Foliar Multi-mineral & Fulvic Acid for the Pumpkin Plants

Today I took off the pollination on the 282 Scherber plant.  Hated to cut it off because I think it would have been my biggest 10 day measurement ever at its current pace, but when I took off the flower petals yesterday it was obviously herniated and as the pumpkin grew it would have easily blown.   Next pollination is going to be about 5-6 days.

Weather is going to cool down in Colorado over the next few days with a descent amount of rain, so I did a foliar application of multi-mineral with a touch of RAW Full Up (fulvic acid), RAW Grow and RAW Yucca. 

Some Foliar Fish & TKO for the Pumpkin Plants

I'm doing something a little different this year.  In the past I would have never gave any fertilizer to the plants at pollination time, but this year I'm trying to read the plants and just give them what they need.  Maybe a little riskier, but I think it could yield better results.  This evening I did a foliar application of fish with a little TKO and RAW Yucca in it.  Both quantities were small (1 tsp of each) so I'm hoping it will just nudge the pumpkins along rather than abort them.

Temperatures in Denver were nice today but it is going to be 95 degrees tomorrow.  Will be putting down extra water for that.  Unfortunately the well was down today so I can only do overhead sprinkling right now which isn't ideal because you end up with big dry areas because the big pumpkin leaves act like umbrellas so the watering is very uneven.

Latest Pic of the 282 Pumpkin Plant

This is the 282 Scherber pumpkin plant.  It is a seed from a selfed clone of the 1725 that grew the world record 2009.  It is the "other" seed from the world record plant.  I'd like to prove it is the better seed of the two.  Although this plant is a week younger than the 1985 Miller it seems to be just as good a plant.  It is missing the first side vine on the right hand side.  If I hadn't already picked out the names for this year's pumpkin I would have named it Lefty.

I haven't measured the length of either plant lately but I would guess that both plants are about within a foot of each other in length right now.  Probably about 15-16' long at this point.  The 282 isn't quite as wide as the 1985 however.

Latest Photos from the Pumpkin Patch

Weather in Colorado has been a bit schizophrenic this week.  93 degrees one day.  Cool the next. Sun in the morning and then rain in the afternoon and then sun again and then heavy storms in the evening.  For the first time I saw puddles form in the patch from the heavy rains.  Even when we had the floods in Colorado 3 years ago that didn't happen.

The 1985 Miller is 6-8 inches from the end of the hoop house and I can't reposition the hoop house any more.  Sunday or Monday I'll have to remove the hoop house.  Fortunately the weather forecast is looking a little better.  I'm glad I didn't have to take them out sooner because I wouldn't have wanted the plants out in this weather, even with hail netting over the plants.

The 1985 looks very 2009ish to me.  The fact is that it should look that way, but from a genetic standpoint both plants are very similar.  If you look at the shape of the leaves on both plants they almost look identical.

I can tell the RAW Nitrogen (learn more) I gave the plants kicked in.  This type of nitrogen is one of the few non-organic fertilizers that I give plants but the quantities are small and this type of nitrogen is readily available to the plants.  The leaves got bigger on both plants and the side vines have started growing a little faster.

The 282 plant is looking better all of the time.  Growth on the main vine for it might be a touch faster than the 1985 at the same stage.  It still has some catching up to do, but I have more and more hope for this plant all the time.  

Planted the 282 Scherber this Afternoon

The 282 Scherber pumpkin plant germinated a week later than the other plants that I planted a week ago.  However, it came on strong under the lights and it was time to get it into the ground.  The root system on this 282 was very impressive.  Even better than the 1415 and 1985.  We will see how it will do.  It is planted with the 1415 which early on was a fast grower, but it hasn't kept pace with the 1985 since being planted. 

Both the 1985 and 1415's color doesn't look great.  It has been cloudy and rainy every day in Denver since the plants went into the ground and the weather is going to be the same and maybe even a little cooler for the next three days.  Yesterday the sun came out for about 45 minutes.  The plants didn't know what to do with it.  It will be interesting what happens when things really heat up.

