And Then There Were Two

A little mishap this afternoon to report: the wind broke the stalk of
the #1 plant while it was outside for the day. That means I have only
two plants left now, a situation I did not anticipate. Some extra TLC
for the last two for sure.

On a lighter note I am pleased to announce an addition contestant in
the pumpkin competition. My friend (and now enemy) Chris has entered
the running by accepting one of my pumpkin starts. Good luck!

And on the gossip front, I learned yesterday the my neighbor Nick, who
I started the competition with, has planted "Atlantic Giant" seeds.
The seed package quotes 400-500 pound pumpkins!

This is getting interesting.

Six Days Later

Just a quick update. We've been out of town and just returned home.
The pumpkins are looking great and spending a little R&R outside while
we unpack the car.

Road Trip!

Were driving down to California today! The pumpkins are being watered
by our friend Ashley until Tuesday, so they will survive. More soon.

New Digs

The pumpkin sprouts are on pace to outgrow their small starter peat
pots, so this afternoon I transplanted them (peat pot and all) into
these bigger containers. They are now back inside the house, sitting
in the plastic watering tray. At this rate I plan on transiting them
outside next week.

Above is one of the better 3D images so far. Enjoy.

Another 3D Photo

Due to popular demand here's another pumpkin sprout in the third
dimension! It might be easier to view the 3D photo on this page, rather than clicking it to make it bigger. Bigger images are harder to combine.

Growin'!

I continue to be amazed at how big, and quickly, the pumpkins are
growing! What you see below all started only 8 days ago when I planted
the seeds. Wow.

So far I have five sprouts out of the eight I planted, and clearly two
are dominating the others. At this point they are already touching the
lid so it's time to start thinking about transplanting these into
larger pots. I plan on keeping these transplants in doors for at least
the next week and then will start the process of transitioning them
outside.

Thanks for the watering and hardening off tips, mom.

3D Pumpkin Sprouts

Here's a quick mid day progress report on the pumpkin sprouts: they are growing. Fast! Check out the photo fir the full effect. Any tips on if/when to remove the greenhouse cover during indoor growing? These sprouts will be touching the cover soon!

Pumpkins Are Sprouting!

Finally sitting down at the end of a nice, warm weekend to catch up on some posting. Starting with the most exciting news, the giant pumpkins are already showing life! Check out the photo below: the baby leaves are pushing through the dirt and I'm amazed at how big the sprout is coming out. I placed a quarter next to it for scale. It's huge! You can also see some growth in the cup adjacent, but this first plant is clearly eager to start growing!

Last night we couldn't wait for the newly installed landscape lighting to click on. But once they did, wow! We're so happy with how the lights accent the house and plants, and I'm especially pleased with the three lights running along the side of the house. Here's a photo of the lights at dusk just after they turned on for the first time.

In news undocumented by photography, I planted some bamboo in the backyard near the back fence. All you gardeners out there probably shuddered at the mention of planting such an invasive species. Well, at the urging of friends and Leighann, I did my due diligence and first put in a bamboo barrier. And let me tell you, it was back breaking. The barrier is a thick plastic sheet that I joined into a circle that's 4' in diameter and is 30" tall. Which meant that I had to dig a circle trench 4' in diameter and 30" deep in the dirt. Wow. I used a post hole digger because it's much more accurate that using a shovel, but imagine digging 360 degrees of posts along a 13' circumference. That's a long of post holes. 

I finished the digging this evening and dropped the barrier into the round trench and filled the excess dirt back into to hold the barrier in place. The bamboo is in, contained and ready to proliferate.

Good to hear that the 3D photos are working for you. I'll continue to take more of those in the future so you can get the full effect of our endeavors. Thanks for all the comments readers, it's great to hear your thoughts, insights and experiences. 

3D Gnome

I'm testing out an iPhone application that builds a stereo photo from
two pictures taken with the phone's camera. What do you think?

Let There Be Light

More than a year ago my friend Chris gave me a low-voltage landscape
lighting kit for Christmas. The box had been sitting in my basement
until yesterday when I finally realized that having some nice soft
light around the front yard would look great. Actually, I've known all
along that it would look great, it's just been finding the time.

