1. It was a successful growing year.
2. I ended my season blowing up two pumpkins(too much vine pruning at once) and having one not take and rotted half-way through.
3. The remaining two pumpkins did very well and I set a personal best at 818 pounds.
4. I continue to meet new people who also enjoy the hobby of growing pumpkins.
5. Both my pumpkins weighed extremely lite this year compared to the chart.
6. I wrote a mobile application that any mobile device can use to track the growth of the fruit.  I developed the application using my Droid X and now I have the iPhone 5.  It will be interesting to see how it behaves with my new iPhone.  If I find bugs, I will fix them, but the application can be found at http://reporting.giantstogrow.com
7. My nicest pumpkin survived multiple vole attacks and cat scratches.  It really shows you how thick their shells are.  The vole had chewed on pounds of my pumpkin, but it still made it to Halloween.  I used a little sulfur dust and that seemed to do the trick by drying  out the wound.  They never did chew all the way through to the cavity of the pumpkin.  I thought the sulfur dust would also be a deterrent, but the voles continued to eat on it.
8. Placing wood under the pumpkins is a good idea and will help you move it later in the season.  However, I wonder if it made it too cool for the fruit to develop heavy.

Why did my pumpkins weigh so lite to chart?  Continued below :The start of the 2013 pumpkin growing season actually starts in 2012.  This fall, I paid particular close attention to  adding additional nutrients to the soil.  My pumpkins weighed lite so I’m trying to determine what I can do to prevent this from happening again.  Every year I learn new tricks and things to try.

The First One Ton Pumpkin! 2009 pounds grown by Ron Wallace.–Photo Credit: Steve Connolly

Ron Wallace grew the first pumpkin over 2000 pounds or breaking the one ton barrier by nine pounds.  This is an amazing accomplishment and he definitely knows what he’s doing when it comes to growing them big.  I’m sure this hobby will continue to see pumpkins getting bigger and heavier, but it does make me wonder when they will stop gaining in size and weight.

Anyway, I had visions of an entire vole family falling out of my pumpkin as I lifted it with my homemade tripod system and it would all be caught on tape.  Luckily, the bottom was solid so I felt I had a chance to take this pumpkin to a weigh off.  I figured the cats had ruined my chances for the Howard Dill Award–prettiest pumpkin so I was now hoping the pumpkin would go a little heavy and it would be my first 1000 pound pumpkin that I’ve grown.

The weigh off is always a fun event and it’s fun talking to the other growers.  To my dismay, when they weighed the pumpkin, it went 15% light!  I have to say I was a little bummed.  Then the “Wiz” stated I had won the Howard Dill Award!  I was thrilled and that helped with the sting of my pumpkin weighing so light.  It was a good day and I always enjoy the drive home.  It’s amazing how many drivers slowdown to take a picture and how a giant pumpkin can put a smile on anyone’s face.

The TV interview can be seen here: http://www.kgwn.tv/story/19671332/extreme-pumpkin-growing

Jared’s Nursery Giant Pumpkin Weigh Off

1244-Rea-Day-83

I sure am hoping to get my pumpkin to Jared’s weigh off this year.  My patch has been cursed this year, but I hope to persevere and get at least one pumpkin to a weigh off.  I wanted to provide a status of my nicest pumpkin as it has been awhile since I have posted anything.

The voles really have taken their toll on my 1244 REA.  They have taken their turns eating on it at different times.  I have found new damage three days in a row from these critters.  I ordered some sulfur dust that was FedEx to my house.  I dumped the dust over all the chew marks and where the skin was missing on the pumpkin.  Hopefully, the sides will not get too soft and last for one more week.  Today, I noticed the nub on the blossom end is black/green and possibly rotting.  I put sulfur dust on it and will check again each day to determine if I should try and surgically remove it and then dust it.  The bigger the pumpkin, the more likely you are going to have problems with it.  I definitely have learned that lesson this year.  Just FYI, my trap caught one vole and Tux the cat caught the other vole.  My other cat is the one who likes to jump on the pumpkins and slide down leaving claw marks.  Almost all of the scratches you see in the photo are from that cat.

