| Oct 28th- Uh oh... Yesterday I
noticed the pumpkin leaning to the side... looking at
it, it had a hole rotted in the bottom/side, with
juice oozing out. NOT good. This morning I
cleaned it out, hoping to save seeds. I just cut
off the bad rot section and left the top 3/4 of a
pumpkin intact and carved a face in it; it's only got
to last a few more days. I was going to save
seeds until I noticed that at every rib inside, the
flesh was split apart top to bottom. And the
skin throughout the bottom half of the pumpkin was
only about 1 1/2" thick. I don't really
want to save the seeds from a fruit that has such
splitting problems. Back to the drawing board
next year! |
|
Oct 15th- I harvested the fruit
off the McKie plant today! It weighs 150
lbs. It's sort of acorn-shaped, and greenish on
the top and yellowish on the bottom. The
caulked-up holes seem to be fine- the fruit is quite
solid, and was still growing when I cut it off.
I'll be saving the seeds as I crossed it with my
true-green 411*.
|
| Oct 8th- I have only 1 fruit
left, a fairly ugly fruit on the 897* McKie.
It's lumpy, sort of greenish, sort of yellowish, sort
of peachy, and only about 100 lbs. It does have
the largest stem of any fruit I've ever grown- easily
bigger than my forearm. The plant is still alive
but hit with powdery mildew, but it's almost time to
harvest anyway. Today I noticed that it has 2
holes at the Dill ring... I shot some caulking into it
to hopefully make it last until Halloween. |
| September 9th- The green I-1
fruit has completely aborted at about medicine ball
size. I thought it wasn't getting bigger &
today I found it half rotted. It was the only
fruit on my 411 plant, so I culled the whole plant out
today (less leaves to hold powdery mildew I
figured). I only have one fruit now left, and
it's not even a hundred pounds. :-( |
| August 31st- Noted powdery
mildew spots starting to show. I can't spray for
it today as some big rain is expected. |
| August 29th- Fertilized
w/20-20-20, note that it's gotten fairly cool lately-
only 70s during the day, 50s-60s at night. |
| August 13th- I hand pollinated a
female on the McKie main ("M-2"), using 3
male flowers from my 411 squash plant at 7:50AM.
For the past several days it's been very cool at
night, around 54 degrees, and only in the mid-70s
during the day. I fertilized with 15-30-15
Miracle Gro; I should be using 20-20-20 but didn't
have any on hand. I noticed the first watermelon
female flower open today. Another is ready to
open in a day or two. |
| August 8th- I hand pollinated a
female ("M-1") on the McKie main, using 2
male flowers from my 411 squash plant at 8:10AM.
Killed more squash vine borers by hand. |
| August 7th- I think a female
flower will open tomorrow morning on the McKie 897*. |
August 6th- I wore some DEET
insect repellent (which worked great!) and weeded the entire
garden and then sprayed with a mixture of Daconil and Sevin.
Pulled out another 2 squash vine borers. About
11AM, I discovered that a green female flower
("I-1")
opened on my 411* plant main this morning. By
this time, all the pollen was well gone, so I hope the
bees found it and did their job. The 897* is throwing
yellow female
flowers I can now tell (oh well!), so it may not have green fruit
in the end; we'll have to see.
The watermelon plant is growing nicely, and male
flowers have started to open. |
| August 5th- The hot weather
finally broke yesterday. Today, while weeding
the garden, I discovered 4-5 squash vine borer grubs
in the base of the vines of my 411* plant; I dug them
all out with a pen knife. I was supposed to have
a female flower open on the 411* today, but it's not
opening, killed by the heat during the past
week. I still don't have any fruit set at all,
which means I'm about 3-4 weeks behind where I should
be at this point. |
| August 3rd- For the past 2
weeks I've watered the garden every day with a 300' of
soaker hose snaked back and forth. I got a nice
electronic timer, and set it so it turns the water on
at 10AM and off at noon. This has worked
GREAT. We've also had a heat wave, and all the
female flowers died, so I still have no fruit
set. The plants are decent size and healthy. |
July 18th- Second male opened
on the 897*. I've started burying secondaries now
(as well as the main). You should bury the vine
up to the leaf as big as your outstretched hand.
897* vine=12' 6"
long. One small-pea-sized fruit seen at
tip. Not quite sure of color yet.
411* vine=9'6"
long. One large pea-sized green fruit seen at
tip.
From all the rain we've had, the garden is getting a
bit mossy! |
July 17th- First male opened,
on the 897*...
We've had about 5" of rain in the past week. |
| July 9th- Noticed first powdery
mildew on the lilac bush leaves. This means I
should start preventive spraying on the pumpkins... |
| July 8th- the 897 McKie vine
measures 5'6", and my 411 measures
4'0". I'm a little over 2 weeks
behind other years going by vine length. I can
see several male flowers forming on the McKie
now. I hooked up an in-line hose feeder, put in
some 15-30-15 Miracle Gro, and gave all the plants a
good deep soaking. |
| July 6th- Ah, a couple days in
the open garden and sun, and the pumpkin vines are
growing around 6" a day, nice! |
| July 3rd- Weeded out thigh-high
weeds & crabgrass from the garden. The
crabgrass was backbreaking work as each individual one
had to be hoe-d out. I removed the storm-window greenhouses-
the pumpkin vines were starting to bend because they
hit the end, so I'm just in time. I buried the
pumpkin vines and staked them down with bamboo sticks
to protect them from the wind. Fertilized with
1.5x strength 15-30-15 Miracle Gro. |
| June 21st- Only 1 melon left
(146.5),
one has croaked. Both squash are doing ok, with
3-4 leaves each. Biggest leaf is about
6". Way, way behind where I should
be... |
| June 11th- FINALLY put the 897*
and one 411* in the garden, and two w-melons.
Protected under storm-window mini greenhouses.
Watered with 15-30-15 Miracle Gro Fertilizer. |
| May 8th-June 10th- too busy for
much of anything pumpkin related! |
| May 7th- 897* has nice roots,
1.5" long. One 411* has ok roots, only
1/2-3/4" long. The other 411s have
germinated but have no real roots yet- weird.
The 207 watermelon is not growing, but the 146.5 is
growing nicely. |
| May 5/6th- Planted watermelons
into peat pots |
| May 3rd-
both watermelons have sprouted (much to my surprise-
they're usually tough to germinate since they need
warmer temperatures). I had used a new technique
this year- I put the pumpkin seeds way across
diagonally in the oven from the bulb, getting about 86
degrees there, and I put the watermelons in the middle
of the oven, getting about 90 degrees.
|
| April 30th- I haven't had a
chance to start the seeds until today (2 weeks
late!) My friend Carl G. already has BIG
potted plants (2' long) that he started extra-early
due to the warm Spring. So at 10:30PM this
evening, I started soaking the following in warm
water, then an hour or so later, put in a damp paper
towel on a saucer covered with Saran Wrap. I put
them in the nice warm 86-90 degree oven, heated by
just the oven light bulb. This technique works
very well.
My seed choices for this year:
Green:
- 897* McKie 05 (the new NYS
State Record Squash!)
- 411* Inzero 00 (my
personal best, 535 Wolf 00 x self)
PLUS Carolina Cross giant watermelon seeds
from:
- 146.5 James 05
- 207 Hunt 05
Orange:
-
NONE! My main goal is to produce a great Green
seed for next year. I may get orange by accident, as nobody's
sure what the 897* will throw as it was unprotected
when pollinated. |
