Extra Boost of Sun

After about 5:30 in the afternoon, our fence and honeysuckle to the west tends to block direct sunlight to the plant. So in trying to eek out any available solar radiation, the past couple of days I've set up this high tech Directional Solar Capturing Array! Hey, every little bit helps, right??

Exponential Growth

I know it's been a long time since my last entry but I have the excuse of having been off on an island for the past three weeks. So a lot has happened in that time, namely I now have a growing pumpkin that's charging forward!

The competition is also heating up too, both Chris and mom are adding daily circumference measurements to my shared, online spreadsheet. It's fun to track and visualize the progress each of us are making, and important to remember that everyone is still really early on and anything can still happen.

Here's a photo of my pumpkin, the plant is taking over the backyard. The wine bottle scale reference is a little misleading, it's actually the airplane wine bottle size, I thought it would be funny to use that. Regardless, the pumpkin is adding about 2" or more a day in circumference.

Fourth of July

While not the biggest plant, it's looking good. Vine and tendril
growth good. I see some flower buds. Definitely behind where I thought
it would be this time of year, though the competition is in the same
boat.

Chris' Contender

I'm checking in on Chris' rabbit this weekend while he is out of town,
the perfect excuse to spy on his pumpkin. It's actually looking really
good. Leaf size is great. Stalk is thick. Even has a little pumpkin on
there. The competition is going to be fierce.

My plant tomorrow, I promise.

My East Coast Competition

I'm just back to portland from my east coast recon mission where I had
quite a lot of time to check out my mom's pumpkin, and also receive a
lot of friendly trash talk.

Yes, she did plant her's three weeks after mine AND it's already
bigger than my plant. I blame the lack of Portland summer weather.
I'll post a photo of my pumpkin today but for now here are two photos
of my mom's taken a few days apart, the image with her was taken
yesterday.

Hoptastic!

We have more hops vines than I know how to handle. I'm trying to train
them in every direction: up the garage and over to the back fence.
Along the garage. Over to the pergola. They love twisting straight up
a string, but any time I have the vines going horizontal, I have to
manually twist the vine around the string every couple of days.

Starting to Vine

The weather is warmer now and the pumpkin is starting to lay over and
vine. All great news!