Hail Netting 1 - Hail 0

Only in Colorado can you have a 101 degree day and then have the ground covered in ice at the end of the day.  About 1 hour ago I saw flash of light at a rate of about once per 2 seconds.  At first I didn't know what it was but then I looked out the window to the north and could see green colored clouds moving very quickly towards me.  It was a wall of clouds that were massive and I knew it was going to be trouble.  I know better than anyone else what a massive hail storm will do to a pumpkin patch more or less a house.

Within minutes the winds increased incredibly.  Only one other time do a remember the winds that strong.  Looking from a second story window towards the pumpkin patch I could see my hoop house to the side of the pumpkin patch had its plastic shredded.   I've had hoop houses in 50 mph winds and never had a problem.  This is 6 mil plastic so I'm not sure how fast the wind was going but I wouldn't be surprised if it was around 100mph or more.

Then the rains came and it was a downpour.  Within seconds after that the hail started.  At first it was dime sized and then some quarter sized hail started coming down.   The nail never came down super hard which is the only reason anything survived.  About 20 minutes later it stopped and at about 30 minutes the skies were mostly clear. 

I went out and checked the plants.  Both of my kids plants have a fair amount of holes, but the plants weren't shredded like I would have guessed they would be.  Vine tips seemed to still be in place and the female on my daughters plant that will be opening tomorrow seemed to be fine.  I put a chair over it a couple of days ago so I'm sure that helped save it. 

My plants surprisingly did well.  I knew that they wouldn't be in horrible shape because I could see the hail netting was protecting the plants for the most part.  I was concerned that the 335 Scherber plant would be beat up on the north side where the hail had blown under the netting.  It was dark and hard to see well but it looked like the vine tips were still in place for the side vines.  There was definitely holes in the leaves, but not bad. 

The 1791, considering the force of the storm, was hardly damaged.  It is on the south side of the patch so it was the most protected under the netting.  Some of the leaves on the west side had some holes in them but all considering I feel pretty blessed that there wasn't more damage.

1791 Pumpkin's First Measurement

Typically I start taking measurements on the pumpkins starting around day number 10.  And then periodically, if not daily, take measurements after that.  Sometimes you can recognize problems early if you find that growth is slowed down.  A day 10 measurement doesn't mean much.  Typically I want to see a pumpkin around 20-24 inches on day 10 for a Colorado grown pumpkin.  However, I know growers in other states who consistently have day 10 measurements in the 15-19 inches range who have consistent 1,500 to 1,800 pound pumpkins at the end of the year.  Weather and genetics can be a factor for how your pumpkin grows and ten days is a pretty small window.

The measurement on the 1791 pumpkin was a bit of a disappointment.  17 1/2 inches.  The 1421 Stelts had a day 10 measurement of 23 1/2 inches last year.  One thing I re-learned last year however is that it doesn't matter how they start, it only matters how the finish.  The Wiz at mid-season last year had a very ordinary looking pumpkin.  At the weigh-off it was the 2nd heaviest pumpkin ever grown in Colorado.  His pumpkin was what is called a long grower.  It never got to super high daily gains.  It just kept growing consistently and never tapered off much.  Although not as exciting, that is really the pumpkin you want.  Less risks of the pumpkin splitting open when it is a long grower (although Wiz's pumpkin did unfortunately pop at the end of the year on a deep rib).

Time to Till the Patch Again

My cover crop has been growing like crazy the last few weeks.  I don't think it has ever been taller at this point in the season.  Lots of rain in Denver the last few weeks has helped it develop quickly.  This Saturday the plan is to till the cover crop under.  That way, in two weeks, when the pumpkin vines start growing into the areas where the cover crop was located it will be mostly broken down and will be ready to feed the plants a few weeks after that.

My 1791 plant is about at the same length or maybe a touch ahead of the 1421 plant from last year.  My 335 plant is about the same length as the 1775 at this point in the season.