I have been applying a ton of fertilizer to the patch the past four days.  The first day, I applied fish emulsion to the patch.  The second day, I applied some micro-nutrients, the third day, I applied 0-10-10 or Morbloom, and today I applied some calcium.  I figure at this point in time, I can push the plant as much as possible.

Good Luck Everyone!!!!! I am really looking forward seeing your giants at the weigh offs.

1306 Mohr Pumpkin Blossom End Split

If you look at the photo closely, the 1306 Mohr went down today.  I noticed yesterday it seemed a little soft, but was not sure why.  After further investigation, I was able to put a needle easily all the way through the crack.  It’s too bad, this one was a steady grower.  Initially, it was my fastest grower for about the first 25 days, then it was slow and steady.

I have no one to blame but myself.  I was not doing the appropriate maintenance on the plant and ended up with several pumpkins and many vines that needed to be trimmed.  I trimmed everything on Thursday night versus taking a few pumpkins off at a time.  It clearly had a growth spurt and split.  Amy really liked the color and shape of this one.

The whitest Pumpkin I have ever grown

This one is really big and continues to put on 12+ pounds a day.  Even with the 1610 Leiber genetics, it is ghost white.

It’s been awhile since I have posted an official status of my pumpkins so here it is.  Mr. Orange is now name cat scratch fever!

Will this split from my cats scratching?

Close up of the scratch

This is only one scratch of many

This pumpkin has an OTT of 331.5

The next pumpkin in the lineup is the 1306 Mohr

OTT 288.5 Day 48

Last, but not least my 1365 Singleton.

It has also suffered numerous cat scratches and markings and is turning out to be the whitest pumpkin I have ever grown.  At day 45 it is OTT 290.5

Day 53 and officially a personal best

This pumpkin is still growing 10+ pounds a day and according to the OTT, it is definitely my personal best. I hope she holds together for the weigh off at Jared’s on the 29th. Yesterday, I sprayed more calcium on the leaves and today I gave them a shot of magnesium. Of course, each day they get a good dosing of my secret sauce. I’m always trying something different and trying to compensate for our poor weather.

1244 REA–Day 45

The 1244 REA started growing again! At an OTT of 291.5, it is getting close to being my personal best. It is still growing  close to 20 pounds a day at day 45. It is going to be a brilliant orange and now I just have to focus on keeping it warm. The temperature swings are interesting to say the least. I imagine it will be 45 degrees at our house tonight and might get as hot as 85 tomorrow. We actually even had rain most of the evening so I am a little concerned it could split. We’ll see what happens, but I’m extremely happy with this one.

1244 REA before cat damage

It’s been an interesting critter year.  I have no idea how many rabbits, prairie dogs, and ground squirrels I have transported this year.  My kids talked me into getting two cats and told me how they will keep the wildlife population down.  I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.  We adopted two kittens that folks needed to get rid of.  Well, they follow me everywhere in the patch just like a dog.  They have been good companions until tonight.  They decided it would be fun to jump on my nice shiny pumpkins.  Well, they were too big and slick for small kittens and they scratched them up all the way down.  Not only did they do this to one pumpkin, but two others as well.  I didn’t have the rabbits or other wildlife do this much damage at one time.

Oh Well

Before I left, I applied a folilar calcium spray to my pumpkin leaves, buried vines, and applied more compost.  I am looking forward seeing my family again, but also interested how the patch will look.  I imagine I will have a lot of tertiary vines to trim and secondary’s to cut and bury.  I had narrowed down my pumpkin selection before I left and it will be fun to see how big they are when I return.

While away, I worked on the pumpkin tracking application.  The application will record your measurements in the field and instantly provide you with the estimated weight if you provide the circumference, top to bottom, and side to side, measurements.  I am hoping to get at least 100 growers using the application.  If you know of any pumpkin growers, please provide them this link http://reporting.vegetabletoplant.com and suggest that they use this application to track the growth of their pumpkins.

I’ll be posting pictures of my pumpkins this weekend so all can see.

