Jeff's Great Pumpkin Challenge

It was one thing after another this year.  The two plants had the main stem split lengthwise on each plant, essentially ending the likelihood of a having a giant.  With giant pumpkins, they require DAILY care!  After the May splitting, cool and wet weather preventing fast growth, and lack of daily care, I basically gave in to the season.   It's a shame as I had pretty good genetics with one of the seeds - in fact excellent genetics that could have potentially resulted in a REALLY big one. Alas, the season ended early.  However, there was one pumpkin that did pollinate and grew "on it's own".  I taped it at around 200 pounds but give some deformation (result of not taking care of it), it most likely weighed at 190 pounds.  Here was that pumpkin this Sunday afternoon..... I think I might try and get this seed again if it's available from the grower and try again this next growing season.

On April 13, I started 4 seeds.  You can see that post by clicking here .  They germinated quickly and have shown decent growth since that time.  However, one plant from the 1538 plant is showing genetic deformation, so I will NOT be using that one in the garden.  The others (two 1642's and the 1975) are looking pretty good.  But, really the two 1642's look the best. I'm only planting two pumpkins this season and I'm tempted to plant both of the 1642's as they do appear to be the healthiest.  The 1975 is not that far behind, so since I want to cross pollinate, I'll have to go with that one.  It wouldn't be a catastrophe if I planted both 1642's - it's just that I want to advance the genetics of all of them. I have plastic on the soil where I will be planting the pumpkins.  That should result in slightly warmer soil.  It's been abnormally cool lately so I don't want to stunt them.  I will also build a small hoop house for both to protect

I guess I'll try it again! Last season was not so good.   I started everything about 10 days too late.  Then the weather was brutal early on and there was even insect damage.  The pumpkin from the 1733 plant developed a split and eventually rotted but made it to around 525 pounds before falling to the damage.  The pumpkin on the 1522, which had a deep orange color, made it to only around 355 pounds.  The 1861, which struggled on pollination, only made it around 135 pounds. For this upcoming season I had planned on building large "hoop" houses but the covering that I would need was not purchased during the off-season.  Now, it's too cost prohibitive, at least for me.   I will still do something, but on a smaller scale, while the growing pumpkin plants are relatively small. This year I'm going only with two plants and not three.  Last year two of the plants (the 1861 and 1522) were probably too close together. On the menu for 2019.... I started 4 seeds this