nutrients, sunlight and warmth where everything is working in balance and harmony so a plant wants to grow.  As Goldie Locks will tell you, too much or too little doesn't work.  It all has to be just right.

So this is my pumpkin growing tip of the day.  Don't be a moreon.  Start by researching everything you can about how to create a great, balanced soil.  Then get a soil test, do plant tissue testing, do soil EC testing or whatever you can afford to find out what your patch has and what your plant needs.  After that, develop a pumpkin fertilizing program and put it on paper.  List what you will give to your pumpkin plants each week in spoon size amounts.  Doing this will allow you to give the right amounts of the right types of fertilizers so you don't become a moreon.  Doing this will allow you to focus on your plant and not get distracted by what others are doing or anxiety.

Next, make proper adjustments to your fertilizer program based on what the plant is telling you and the weather.  A good fertilizer program should be a guide, but not a hard rule.  Use your experience and what the plant is saying to guide you in what you do.  If you are inexperienced, than follow my fertilizing program and talk to other growers and ask them for their tips and advice.
 
Lastly, even if you are experienced grower, ask for other growers opinions.  Like I said before, sometimes you get too close to the plants and you are missing the obvious.  Or someone might have some good tips for things you never thought of.  Just this week I asked advice of a grower for things that I was pretty sure I had the right answer for but I wanted to be sure.  Getting a second opinion sometimes sparks new ideas and keeps you out of trouble.  All of this will allow you to be an Einstein in the pumpkin patch and grow your biggest pumpkin yet.

Some OminA for the Pumpkin Plants

Today I spent more timed than I planned on setting up the watering system for the pumpkin plants.  There were some lines and faucets that working properly so I had to spend time taking care of those.  After that I sprayed some RAW OminaA (learn more) along with RAW Yucca around the outer edges of the plant because I think my nitrogen might be a little low from leaching.

OminA is 12-0-0 and is a amino acid form of nitrogen.  Some of the aminos in OminA help open ion pathways for calcium in a plant's roots which allows for a dramtic increase in the uptake of calcium.  More calcium in a pumpkin plants means possible better resistance to insects, stronger cell walls and some believe it may help make pumpkins that are more resistant to blossom end split.

Earlier this week I sent an email to former two-time world record Ron Wallace and asked him about what minerals and nutrients he finds leach from his patch.  He has a sandy soil so leaching is a much bigger problem than what I have with my clay soil.  He said that magnesium and sulfur are the two that he sees drop after a lot of rain.  For that reason I put down some Epsom salts to get my magnesium up a little.

Today I did a little patch tour with Colorado growing legend Joe Scherber.  They guy has grown more state record pumpkin than I can count.  First went over to his patch looking for pollinators for my pumpkins.  His Radach plant and the 2096 Meier both looked like they had some potential.  Joe then came over to my patch.  He gave a nice compliment.  Said my plants looked the best that I had ever had at this point in the season.  I am pleased with where things are at considering the May that we had.  Having good salad doesn't mean much at this point however, because in the end, it is all about the fruit.

New Pics from the Giant Pumpkin Patch

The following are the latest pictures of both of my plants.  The 1985 Miller is about 13 feet long right now and has a female at about 10 1/2 feet.  The 282 is about 11 feet long with a female at about 10 feet.  It is a week younger, so it is growing fairly well.  I would like to see these plants be about 1 week older until I have keeper pollination on the vine, but I'll pollinate everything on the vine to play it safe.

Better weather is in the forecast for the next week, which is ideal.  If we had the same weather during the next two weeks it could be trouble, but fortunately warmer and less rain in the forecast for now.

1985 Miller

282 Scherber

It's Back! Giant Pumpkin Fertilizer Program Package

We initially thought we would put out the Giant Pumpkin Fertilizer Program as something to try.  We only had a limited supply and to our surprise the fertilizer program sold out in just about a week, so we had to take it off the website.  We have more packages on the way now so it is once again ready for purchase. 

In the Giant Pumpkin Fertilizer Program you get a packet of each of the following plant nutrient and stimulant packages listed below.  Each packet contains a powder concentrate that will make up to 2 1/2 gallons so it is very economical.  The quality of these fertilizers in my opinion are first rate.  They are great for pumpkins, gardens, hydroponics and lawns because they are water soluble and you can spoon feed your plants just and only what they need. 