This year, I am trying plywood with sand on top to see if that prevents the pumpkin from growing over the top of the blossom.  I reburied vines with some compost I have been brewing and applied micro-nutrients.  I will be refilling my acid injectors before I leave and hope for the best.

The most recent photo:

1244 Rea Day 20

The 1244 REA plant will hopefully produce a beautiful orange pumpkin. I am hoping to keep the pumpkin I pollinated today versus the one on June 30th.

1244 Rea 2011

My daughter plant the 1306 Mohr pumpkin last year and it was one tough plant. It seems to be a very aggressive grower. I pollinated one about 8 feet out on July 3rd, but I should have another one ready by the 10th of July that I will probably keep.

1306 Mohr 2011

1213.5 REA 2011

1365 Singleton 2011

Adding Sand to the Garden

It has been a long spring and summer already.  I am really behind on keeping my diary going this year so I’m starting now.  In the spring, I added 16 tons of sand to the garden.  I way over estimated and my soil is probably considered sandy now.  It does make it easy to pull weeds and the soil does not compact as easily as it did previously.  So far, the pumpkin plants that have survived look healthy. 

I pollinated my first keeper this morning.  It’s about 10 feet out so I’m hoping that’s the magic number.  Last year, my pumpkins were all 6 feet out and I learned that I missed out by not having that additional 4 feet of plant behind the pumpkin to feed it.

I’ll explain more later and include pictures.

http://reporting.vegetabletoplant.com

I am looking for your feedback in regards to features you would like to see on the site.  I am hoping this will be a valuable tools for all this coming growing season.

I started two weeks ago with a heat mat under the seed tray and lamp. With one lamp, the temperature inside the greenhouse was around 75 degrees. I added another lamp and the temperature adjusted itself to 88 degrees. The first 2 weeks only 3 seeds germinated. It was very disappointing and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I was using miracle grow soil, keeping the soil moist, but not too moist.

I planted a new batch of seeds on Saturday and I already have 6 that have germinated (4 days). I changed the soil to Miracle grow seed starting mix. I am now beginning to wonder if the miracle grow potting soil is not very good to use to start seeds. I have a lot of confidence now that I will be able to grow some of the pumpkins that I’m planning on planting this coming spring. I have a feeling it will be a good season and I hope to set another personal best.

I used the advice that Biz provided me(see bigpumpkins.com) to find out who he is. I ended up using two regular desk lamps, a seed germination mat, a thermostat to control the mat, and keep the temperature at 88 degrees. You can view the photo below to see how I set it up.

What soil mixture or combinations do you use to start your pumpkin seeds?

Practicing Germinating Seeds

Water daily 20 minutes with the sprinkler 30 minutes when it’s hot.
2. Lots of Nitrogen early and stay with the Nitrogen throughout
3. Check the PH level often
4. Don’t cut the main vine if at all possible
5. Buy KDL Agro-K’s KDL (potassium carbonate).
Agro-K has this nice 0-0-6 which is K2S04 blended with seaweed.
http://www.agro-k.com/upload/Potassium_0-0-6_1.pdf
6. Lower the PH with elemental sulfur in the fall.

I applied the elemental sulfur this fall, but learned I might have applied way too much! I was planning to just mulch with leaves, but I kept reading blogs on grower diaries where they were using manure. I was having trouble obtaining leaves, so I was able to get some manure from singletree stables. They were very generous and gave me all that I could take. The downside is I applied it too fresh. Tomorrow, I plan to use the rototiller one more time and get everything mixed together before the ground freezes.

If you have any suggestions for me, please post them here.
Best,
Andy

I have listed all the photos they sent me if you would like to view them below:

2011 World Record Pumpkin In The Patch

2011 World Pumpkin Record at New York City

Zombies Crawling out of the 2011 World Record Pumpkin

Another View of the 2011 World Record In The Pumpkin Patch

1818.5 Jim and Kelsey Bryson World Record

2011 WR On the News In New Your City Talking About Bryson's Pumpkin

Another fun picture of the Bryson's and their WR Pumpkin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywDKK7zYqA

I just finished with the Jared’s weigh off and ended up with my personal best of 660 pounds! I’ll post more about it later, but here is a picture of me with my pumpkin.