Not Loving this Weather But Plants are Doing Well

My plants are at about the same stage of growth as last year's plants but I'm not loving our weather this early season.   Partially cloudy makes it hard to control the temperatures in the hoop house.  I'll watch the temperature monitor and the hoop house will go from 75 to 88 and back down to 75 in the course of an hour depending on if the sun is out or not and it changes a lot.  We haven't had many of what I would call sunny days this spring.  Sun in the morning and then cloudy most afternoons. 

Ideally I'd like to have the hoop houses at a constant 90 degrees.  The humidity stays higher in the hoop houses so 90-92 degrees is great.  You don't want much more than that.  Without the hoop houses I'd like about 88 degrees.  I think a perfect enviroment for pumpkin plants would be about 88 degree days with a bit of humidity and then about 80 degrees at night.  These plants don't like big transitions in temperatures so Colorado isn't an ideal growing enviroment with our 60 degree summer nights and 93 degree days with low humidity.

Today my son and daughter's planted their pumpkin plants.  We are about two weeks late but they are both beautiful plants.  Both plants already have their vines down on the ground.  If the plants can transition to their outdoor environments quickly they will both do fantastic.  My daughter's 335 Scherber plant in particular I think will do well.  Round 1161 Rodonis leaves like papa had tells me that it will lean a little more to that side.  My 335 Scherber plants have the pointy 1421 leaves so it will be interesting to see how those pumpkins turn out.

Today I gave all of my plants a divided portion of four gallons of aerated compost tea with one teaspoon of liquid seaweed, teaspoon of fulvic acid, half a tablet of Biotamax, 1/2 tablespoon of Azos and a touch of Actinovate added to the tea just before pouring.  I might have over done it but that biology added to the soil could do some good to promote growth and help protect the plants. 

Keeping the Pumpkin Plants Warm in the Snow

Last night it rained and the rain turned to snow this morning.  It has snowed pretty much since 8:30 this morning with the temperature hovering around 34 degrees for most of the day.  The pumpkin plants are safe in their hoop houses right now where it is 53 degrees currently inside.  Not ideal growing weather by any means, but warm enough to keep the plants from freezing.  In one hoop house I have a 250 watt heat lamp.  In the other hoop house I have a thermostatically controlled space heater.  Last night and just now I covered the hoop houses with silver tarps which will help hold the heat in a little.  As long as the electricity stays turned on we should be good, but I'm looking forward to Tuesday when we return to spring like weather.

The Pumpkin Plants

After a week of very strong winds it is finally calm enough to get the plants out into the sun this morning.  It is only about 42 degrees, but the perfect opportunity to harden the plants off some and get them some full spectrum sunlight. 

Pictured below from top left to right on the top row:  228 Scherber (late planting), 1317 Clements, 695 Johnson, 1220 Johnson (king of the patch), 1220 Johnson

2nd Row:  228 Scherber, 335 Scherber, 335 Scherber, 1791 Holland

3rd Row:  1317 Clements, 335 Scherber

The Leaves are Looking Old Now; Pumpkin Still Growing

I noticed today how much the leaves on the plants have aged since the big storm.  Prior to the storms the leaves on my 1421 plant had never looked better.  Cooler nights and a lot of rain has taken its toll. 

The pumpkin however is still growing.  One week from tomorrow we will be cutting her from the vine which is kind of exciting.  We just need for her to stay together solid for one more week.

This evening I gave both plants some fish & seaweed.  Saturday will probably be the first time in what will have been almost two weeks since I've watered the plants.

Thanks to Everyone for Coming by on the RMGVG Patch Tour

It was great to see everyone on the pumpkin patch tour today.  We sure have a great bunch of growers and Wiz always puts on a nice event.  This year growers came to my patch, Scherber's and then the Wiz & Biz patch.  Joe has a very nice 1623 pumpkin growing.  I told Joe this 2 weeks ago and I still think its true.  Joe's pumpkin is a few days behind mine in growth but it has so much growth after the fruit that I think come September he will catch me.  However I wouldn't have thought that my pumpkin would be at 900 pounds at this point of the season based on the current plant growth so maybe I'll be wrong.

This evening I gave the 1421 some foliar multimineral and seaweed.  I also gave the vines after the plant some 0-1-1.  The 1775 I gave the same with some additional 0-1-1 added.