The installation is very simple, here's the quick and dirty play by
play. Assemble lights. Drill small hole in exterior house siding to
access the basement. Run electrical wire through hole into basement
and connect to transformer. Run cable outside. Put lights in ground.
Clip lights into electrical wire. Turn on.

The transformer in the basement has a timer which is set to switch on
this evening around 9:00. I have yet to see these lights at night, I
can't wait for dusk. I'll post another photo of the lights in action.

Creepy Crawlies!

We arrived home from dinner a few minutes ago to find this creepy bug
on our front door jam. Yikes! This definitely falls outside of
relevant garden blog posting, but since it was outside (thank god) and
it's quite impressive, I'm sharing.

Anyone know what it is??

It's About to Get Hot

The weatherman is predicting temperatures in the upper 80's or even 90
this weekend, which has made me thankful for the drip irrigation I
installed last year. The whole set up was easier than I anticipated to
install and it's wonderful to be able to have that on autopilot.

You can see in the photo that the black drip tubing is snaking around
the beds. We have two types of drip heads: the first is the drip hose
with water holes every 6" apart. The second drip method is actually a
little 360 degree sprinkler head, it's great for broader coverage.

This entire line (plus drip for the hops) runs off one faucet from the
back of the house. All of our backyard yard plants are watered by
hand, though I'd love to get them on a drip system. Does anyone know
how much it would cost a plummer to add an outside faucet at the SW
corner of the house.

Third Year is a Leaper

This will be the third year of our hops and I can already tell that
the vines are going to take over the garden area. It's not even June
and they are taller than I am.

They are presently climbing up twine along the back (west) side of the
garage, this area protected from strong wind and it really warms up in
the sun. New for this year I have strung up more twine for the vines.
Once they reach the apex of the garage roof there are four strings
that run horizontally west towards the back fence.

All this extra string is up over our garden beds so come mid summer
we'll have a nice arbor of hops.

In a future post I'll elaborate on my methods for stringing up the
twine from the garage to the fence. It's pretty clever.

Bamboo is Running

I don't expect to see any activity in the seed starter greenhouse for the next week or so, but I'll be sure to post any updates as soon as it happens. In fact, I'm toying around with the idea of trying to set up a Pumpkin Webcam so you can check the progress at your convenience! I don't have the equipment at the moment to get that up and running, but I'm talking to a few people who might have an old laptop kicking around. Know of anyone?

In the meantime, everything outside in the garden is growing like crazy. Spring in Oregon brings lots of rain and a bunch of sunshine, perfect for giving the plants a boost. 

I'll leave you with a photo from our bamboo which is really starting to shoot up.

Greenhouse growing

The overnight temperatures in Portland are still on the chilly side, so to give my pumpkin seeds the best advantage I'm starting them out in the warmth and comfort of a greenhouse seed starter. This I have placed in the SW facing sunroom which receives quite a bit of sunlight throughout the day. And to maintain moist soil, I have my handy spray bottle to give the kit a spritz every once in a while.

Any tips from the gardeners out there how much I should or should not be watering at this stage?

The eight pumpkin seeds are planted in the center tray, which is to the right of the empty tray. That's where I will be focusing my love and attention. But not to waste space, the outer trays that have potting soil have been seeded with various sunflower seeds, some of which are from our own giant sunflowers grown two years ago. We don't know if these will sprout, but it's worth a try to see what we get.

It Starts with a Seed

There's a case of beer for the winner.

Since Spring 2008 my neighbor Nick from across the street has been trying to start up a "friendly" pumpkin growing competition between the two of us. I never really had the time or space to take him up on the suggestion, until he upped the ante with a case of beer for the winner. But that's not really my motivation. Pure pride and bragging rights, that's what I'm in it for.

I quickly realized that one of the keys to a giant pumpkin is genetics. Starting with a standard pumpkin, one not breed to grow big, would be a big mistake. My google searches turned up quite a bit of information regarding pumpkin breeds that are meant to grow big, and based on my Northwest growing climate, I chose the Prizewinner Hybrid from Burpee & Co. According to the seed package these pumpkins, under the best conditions, can grow to 150 pounds and 72" around. I'd say that's a good seed to start with.