2011 Giant Pumpkin Weigh off

Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin

 Has a orange hue even though it looks white

Giant White Pumpkin with a hint of orange between the ribs

Alisha’s 1308 Mohr.  This is hardly a pumpkin plant and was damaged by hail numerous times.  She was so happy to grow a pumpkin over 250 pounds!

Giant pumpkin that Alisha Grew

This will hopefully be my personal best and meet my goal of over 500 pounds.

Giant Orange Pumpkin Grown in Cheyenne, WY

Son’s pumpkin that grew to over 400 pounds. (It was on my acid injection system)

Giant White Pumpkin

I was out first thing in the morning checking the big pumpkins since I was worried with what I saw the temperature doing the night before.  Our house hit a low of 35.1 this morning so I figured I had dodged a bullet and that there would be no frost. Upon further investigation, it appeared that my vines and leaves were okay on the big pumpkins. 

Another local grower contacted me this afternoon and asked if I had lost any leaves.  I had only checked the big pumpkins and had assumed if they were okay, the rest of my garden was too.  Boy was I wrong, I lost about 40% of the leaves on the rest of the garden.   I did have the water running on the garden as well, but since it’s by zone, maybe it had switched over too soon. 

I really don’t know why the big pumpkins survived without apparent damage, but it might be a combination of the hail netting and getting lucky with when the water starting hitting the pumpkins.  My hunch is maybe it was a combination of the two that saved the leaves of my big pumpkins.  I guess the important thing is that my big pumpkin’s leaves survived and the pumpkins still have a chance to grow a little more.

I also learned a lesson.  I thought frost damage would only appear if it was below 32 degrees, but that’s clearly not the case.

194 OTT and the plant takes up only 150 square feet

The next pumpkin is the best shaped pumpkin.  This is the Hoffman 856 on Day 38

Day 38 217 OTT

This is the biggest pumpkin and hopefully my personal best!

Day 50 122.75 Circumference OTT 274

This is my Son’s pumpkin.  It started off a really good shape, but has warped since then.

101 Circumference

Finally, I thought the 1308 Todd pumpkin was going to be my biggest, but it slowed down.  It’s just now started to grow again.

First stop, the Wiz’s(Gary) and the Biz’s(Jim) pumpkin patch. They have a huge patch and my son and I were both impressed over how large the vines were and how many leaves the plants had.  Their pumpkins and plants dwarf mine.

Gary Discussing his pumpkin patch

Another Giant pumpkin in the Wiz's and Biz's Pumpkin Patch

Another Nice Pumpkin for the Wiz and Biz

I wish my pumpkin leaves looked this healthy

The next stop was Joe Scherber’s pumpkin patch.  The drive was around 25 minutes in Colorado traffic.Even though our weather is not as nice, having a smaller population makes up for it.  Denver gets crazy and you spend a lot of time waiting in traffic. 

Joe’s plant was incredible!  The leaves were giants and the root system was larger than tree trunks.  This was the widest pumpkin that I’ve ever seen.

Giant Pumpkin by Joe S.

Giant Pumpkin Leaves with A Giant Pumpkin

The last stop on the tour was Jamie’s pumpkin patch AKA The Pumpkin Man on the Marriage Ref.  Jamie is a real nice guy and willing to volunteer information.  His pumpkin is a beautiful orange and he is hoping it will be well over a 1000 pounds when it goes to the weigh off.

Jamie's Perfect Pumpkin

The tour lasted a lot longer than I had anticipated.  I was bummed that I was not going to be able to participate in the BBQ since it was already 3:00 pm and I needed to whisk off to my daughter’s soccer game in Broomfield.  I appreciate the time that Jim Grande spent with me that afternoon providing me tips to get my seeds started.  I believe he told me his 1084 seed might go heavy and when I looked in my packet, I had one.  I might be trying that one next year.

On our return, I remember Joe S. talking about the wind in Wyoming.  Sure enough, he was correct, I took a picture of my neighbor’s flag when we got home.  I guess I’m used to the wind and anything under 20 mph is just a breeze to me.

