May 28, 3:30 pm, 54 degrees and cloudy

The good news is that next week we are finally going to hit the '70s. The bad news is that we haven't done that before this time.

I went out and cut the upper half of the plastic off the hoophouse covering the 1725. My theory is that with cloudy days AND plastic, the plants just don't get enough light to grow. The weather is starting to change. By cutting the top off, I keep the wind protection but lose the heat, and gain sunshine. I don't know. But I figure insanity is to keep doing the same thing when it isn't working.

I want to watch closely the 1725 vs. the other plants, and see what it does over the next few days.

Still cold

29 degrees, night before last. Tonight is supposed to be 35. Today is May 24th! Finally after today we might actually get some sun and warmth. Maybe. I think we've had one day over 70 degrees all year. As bad as last year was, this year appears to be worse.

Soil temp measurements

I just found out something very interesting.

Normally (or this year at least) I put a black weed mat down to raise the soil temp around each plant. This is it's only purpose, as far as I'm concerned. Well, I just went out and did some soil temp measurements.

Outside the hoophouse, baseline measurement: 70 degrees.

Inside the HH, under the weed mat: 77 degrees.

Inside the HH, not under the weed mat: 79 degrees!

I then went to another HH and repeated the measurements. They came out as 78 and 80 degrees, respectively. That is, under the weed mat is cooler by two degrees! Not what I expected.

It may not seem like much, but us giant pumpkin growers really want any extra degrees we can get. I think I'll remove the weed mats.

Mid May pic

I seem to always start taking pictures of the plants in mid-May. This is the 720, probably the best overall looking plant. It looks good, but it's pretty small for this stage. Really small.

Still cold

Not much is happening, or growing. The hoophouses help during the day, but the cold nights continue and I wonder if I'm not missing the boat by not trying to heat the HH during the night. I don't know. This was the year that I wanted to "put it all together", but the cold weather (I assume) is holding me back.

I'm also in the midst of 11 or 12 days straight with some sort of event to attend, every night. I need to get busy, the only thing growing in the hoops is... weeds.

Well, I may be a little over-dramatic. We are finally supposed to hit 70 this weekend. That should get things moving in a hurry.

Another record

We had a record low for the morning of May 7, 24 degrees. It snowed all morning yesterday, about 3 inches. Today is looking much better. Full sun all day, no wind, and while it's only 31 degrees here at 9:15 am, it should only get better. I need some good growing weather soon, or all my efforts to get them out early will have been in vain.

My patch

It would have been better to get the manure earlier, but I do what I can. I'll try to compost this a little more and have mid-season stuff to work with.

Click the image to get a bigger view.