Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 89 Entries. Sunday, February 21 View Page Good luck to everyone this year !! These are the last veggies out of our garden. I'll be using that space for a giant pumpkin this year. � Sunday, February 21 View Page Rye cover was sowed last October on half of the veggie garden. Rye cover sowed today on the other half where the carrots were harvested. � Monday, February 22 View Page An experiment to find a better/faster germination method. These Chan 1379 seeds were filed and placed into a Ziplock on Feb 22nd. � Sunday, February 28 View Page The seeds were allowed to stay in the Ziploc until Mar3rd. They were at least double the size of this Feb 28th picture. � Friday, March 5 View Page A seed was removed from the Ziploc on Wed afternoon and placed into a hydroponic setup. 36 hrs later on Friday morning this is the plant. � Friday, March 5 View Page These are the roots growing into an aerated growing solution. In a while I'm going to transplant this into a 2 gal airpot. Stay tuned. � Friday, March 5 View Page pics � Friday, March 5 View Page pics � Friday, March 5 View Page Photos won't attach ??? Will try again � Friday, March 12 View Page hydroponic roots � Sunday, March 14 View Page 1st day after transplanting into ProMix. The next test we will do is a side by side comparison of starting plants the old fashioned way and starting hydroponically. � Friday, March 26 View Page The hydroponics did not fare well when transferred to a greenhouse. So for this year seed germination will be the same as usual. I'm hoping the pumpkins will grow as well as the rye cover. � Thursday, April 1 View Page Decisions... decisions... decisions! This is my seed selection that I'm going with...for now. Many thanks to all the generous growers that supplied these seeds. I will do my very best with them. � Friday, April 16 View Page We've had a record breaking run of nice weather in Vancouver, BC. This is the first step in preparing my soil for the growing season. Its called sub soiling where a 2 ft long tine is dragged through the patch every 18 inches to break up the undisturbed soil under the top soil. I've learned how to use the Langley Estimator and should be adding my amendments and cultivating soon. � Friday, April 16 View Page This is the tine that is dragged through the "subsoil". � Tuesday, April 20 View Page It's Happy Pot Day in Vancouver !! Sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is. So after studying the Langley Soil Estimator and entering a number of winners' soil analysis I had a bit of data to follow. Then I entered my own and the amendments are what I applied today. I've hit a number of targets spot on. The research tells that you will never get all of them correct....which I haven't. I will be doing some more analysis in the future date the results. � Thursday, April 22 View Page The backbone of the new hoop house. � Friday, April 23 View Page This is madness but there is a method to it ! The little hoops will have soil warming cables and a brooding light for warmth. They will be removed when the plant starts to vine out. � Saturday, April 24 View Page The totally soilless hydroponic setup. � Saturday, April 24 View Page Roots that were growing in water with nutrients at 800 ppm. � Saturday, April 24 View Page Transplanting into a 10" pot. � Saturday, April 24 View Page This plant will stay in the same greenhouse where it has been growing and then planted in the patch when the weather is warmer. This will be an experiment to see if this method will out pace a "normal" starting procedure. � Wednesday, April 28 View Page The hoops are electrified. Brooding lights and soil warming cables are gobbling up the juice. � Friday, April 30 View Page This one of the hydroponic plants that was transplanted from the water to soil a few days ago. The scissors are 9" long for reference. The next part of the experiment is to see if we can transplant it into the pumpkin patch. � Monday, May 3 View Page My 2 best starters, 14 days since filing. Left is the Chan 1379 and right is the Barron 2118. I started 6 seeds ....2 in regular 1 gallon pots and 4 in new 2 gallon airpots. � Monday, May 3 View Page Have a close look for all the roots growing out the bottom of the airpots. All 4 plants have roots growing out of the bottom of the airpots. The 2 regular pots have none. � Tuesday, May 4 View Page This is one of the plants of my hydroponic experiment. The Chan 1379 was started mid Feb and transplanted from the water to a 2 gallon pot around early March and then into this large pot. So this plant is 2 1/2 months old. The question is will this early start hurt the plant later in the season or ??? � Tuesday, May 4 View Page A picture of the roots. What a crazy time Janet and I had trying to get the thing out of the pot. � Wednesday, May 5 View Page The same plant 1 day after transplant. There was no shock !! As you can see its just under 3 ft long. Interestingly I don't think the early success of this transplant is the size of the roots. � Wednesday, May 5 View Page This is the 1st year that I have built double hoop houses. The amazing thing I discovered was that the soil in the small hoop warmed up without the aid of soil warming cables. They are installed but not plugged in. While overnight temps were always around 50 for the past week the soil temp never dropped below 66 F. � Wednesday, May 5 View Page This was the soil temp at the time of transplant. � Sunday, May 9 View Page I started with 6 seeds from around the world... 