Flag waving in the wind

Needless to say, my wife is also mad at me and will not use any of the kitchen measuring devices that I used again.  While I was weighing exactly 2.5 ounces of the material, I ended up getting it all over my hands and made a mess.  My wife read the label and it said do not get on your skin and if you do, wash the infected area for 15 to 20 minutes and then call poison control center.  Being that it was soap based and I thought it was all organic, I didn’t read all the warnings.

I’m still alive and washed the material off the best I could.  I sprayed my pumpkin plants tonight, but what is the best product to use to eliminate cucumber beetles?

A Big OrangePumpkin

I installed my acid injection system this weekend.  I purchased an EZ-Flo Automatic Fertilizer Injector System online and am ready to test its capability.  I am initially running fertilizer and citric acid.  The ph has gone from 8.2 to 4.0.  I sure hope that it will not be too acidic.

I initially installed this on the drip system where my soaker hoses are located.  If I see improvements in the plant’s health, then I’ll include a separate system for the leaves of the plants.  I have to figure out what is going to work. 

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a chance to post an update for everyone.  My 1308 Todd seed named Sam, has really taken off.  It is 30 inches in circumference and pure glossy white.  Here is the big goof I did.  I was hammering in my re-bar that I was going to put my PVC piping over to make a shade house, and accidently placed it right next to the main vine.  Low and behold, the re-bar cut into the main vine.  Then when I was placing the tarp over the pumpkin, it fell off the PVC and scratched it.  I also had to pull tap roots four feet out on each side of the pumpkin.  I really hate doing that, especially since I ended up pollinating this one 6 feet from the main vine.  I know you are ideally supposed to be around 10 to 12 feet out, but since our growing season is short, I decided to keep that one.  I’m culling all the other pumpkins off tomorrow on this plant.

I also placed a tarp over my 1167 pumpkin named Independent.  It’s 27.5 in circumference and very yellow.  I’m hoping for a pretty orange one on this plant.

The best shaped little pumpkin that I’ve ever pollinated is the 856 Hoffman.  It’s perfectly round and I crossed her with the 1167 Courson.  Ideally, many pumpkin growers like the oblong ones to go for the record.  However, I am trying to grow the biggest, roundest, orange pumpkin possible.  I noticed it went 8% heavy so I have a lot of hope for this one.

My son is growing the 1177 Conely.  He has vines going everywhere and a lot of work cut out for him. Also, my daughter is growing the 1306 Mohr seed.  Unfortunately, it was not covered under our hail netting and looks less than impressive.  I have hope that some new leaves will continue to generate, but it has numerous holes through the plant.  At least it didn’t get leveled like our zucchini did.  Alisha really wanted to bring a record breaking zucchini to the Rocky Mountain Grower’s weigh off.  That won’t be happening this year.

I spent the next hour repairing the pumpkins(reburying the pumpkin vines).  Since my leaves are not big and green, but smaller and light green, I dumped four pounds of ammonia sulfate on four of my plants.  I did water them down hoping I didn’t burn them, but that they will take advantage of the nitrogen.  Only time will tell over the next couple of days.

The night before I was doing research on how I was going to get my well water’s PH in check.  It’s currently measuring a PH of 8.0 and my soil is at 7.8.  It looks like I will need to build an acid injection system into my drip system to help lower my PH.  Hopefully, I will determine how to do this in the next couple of weeks.

When I made it home, I could tell the hail netting was only a few feet off of the ground.  We immediately pulled together and started patching the hail netting between storms.  The wind had bent the steel posts a little, but it was nothing that we couldn’t throw a quick patch here and there.

I just read Jamie’s latest post on http://denverpumpkins.com/ and his pumpkins are 12 feet out and have been pollinated.  I feel fortunate to have two pumpkins that are each six feet out and might be pollinated next week.  My goal is still to reach 500lbs this year and if the weather doesn’t destroy my patch, I’m still hopeful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvBV4DvHlAE

I learned a couple of things about my soil over the past week.  First, I saw the PH of my soil was not ideal so I tested the PH of the water that soaks my pumpkins.  The PH of my water was 8.0 (BUMMER).  I have not found any good articles on how to counter PH in water or soil.  Does anyone out there have some advice that they could post and others learn from?

