Jeff's Great Pumpkin Challenge

Well, it's off to a rough giant pumpkin season - AGAIN!  I started seeds that have very high potential on April 14.  You can read about the genetics of those sees in that posting by clicking  here .  Of the 3 seeds of the 1257, only 2 germinated.  Both of the 250's germinated.  BUT, all the plants appear to be deformed in some way (they don't look healthy at all).  I've never had this happen! Regardless, I planted one 250 and one 1257 last evening.  Bad timing.  COLD May weather is expected for the next 5 days.  Lows will be in the 30s (maybe even some frost).  Next Monday the high may not get above 50! For now both plants are covered.  We'll see how this goes. With the cold start and with the plants looking very unhealthy, I'm not encouraged nor am I expecting a successful season.  I may end up planting a full regiment of field pumpkins instead.  Geez.

Even with very cold (not quite record cold) weather for mid-April, I've started seedlings for this years go at a monster Atlantic Giant pumpkin.  Last season was a disaster (click here for a discussion about the 2019 season) with many challenges. During the winter I sent in a soil sample to the lab in Idaho that does a Atlantic Giant specific soil test.  The results came back and I was able to add the suggested nutrients. If weather is favorable and I can control insects, I'm hoping that this season will end up producing a biggie, since I have seeds with great potential. I purchased seeds again from Ron Wallace (Two-time world record holder and three-time world pumpkin champion). The two selections have tremendous potential, genetically. Pumpkin Plant number 1 - I started two seeds from a Wallace 1257.5 pound pumpkin that was grown by Ron Wallace in 2018. That particular pumpkin grown came in third place at the 2018 Woodstock Fair.  The genetics of this 1257.5 se...

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 pr...

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......

After the cool and wet stretch we had, it's now been windy and hot again!  It's never ending. The 1522 is still growing very slowly with a nice orange color.  This morning it measured at 310 pounds. The 1733 is now "bleeding" at the pumpkin stem and will soon cease growing because of that.  The vine is stretching and is causing it to stress at the stem and so it's splitting and oozing.  If I was ambitious and had help, I could wrap it in straps and pull the pumpkin towards the vine to ease the stress.  But I've got other things to do.   This morning that pumpkin measured around 477 pounds. Once the first freeze takes care of the garden growing, I will attempt to get these guys out of the garden.  I would like to find someone with a scale to weight at least the biggest one.  Because of it's shape, the actual weight may be significantly different than the measured and thus it's estimated weight.  It could be 5 to 10 percent eithe...

What a crappy and disappointing giant pumpkin growing season!  Since 1992 there has never been so many VERY windy days!  We are now up to 30 days of 50 MPH winds or higher.  The previous record for the ENTIRE year was 26 days!  There have been 80 (not a typo) days of 40 MPH winds or higher!  That's almost once every 3 days! This past week it started out unseasonably cool and finished with a blow torch - near 100 and very windy!  The entire season there have been weather challenges so the result for giant growth has been dismal, compared to what is needed.  As I've said before, SW Kansas is just not a friendly place to grow Atlantic Giant Pumpkins! The biggest one I have at this point remains the pumpkin from the 1733 plant.  This morning it measured at 322 pounds or a paltry gain of only 70 pounds in a week.  Going from the cool to the blazing hot has probably set it in maturing mode.  Here is that pumpkin.... The pumpkin on the ...