Monster Pumpkin Memorabilia

We're less than week away from the Monster Pumpkin weigh off, so it's a good time to pick up some future collectors items! Chris has uploaded the poster image to CafePress.com and there you can order t-shirts and mugs and magnets and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Check it out here:

http://www.cafepress.com/PumpkinContest

Monster Pumpkin Weigh Off

The time of reckoning is near!

Last august weekend

We had a great weekend. Our trip to our favorite Hood River B&B was
amazing, we went there to get away from our home distractions to focus
on planning the wedding ceremony and writing the vows. It was so
relaxing hanging out in the afternoon sun being creative.

The B&B has a new addition, chickens! Theses gals came right up to us
and were very tolerant of my photo snapping.

We did a little garden work after arriving home. Here's Leighann with
chard under the hops vines. And here's the next batch of hops ready to
be dried.

Second Heatwave

It's cooking in portland again!

Takes the Lead!

Today is a monumental day, my pumpkin finally surpassed Chris' in the measurement comparisons. While we don't know where this nets out on weight, it is an important milestone for me.

Treatment Time

The powdery mildew on the leaves has been getting worse over the last
few weeks so I did a little research and found that this can be a
pretty harmful problem. Eventually the leaves all shrivel up and the
plant dies. Given that we have about two months left before the big
weigh-off I figured I had to take action to extend the life of my
plant as long as possible.

I took a trip to the local Lowes and picked up a spray bottle of this
stuff. Sounds like just what I need. Gave a good coating to the tops
of the leaves but ran out before I could spray the undersides. I this
starts to work I might try a more home made solution of baking soda
and water.

Seems from conversations with Chris and Nick that they are also up
against this same problem. It's very easy to find info online about
it, and I learned that it's so common that I should have been treating
the leaves preventatively before any symptoms appeared.

This is all good knowledge for Pumpkin Grow Off 2110.

Lush!

I think we're are at the peak of our garden right now, as you can see
everything is full and green. The hops are a couple of weeks away from
picking. The zuchini plant in the foreground has been kicking out big
ones for a month now. And if you look very carefully you can see just
a hint of orange from my pumpkin in the lowere left. My neighbor Nick
said his pumpkins are not doing very well so it looks like it's coming
down to chris and I. Now that I think about it there's still a good
solid two months left in the competition so anything can still happen.