3 of them were the progeny of the Wilemjens 2624. I was going for size and large genetics. Unfortunately the 3 plants that were from the Wilemjens, all went to ribbon vine . FYI they were the Daletas 1927.5, the Paton 1984 and the Memdi 1625. On to plan B...lol � Wednesday, May 12 View Page The Chan 1379 is doing extremely well. This is the seed that was started and grown hydroponically. It's one the easiest plants I've ever grown. The 3 sticks I used were only to guide the direction of the main vine. Very little watering has been done to make the roots really search and stretch out. � Wednesday, May 19 View Page This is the Chan 1379 . Secondaries are growing like crazy. Plant is just over 7 ft long. The white spots on the 1st few leaves is some Bravo fungicide residue applied a week ago . � Wednesday, May 19 View Page These are the plants started for the farmer's annual weighoff. Filed and soaked 60 Chan 1379 seeds...all germinated. Potted 51 seeds and all are up today. In a couple weeks the organizer will sell plants for 25$ and all monies will go into the prize pot. � Wednesday, May 19 View Page Amazingly I needed to pinch tertiaries and bury secondary vines today. � Friday, May 21 View Page I think she's a happy plant !! � Thursday, May 27 View Page The plants for the farmer's weighoff are doing nicely. They will be delivered this weekend. � Thursday, May 27 View Page The Urena 1937. It's growing a bit oddly but hopefully it will smarten up ! The main vine is always curving to the east and needs to be heavily guided back to being straight. Also, the secondaries are pointing foreword instead sideways....a tough plant to grow so far. � Thursday, May 27 View Page The Barron 2118. Easy to grow with very large leaves. Just starting to stretch out now. � Thursday, May 27 View Page The Chan 1379. Easiest plant I've ever grown. Main vine grows straight ahead and secondaries grow out without the need for too many bamboo stakes. Its kind of a "dainty" plant with fairly small stems. Is it because of genetics or the very early start? 11 ft long. � Monday, May 31 View Page This year I learned how to use the Langley Soil Estimator through a YouTube hosted by Cecil Weston. It was a lot of fun learning the estimator and I would suggest you check it out. It's been 2 months since the 1st soil test and this was the result. To make it a little more interesting I took 10 soil samples from around the Chan 1379 plant. Since it was doing so well I wanted to see if it needed anything and the rest of the patch would be similar. As you can see the "too high" elements did not change and the estimator allowed me to not make things worse while improving the deficient elements. As I discussed before, I'm not using Western Labs because it took 2 weeks to get my results. I delivered my sample to the local lab and got my analysis in 36 hours. Kinda important when the plant is growing so fast....I think. � Monday, May 31 View Page Chan 1379 is 13 ft long and 12 ft wide. No females on the primary vine yet but have had a few on the secondaries. Today I need to build a dormer on the greenhouse as I do not want to open it just yet as our night time temps are OK but cool. That secondary will be hitting the side in a couple of days. � Friday, June 4 View Page Unfortunately, the Urena 1937 was a mutant. It grew 2 secondaries out of 1 node and none on other nodes. The primary tip stopped growing and a secondary was twisted over the main vine. You can see in the lower left I planted a Chan 1379 left over from the farmer's weigh off. � Sunday, June 6 View Page The Chan1379. 17 ft wide and 14 ft long. Should be pollinating #1 in a couple days. Lots of male flowers to do a selfie. This cooling off period of weather after a beautiful and hot May will let the burnt leaves heal a bit. Even with all the fans in the greenhouse, temperatures inside reached 96 deg F. I need misters !! � Tuesday, June 8 View Page "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood !" � Tuesday, June 8 View Page I got misters !! Thanks to Scott , our reigning BC champion. I'll set up 2 more rows of misters as the plant grows � Wednesday, June 9 View Page A baby is born. My earliest pollination. Fingers crossed !! � Tuesday, June 15 View Page This is my tissue test done on the Chan 1379. My lab used both the petiole and the leaf. Apparently there is a controversy between using the petiole, the leaf or both. Confusing! I gave the plant some Mn and B. Interestingly, this is the first bit of anything that I have given my plants since transplanting on May 3rd. These are my largest plants I've ever grown at this early date. I believe that the Langley estimator really did the job and balanced the soil so well that I didn't need to add anything. � Saturday, June 19 View