The patch work is progressing nicely. I tried something new this year in the form of deep forking. I have always deep forked (double dug) where I put my greehouse. I would have liked to done more of the patch but it is too labor intensive. This year I rented a skid loader with pitch fork tines on it and it worked great. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to do the entire north patch. I ran the tiller over it afterwards so that I was able to get a soil sample. That went in the mail Wednesday should get the results back in the next day or too. That would allow me to get my fertilizers on and hopefully the greenhouses up by the end of the week.
The seeds are due to be started on the 17th. They will be put out in the garden on the 28th as I am leaving for 12 days then. ( the kids will be home to run the greenhouse doors).
I think I have my seed line up
4 plants for size 1502 Wallace, 1347 Wallace, 1207 Young and 1385 Jutras, When I say size these plants produce pumpkins that are 5-10% over the charts
2 plants for color 904 Stelts (its a color and size plant) and the 1003 Christensen
Backup will be started of many of my own seeds 1040, 829, 930 and 1071, I think they all have good potential for color but probably not real heavy pumpkins.
Added the fertilizers today and tilled. I am ready to start putting up the greenhouses
I added the following to 8000sq foot patch 150 # 21-10-10-5, 50# elemental sulfur, 80# ironite, 50# Mgso4, 5# copper, 2# Manganese
April 17th,
Two of the 4 greenhouses are up (one to go is the kids). The soil warming starts. The seeds are scheduled to be soaked tonight and potted in the morning
April 18th,
The seeds were soaked overnight last night and potted this morning. My lineup is as above. Blake will be growing the 1420 LaRue and started the 1556 Werner as a backup. Brandi started the 1071 Christensen. As backups I started the 1071, 930, 1040, 829.
The greenhouses are all erected and the soil is being warmed. I do not drop the doors untill the plants are planted out (probably in about 8-9 days) and the temp soars well over 100 degrees. I have not measured the soil temp but I'm sure it gets pushed up as well.
I planted barley on the south half of the patch today as well
April 21st,
The 1420 LaRue is the first out of the ground at 3.5 days since the soaking process began.
April 23rd,
All are up except the 1016 (which has a very poor track record anyway) and the 1003. They should go in the patch on Saturday.
April 25th,
The following were planted today (listed so as I can use this as reference in the future) The rest of the plants should be big enough to go out in two days. The first strings all made it except the 1003 which is just breaking gound now.
Greenhouse
#4 #3 #2 #1
North-1385 Jutras Northwest- 1347 Wallace Northwest - 930 Christensen 1071 Christensen (Brandi's plant)
Northeast- 1071 Christensen Northeast - 1003 Christensen Blake's East 1420 LaRue
South- 1502 Wallace Southeast- 904 Stelts Southeast - 1207 Young Blake's West 1556 Werner
Southwest - 1040 Christensen Southwest - 829 Christensen
April 28th,
The rest of the plants were put into the garden yesterday. 13 of 14 plants germinated. The one failure was the 1016 which has a terrible track record anyway. I am leaving this afternoon for 11 days. The kids will be here to check on thinks and the raise and lower the doors on the greenhouses. No doubt they would be better off with a fan system like I have for the tomato greenhouse but that system cost around three hundred bucks.