Latest Pictures from the Pumpkin Patch

The first picture is of the 1421 Stelts (Stanely) and the second is the 1775 Starr (Elbert).  Elbert was a really disappointing pumpkin early on but I still have hope for it.  At day 20 it is the shiniest that it has ever been and over the last few days its circumference measurements increase in inches have been on par with what they should be right now so maybe it is just a late bloomer.

Stanely is by far the best pumpkin I have ever had.  The 10 day measurement I think was the only measurement that I've had that was behind any previous pumpkin that I've grown in the past.  It has just been a fantastic plant so far.  The one thing that I would like to see out of this plant still is more vine growth after the pumpkin.  I think for this plant to continue to drive the pumpkin in the later part of the year I need a bunch of new growth and at this point I'm not seeing it like I would like.  However, my hope is once the vines after the pumpkin get rooted I can start seeing some better results.  This plant seems to root very well.

The vine growing on the 1421 hasn't ever been aggressive but hasn't ever been slow either.  It has been a descent grower.  The main vine is already as long as last year's plant and we still have two more months to go.

This evening I gave the 1775 plant some liquid seaweed to encourage it a little.

Figuring Out the Correct Amount of Water for the Pumpkins

Yesterday it got to about 91 degrees in Denver.  I noticed in the late afternoon that the ground was looking a bit dry.  Right now I have the Dan Micros set to run for 11 minutes each morning.  And then I mist the plants from 10:30 to 5:30.   I was a bit surprised to see it lightly dry.  Growth on the 1421 pumpkin (Stanely) was down 2 pounds yesterday which can easily be cause by a mis-measurement but it was against the daily upward trend that I've been seeing for the past week so today I decided to try an experiment.  Today it hit about 84 degrees in Denver.  A fair amount cooler than yesterday but I watered the patch an additional 4 minutes today to see if it made in difference in growth.  I'll check the pumpkin again tomorrow and find the results.  I can't say I've ever felt like I've got the watering thing down perfectly.

This evening I did a foliar application of Multimineral with yucca and a small amount of Big Bloom in it.

Pictures from the Pumpkin Patch

Below are pictures from early this morning in the pumpkin patch.  Looks like the 1421 is going to end up a nice orange one.  I think it is the first pumpkin I've had that has been ahead of the charts.

1421 aka Stanley

1775 aka Elbert

335 Scherber (my son's pumpkin)

The Patch (1421 in the foreground)

Hot in Denver and Pumpkin Pollinations

The 1421 Stelts seems to have taken the pollination in what has been some pretty bad heat. The female has grown in size so that is a good sign.  One more 95 degree day and then we will back into the 80s for a while. Usually days 3-5 is when you can really tell if the pumpkin has set and not until about day 10 can you breath a sigh of relief. Pictured below is the 1775 Starr female that I'll be pollinating on Saturday or Sunday. This female is similar to the one that grew into the 1,775 pound pumpkin that the seed I am growing came from.  However, Thad's a fair amount skinner and had a much longer stem on it.

This evening I sprayed some bug spray on all of the plants.  I kind of hate to do that but after losing a plant last year to a disease spread by the Squash Bug I don't want to lose a plant again because of that.  I also sprayed a little fish & seaweed on the ground where the plants haven't grown yet.

Pictures from the Pumpkin Patch

1421 Stelts

Today I put down some calcium on the soil.  Particularly on the 1421 plant side of the patch.  These are the latest pictures from the pumpkin patch.  The 1775 Starr has caught up to the 1421 Stelts in length but is behind in terms of side vines.  Both plants are about 15-17 feet long on the main vine which isn't too bad for me at this point of the season.

I spoke with Thad Starr yesterday about some of the traits of his plant that grew the 1775 last year and the 1775 he is growing this year.  Other than maybe my baby pumpkin being just a hair fatter than his last year (time will tell on that one because my female flower is so young) all the rest of the traits were exactly the same as his (which is a good thing). 