Page Chan1379 #2 � Saturday, June 19 View Page Usually I tie all the petals together after pollination. With this flower I tried a less invasive method by just covering with cheese cloth. fingers crossed ! � Saturday, June 19 View Page Patch picture. � Monday, June 21 View Page Heat wave is really burning up the young leaves � Monday, June 21 View Page Sorry pic for previous post � Monday, June 28 View Page We have been often been dubbed "California North". You can see why. This heat wave we're having is breaking records every day. Saving the plant has been a lot of work but seems to be paying off. � Monday, June 28 View Page Plants would never have survived without these misters that I borrowed from Scott to try. Thanks Scott � Monday, June 28 View Page Misters require some fairly sophisticated timers. 10 to m15 seconds every 2 to 5 minutes depending on the temperature. This relatively inexpensive timer has been doing the job for me....15 secs every 2 minutes from 10am to 5pm during the heat wave. � Monday, June 28 View Page ReMay has been a really good tool in the attempt to cool things down. My Lux meter is suggesting that it acts like 50% shade cloth. This is the East side of plot. � Monday, June 28 View Page ReMay on the West side. This has been the hardest I've ever had to work in the patch. More ReMay will be going up this morning. � Monday, June 28 View Page Plants under misters and ReMay are doing well. Tips and new leaves are getting burnt and I will be turning some tertiaries to replace some of the burnt secondary vines. Thanks for suggesting that Chris. Each plant has a fruit which has been pollinated. Fingers are crossed as I've had a few abort already. � Monday, June 28 View Page More ReMay and a shade tent over the Barron 2118. Crazy eh??? � Thursday, July 15 View Page Chan 1379 DAP 21 Circ 67 � Thursday, July 15 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 20 Circ 70 � Sunday, July 25 View Page Chan 1379 DAP 30 OTT 245 � Sunday, July 25 View Page Chan 1379 DAP 30 OTT 245 � Sunday, July 25 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 30 OTT 267. Btw previous entry Chan 1379 was DAP 31. � Friday, July 30 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 35 OTT 302 Weighing in at 636 lbs gaining an average of 39 lbs per day. Sorry no picture....looks like a pumpkin lol. � Sunday, August 1 View Page WOW !! OMG !! lol � Tuesday, August 3 View Page Chan 1379 #2 DAP 20 OTT 163 This plant was a very late backup to one of my "chosen" seeds that went goofy vined. � Tuesday, August 3 View Page Chan 1379 #1 DAP 40 OTT 296 � Wednesday, August 4 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 40 OTT 330 I've building a frame to support a sheet of greenhouse poly to cover the whole patch when night time temperatures start to fall. Hopefully this will extend the growing season of the pumpkins. � Wednesday, August 4 View Page Just removed all poly from hoops to try to get maximum effects of the sunshine � Saturday, August 14 View Page Barron 2118 Dap 50 � Thursday, August 19 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 55 OTT 384 � Monday, August 23 View Page This is a real pumpkin patch of Prize Winners !! � Monday, August 23 View Page It's covered ! Barron 2118 DAP 60 OTT 393 � Sunday, August 29 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 65 OTT 404. Very pleased with how the cover over the patch is retaining and generating higher soil temperatures. 24 lbs per day for the last 4 days. Much better gains for late August than in previous years. � Friday, September 3 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 70 OTT 410 � Wednesday, September 8 View Page Barron 2118 DAP 75 OTT 416 What a year! What a plant! Lol ... I don't pay attention much to my other 2 plants/kins which are approaching 1200 and 1000 lbs. � Saturday, September 25 View Page My 3 pumpkins are named after the 3 bears, Papa, Mama and Baby. Mama is a Chan 1379 Dap 93 Ott 387 � Saturday, September 25 View Page Ugly Baby....all babies are cute.....right?? Baby is a Chan 1379 Dap 73 Ott 365 � Saturday, October 2 View Page Amazing ! The Barron 2118 is now the Chan 1911. A new British Columbia record. Many thanks to all the people who offered their help and advice throughout the year. It was truly a group effort ! � Saturday, October 2 View Page Loaded for the weighoff at Krause Berry Farm in Langley BC Canada. Baby Bear on the right is a Chan 1379 that grew to become the Chan 1076. Mama Bear on the left is a Chan 1379 that grew to become the Chan 1339. And Papa Bear in the middle is a Barron 2118 that became the Chan1911. All 3 were over 4000 lbs to qualify for a growers jacket. � Tuesday, October 19 View Page Good friends are very necessary when growing Atlantic Giants !!! � Tuesday, October 19 View Page A picture worth thousand words !! � Tuesday, October 19 View Page Cover crop of rye sown and ready for another year. � Tuesday, October 19 View Page This pic to go with good friends...sorry senior moment � Sunday, October 31 View Page Happy Halloween ! � Friday, November 26 View Page Chan 1911 seeds. 2 days in the zip lock bag . 5 for 5. These seeds are ready to go !! �