• RAW Grow
• RAW Bloom
• RAW Nitrogen Fertilizer
• RAW Phosphorus
• RAW Potassium
• RAW Kelp
• RAW B-Vitamin
• RAW OminA
• RAW Humic Acid
• RAW Yucca
• RAW Cal/Mag
• RAW Full Up (Fulvic Acid)
• RAW Cane Molasses
• RAW Silica

Order today because quantities are limited.  Want to learn how to get the most out of these fertilizers?  Watch the videos on the left hand side of the Fertilizer page and I can almost guarantee that you will learn something new that will take your growing to the next level.

A Bunch of Biology for the Pumpkin Patch

This evening I sprayed some Biotamax, Rootshield, azos, myco and Myko Grow on the entire pumpkin patch.  It looks like it is going to be two days of rain in Colorado so that rain will wash at of that beneficial bacteria and fungi down into the patch.  Some of the micro organisms are nitrogen fixing.  Others will help eat bad micro organisms.  Others still will help provide nutrients to the plants.  Overall, I'm trying to help build a healthy soil foil web in the soil.  Some people say you don't need to add this kind of stuff in order to have a healthy soil.  To that I would agree.  But adding a little more typically won't hurt.

How to Beat Your Friend/Family Member in a Pumpkin Weigh-off

Every year I get a message from a few people saying they are in a competition with a friend, family member or neighbor in a friendly pumpkin weigh-off competition.  It always brings a smile to my face when I hear their excitement at the beginning of the season.  I'm a fairly competitive person myself and can understand when a reputation and household pride is on the line.

So you want to win?  I'll give you a few giant pumpkin growing secrets:

1. Start with the right pumpkin seeds.  The only way you can grow a truly big giant pumpkin is by growing Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds.  They are the only variety that can grow a pumpkin over 400 pounds.  Now not any atlantic giant pumpkin seeds will do.  You can buy Atlantic Giant seeds at most garden centers, but the seeds you really want are seeds that have had controlled pollinations where you know who mama and daddy are using the best genetics available.  You can get these competition seeds right here.
2. Read this Blog.  It is packed full of tips and techniques to grow a big pumpkin. During the season I'm going to tell you everything I do with my pumpkins.
3. Ask questions.  Websites like bigpumpkins.com have growers on them that are some of the best growers in the world.  You can ask questions on the website as well as see answers to questions that other growers have post that will help you grow bigger.
4. Prepare your soil. Big pumpkins come from world class soil.  It takes some research to figure out how to build a great soil and it can take years.  However, if you send your soil sample off to a lab like A&L Western Labs they can tell you what you have in your soil and what your soil needs.  Too often growers throw down some fertilizer without knowing what the soil needs and it can be more harmful than helpful.  Along with that, sometimes less is more.  Spoon feeding your plants frequently with small amounts of fertilizer is often better than all at once.
5. Start your seeds indoors.  Start your seeds in a bright warm place indoors in a big pot.  That will help get your plants going early.  Don't keep the plant in the pot too long however or else the plant will get root bound.  2-3 weeks in the pot at most.
6. Move your plants to a hoop house outdoors.  In most areas springs can be too cool for the pumpkin plants to be perfectly happy.  A hoop house (like a small green house) will help keep the plants warm and protected from the wind.  A hoop house, like a car in the sun, can heat up very quickly when the sun comes out so you usually need to keep it open during the day and closed during the night wit a light bulb in it to keep the plants relatively warm.
7. Watering.  Keep the ground lightly moist.   How much you water will depend on your soil type and temperatures.  You don't want the ground mucky but you don't want it dry either.  If you go down an inch mid-day after a morning watering it should be lightly moist.
8. Bury the vines.  When the vines start growing on the plant bury the vines.  At each leaf node the plant will put out a root.  The more your bury the vines the more roots you will have and a bigger pumpkin as a result.

There are lots of other pumpkin growing tips for growing a giant pumpkin, but if you do the ones listed above you should beat your friend, neighbor or family member come October.  Keep reading this blog for more tips and advice.

Is there Anything Else Like an Atlantic Giant Pumpkin Plant?

I believe this is my seventh year of growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins.  I'm still amazed by them.  I've seen giant red woods that were two thousand years old and hundreds of feet tall, but to me, although close, they aren't the same as an Atlantic Giant pumpkin plant.  These two plants, pictured at the right, are exactly one week old at the moment.  At this same hour, a week ago, I started soaking my seeds. Look how big they are in that short period of time.

The plant at the back of this picture is nearly six inches wide.  In another 7 days you won't recognize these plants and I'll have to start raising up the grow lights because they will start growing into them.  In June the vines will be growing a foot a day.  The end of July, with a little luck and skill, the pumpkins will be putting on around 40 pounds a day of they are players.  And 90 days after pollination, with a little luck and skill, the pumpkin will be over 1,500 pounds. 