Soil Results

Soil Test Results for My Pumpkin Patch

Soil Nutrient Recommendation For Giant Pumpkins

We have had THREE hail storms over three separate days where I live.  My pumpkins are barely holding on.  Last night, the wind blew so hard, my wind fence and my wood fence blew down.  In fact, I have heavy duty metal poles and one of them was bent when the fence blew down.

I have not had a chance to put my hail netting up.  I hope to wake the family up early tomorrow morning for some help and get it installed.  I’ll post some pictures when it’s done.  My daughter already told me we will be the only house with a circus tent.  Hopefully my covenants will allow me to keep this structure up through the summer.  I plan to protect four plants under the netting.  The netting was very expensive, but it will be well worth it if it works.

My plants are way behind and really haven’t grown much for over a month.

The experiment worked very well and the seeds sprouted the tap root within 3 days.  I planted them on a Friday night and had tap roots by Monday.  However, when I took the seeds and planted them in the soil, all the plants died.

I think my fertilizer experiment this year harmed the seeds versus creating a strong root system.  I was able to only get half the pumpkin seeds I planted to germinate this year.   The photo below are from the following plants:

1308 Todd 10
1101.6 Lancaster 05
690 Grande 10
856 Hoffman 10
1167 Courson 10
1117 Conley 06

I planted some backup seeds, but they have not sprouted yet.

The other problem I experienced this year was my space heater went crazy on me.  I came home from work and the room temperature was 105 degrees.  This temperature cooked all the tender leaves that had started and the plants don’t look too healthy.

Does anyone have a good recommendation on a space heater that is temperature controlled?

Pumpkin Plants For 2011

Destroyed Hoops House By the Wind

You can see my steel posts have been pushed over from the wind.  I thought this was the best wind fence I could use this year.

Damaged Wind Fence Used To Protect My Hoop Houses

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They provided some quick insight into what fertilizers could be used to grow giant pummpkins.  I bugged out early to go watch my son’s soccer game, but hopefully next time, I can stay for the whole meeting.

690 Grande 10  I love the shape and color of this pumpkin
1308 Todd 10

1306 Mohr 2010

856 Hoffman 2010

856 Hoffman 2010

1011 Hoffman 2010

I will narrow this down to 3 and my son will grow the other one.  I wish everyone luck on their pumpkin growing season this year!  I hope to break 500 pounds this year.

Variety

Harvest

Color

Vine

Weight

If you want seeds straight from the owner’s of the trademark, navigate here Giant Pumpkins.

856 Hoffman 10 1180.5 Pukos 07 X 1544.5 Revier 09.   What this really means is Hoffman grew an eight hundred fifty-six pound pumpkin in 2010.  The female flower was from the seed of 1180.5 Pukos(Grower’s last name) and grown in 2007.  The male plant came from a 1544.5 Revier seed grown in 09.

If you would like to look up the lineages of pumpkins, you can visit this web site.  http://tools.pumpkinfanatic.com

Articles on Pumpkin Genetics:

The DNA of Pumpkins

Chris Stevens of New Richmond, Wi.

1011 Hoffman 10 (1446.5 Werner 07 x 1180.5 Pukos 07) 11% light

The 1446.5 plant was a vigorous plant and was easy to work with. By day 10, the first fruit in the “pollination zone” began to noticeably grow faster than the other 3 patch pumpkins and continued distancing itself from the other three patch pumpkins until harvest. Most of the main vine fruit culled off this plant looked similar to this chosen fruit which ended up being a tall wheel shape, so I think the tall shape on this fruit was more due to genetics than environmental. The pumpkin was thin around the blossom, but had nice consistent thickness throughout the rest of the fruit, and was mostly free of internal splits except for a couple minor ones at the blossom end.

Pumpkin Layout

2010 Growing Season

2009 Growing Season

2008 Growing Season

2007 Growing Season