1775 Starr

One of the reasons (and there are many) that I chose to grow the 1775 is because I'm hoping that the genetics in this seed are refined and made more consistent.  Every seed is like a child and has slightly different genetics from the other seeds in the pumpkin.  This is especially true if you cross your pumpkin with another pumpkin from different genetic lines.  However, if you self or self pollinate the pumpkin with pollen from its own flowers then the genetics should be more similar (although they won't be the same).  Kristy Harp and her husband selfed their 1385 Jutras plant that grew the world record 1,725 pounder.  This was unique as most growers at that time didn't self pumpkins and this was the first world record that I know of in the last 25 years that was selfed.

Not only was that 1725 selfed but it was a special pumpkin.  I know the gentics in its line were of royal linage and that pumpkin had the potential to possibly even getter bigger than it did.  That isn't a knock on its growers, because I think a grower with a more jacked up soil probably would have blown up that pumpkin.  By selfing it they seem to have preserved the rock star genetics that it had which might have been lost by crossing it with a lesser pumpkin.  The year after Kristy grew her world record they were kind enough to give me their 1236 Harp seed which was a cross of the 998 Pukos with the world record plant.  Some nice pumpkins have been grown from the 1236 but nothing close to the giants grown from the 1725 seed.  The 998 didn't seem to add to the great genetics of the 1725.

My hope is that by Thad selfing his 1725 plant that grew his massive 1775 he has further refined and made more consistent the genetics in the seed.  Thad's pumpkin looked more like Kristy's pumpkin than any other one that I have seen.  The coloring and shape were almost identical.  Ron's world record pumpkin grown from the 1725 seed looked very little like Kristy's.  Joe's big pumpkin grown off the 1725 didn't look a lot like Kristy's either, although maybe more than Ron's.  Thad's was more of a mirror image and I'm hoping that means those original genetics have been passed on to my plant.  So far I've had very few complaints about this plant.  Here's to hoping it grows like Thads!

Female at about 12 feet on 1421 Stelts

A female flower showed up on the 1421 at about 11 to 12 feet on the main vine today.  If you want to grow a big pumpkin then you want to grow it on the main vine because that is where the most available nutrients are going to be to power the pumpkin's growth.  This female is on the side of the plant that I'd like to grow a pumpkin so I'm hoping that in about 10 days I'll be pollinating it.

No females have shown up on the main vine of the 1775 plant yet.  This plant reminds me alot of the 1789 Wallace plant that I grew last year. I'm maybe 1-2 days behind that plant in terms of side vine growth, but the main vine is almost exactly the same length for the date.  The 1421 plant is a bit ahead of where both of my plants were at on this date last year.

I gave my plants a very light dose of foliar fish and seaweed this evening.  Mostly my daughter gave the fish and seaweed to her 1799 plant which continues to struggle and there was some left over so I sprayed in on my son's and my two plants.

Kudos to the Wife, The Hoop House is Off

1421 Stelts

Let me take a moment to give a big thanks to my wife and the help she gives me in growing my pumpkins.  I should put "help" in quotes because she usually doesn't look at my pumpkin plants for the first two months and then after that maybe 3-4 times before harvest.  However, she puts up with me wasting a lot of time in the patch and listening to me talk about pumpkins throughout the season and to put up with that is more than any women should have to endure. 

This evening she did help me a lot by helping me take the hoop houses off of the plants.  This was not an easy and a little scary task.  Last season I lost the main vine on a plant when I and another person were removing the hoop houses.  That set that plant back a week.  This year it even more challenging because the 1421 plant was 2 days over due in taking the hoop house off the plant and the main must have grown 10 inches today we we had to be very careful in taking the hoop house off.  My wife was a champ however and things went perfectly.

When you take the hoop houses off what used to look like a big plant looks very small.  Both the 1775 and the 1421 plants are getting ready to explode however.  By this time next week the plants will literally have doubled in size or more.  In two weeks we should be pollinating the pumpkins and then we are off to the races.

Today I gave the patch a spray down of Biotamax and Azos.  I also gave the plants some CalCarb because it is going to be hot tomorrow.