I'm not aware of any other plant that can do that kind of growth in that short period of time.  I'd love to get back to the redwood forest and stare in awe at what nature can do in 2,000 years.  But to me, looking at my pumpkin in the morning and then looking at my pumpkin in the evening and being able to easily see the change in size as it puts on 35-43 pounds in a day is easily as awe inspiring if not more so.

Things I'll Be Doing Different in 2015

Today at the RMGVG club meeting one of the growers asked me, "What will you be doing different next year."  My quick reply was, "Try to get a full-sized pumpkin to the scale."

The longer answer is that I've thought about that a lot since losing both plants in August.  The following is the strategy for next season:

1. More testing.  I going to get an EC soil tester so I can have a better idea of what is in my soil so I can more accurately feed the plant. I've known for years that my fertilizing in the past has been a guess.  I've always done soil tests and the last two years did a tissue test.  But even with that I've not been sure if I've been under feeding or over feeding (probably under feeding from the research I've been doing).  I didn't even know that an EC tester existed until Beni talked about it after popping a big one the season before last.  It will take a little work to figure out how to best use the results, but at least I'll have some numbers to work from.
2. Grow white.  I love an orange pumpkin but I also grow big.  As I looked at orange genetics there isn't a ton of seeds that I can get my hands on that grab my interest.  Big right now comes from the 2009 genetics and most of those crosses are coming out white to light orange.  This next season I'm going to grow a 282 Scherber and a 1415 Scherber.  The 282 is a clone of the plant that grow the 2009 crossed with itself.  The 1415 is a 282 that was selfed.  The genetics are just to good to grow orange.
3. A little more late season fertilizer.  I don't get great growth in September, so if the EC tester shows it, I will feed the plants more the 2nd half of the season.
4. A little higher organic matter.  I want more organic matter in my soil.  Not a ton but a few percentages higher than I've had in the past.  Some of that will be coming from peat moss.
5. More moisture testing.  I have an inexpensive soil moisture testing so I'm going to do less eye balling and more testing.
6.  More biologicals.  I'm going to be adding Rootshield to the other biologicals I put down and will use more mykos this season as well.
7. Zucchini Plants.  I'm going to plant zucchini plants at the edge of the patch to attract squash bugs to in the hopes of getting rid of them before they get to the pumpkin plants.
8. Layout of the patch.  For the last 5 years I've grown each my plants parallel to each other.  This next season I'll be growing the plants perpendicular to each other. This will give me about an extra 60-80 square feet of space and will give me more room for the main vine to grow on north side plant.

Hopefully

One More Weigh-off to Go

Yesterday I took my 335 Scherber pumpkin to the weigh-off at Nick's.  It ended up at a respectable 511 pounds which in my book isn't bad considering that plant was diseased and the pumpkin was picked in mid-August and then was just sitting in the patch for 1 1/2 months with a tarp over it.  None the less it was a disappointing season.

I'm going to be taking the 335 Scherber to one more weigh-off along with the kids pumpkins next weekend.  Also will be hauling with them a nearly 1,300 pound pumpkin grown by Joe Scherber which he was kind enough to give to my wife.  All of the pumpkins are in front of the house right now.  If you've never seen a 1,300 pound piece of fruit, swing on by.

Building the Nitrogen & Phosphorous in the Plants

I was a fair amount low on nitrogen and I was a little low in phosphorous in the pumpkin plants according to the tissue tests.  This evening I gave the plants some fish & seaweed 2-3-1 as a foliar application.  I'm hoping that I now have put down enough nitrogen over the last 5 days that we are fairly close to getting the plant's nitrogen levels back to normal.   I'll hit the plants again on Thursday with more nitrogen and I'll continue to apply nitrogen in small amounts on a regular basis until the end of August.

Slow & Steady Wins the Race

I have to do everything I can right now to not go out and pour a bunch of fertilizer on my plants.  We are in the big growth zone right now and we aren't seeing the kind of growth that I would like on the pumpkins.  Both plants grew like weeds over the last two weeks, but the pumpkins aren't putting on incredible inches right now.

I have to remind myself that slow and steady wins the race.  Like I said before, there are different kinds of pumpkins and the ones I'm growing this year tend to be more of the long growing, no big gains but constant gain types.  Trouble is that at this point of the season you don't know if you have a long growing type that is going to go heavy (meaning it will be a thicker pumpkin) or if the pumpkins are just not going to grow well this year.

Last year's pumpkin set a bad precedent for me.  That pumpkin was a rocket out of the gate.  It turned out to be a balloon at the end of the season but it sure was fun to watch grow.  At mid-season it was the second biggest pumpkin, in terms of measurements, at the time of the patch tour ever recorded in Colorado and it was still growing very well at that point.  This years pumpkins aren't that way.  What counts is were the pumpkin is at come way off time however and ultimately what the scale says is the truth.

So at this point of the season if your pumpkin isn't as big as you like or as big as your friend's don't fret it.  Do your best and that is all that you can do.

This evening I spent a lot of time burying vines.  Like I said, the vines grew a lot this last week and I had some catchup to do.  Right now my 1791 plant is almost exactly the size my 1421 plant was at the beginning of September.  I've terminated a lot of vines this week as the plant has filled its space.  By the end of July the 1791 will have filled up all of its available space before the pumpkin.  After the pumpkin the plant isn't growing as fast since the pumpkin is sucking up most of the energy right now.

The 335 plant should have filled in all of its available space before the pumpkin in the next two weeks.

Some Nice Growth & Latest Pic

Had a very nice time with a number of growers at the Wiz's pumpkin patch last night.  A little BBQ and a lot of talk about pumpkins.

Some very nice growth on the pumpkins the last couple of days.  I was beginning to wonder.  At about day 22 after pollination the pumpkins tend to start kicking it into gear some and around day 28-30 they should start cranking it up.  However, not all pumpkins turn up the speed the same way.  Some are more slow and steady but end up huge.  They don't do any big gains on any one day but a whole lot of medium gains.  Other pumpkin rev up really fast and then drop off a little more quickly.  My pumpkin last year was kind of that way.  And then other pumpkins never crank it up and never amount to much. 

Saw a nice pumpkin yesterday.  Joe's 282 Scherber.  I'm sure he is working extra hard on that plant just to put in my face, since I pulled my 282.

Today I setup little structures over the pumpkins to help keep them dry.  I basically bent pvc over the pumpkins and then clipped silver tarps on the pvc.  Not completely necessary, but it worked well last year.

The following is the latest pics of the 1791.  I forgot to take a picture of the 335.  Both pumpkins are getting more orange each week.  This evening I did a drench of Xtreme Tea aerated compost tea on both plants that that had a cup of fish & seaweed added to it along with a little Actinovate and Azos that were added at the very, very end of the brew.

New Pictures from the Big Pumpkin Patch

Below are pictures of the two pumpkins that I'm planning on going with the first is "Bo" the pumpkin on the 1791 Holland.  At only two weeks old he is already oranging up quickly.  At this time it is bigger than a volleyball but a touch smaller than a basketball.

The 2nd pumpkin is "Lucille."  Lucille Johnson was a dear, sweet friend who passed away last year.  In her old age and not always feeling well, she always made it out to the yearly pumpkin party to see the pumpkins.  I thought it fitting to name the pumpkin after her.

New Pumpkin Pictures

Both plants seem to have increased their vine growing this last week.  The 335 is still behind where it should be, but doing better.  I would be a bit down on that plant but the root system is very impressive on it so I'm hoping it has pumpkin growing powers like last year's plant.

The 1791 continues to truck along.  Growth on the pumpkin seems good.  Monday morning will be day 10 and that will be the first gauge of its growth.  At this point I don't pay much attention to it other than to make sure it is growing and shiny.

I pollinated a 2nd pumpkin at about 17-18 feet out on the main today.  It was pollinated with my daughter's 335 plant.  I pollinated it as a backup in case something happens to the first.  I'm not expecting any problems, but you never know with pumpkin growing so pollinating some backups is always a good idea.  In about 10-14 days I'll take off the backup.

On Monday I should be pollinating a 2nd pumpkin on my 335 plant.  I hope to pollinate it with Joe's 282 plant.  It is probably 14-15 feet out on the main vine.  If things look good with it I'll go with it and take off the 1st pollination.  I wanted to let the plant get a little bigger before getting a pumpkin growing at full speed on the plant.

Gave both plants a very light foliar application of fish & seaweed along with some multi mineral.

1791 Pumpkin "Bo"

1791 plant front, 335 in the shadows back

335 Plant and 1st pollination

A Pumpkin Named "Bo"

It is day number 7 since pollinated the 1791 pumpkin plant.  I'm going to name this pumpkin Bo.  I watched a show on ESPN this last winter about Bo Jackson and thought Bo would be the perfect name for a giant pumpkin.  Hopefully he will live up to his name.

So far Bo is growing nicely and is shined up.  I think this pollination will take.  He has a nice long stem.  My guess that is from the 2009 side.  He also has a little bit of length to his shape.  Hopefully that will mean it won't turn into a wheel.