Chugging along...

Each of my "top five" are doing well. The 964 Wolf is leading in length. The 1185 is a little wimpy, but at least I have five chances at growing something. One thing that I still haven't figured out, is how to get longer vines at this time of year. No matter what I do, my pollination time will be July 4th through the 11th, or thereabouts. It matters not how soon I start, or how warm the plants stay. I simply can't get the length. It's got to be soil, or nutrition, but really I can't figure it out.

For each plant I've mounded the dirt in front of the main in hopes of avoiding stem stress. I think this was one of my limiting factors last year with the 720.

1185 Bortner

I can tell this one is going to be a fast grower, but not so sturdy. Some leaves have already flopped to the ground. But hopefully I can get a pollination at 12 to 15 feet out.

1092 Martin and 964 Wolf

I never find any rhyme or reason as to where this thing places my pictures. At any rate, here is the 1092 Martin and 964 Wolf. I'll upload the 1092 first..........

857 Christensen

Here is the 857 Christensen. Probably the sturdiest looking plant I have this year.

Time for some photos...

Looks like I'll have five plants going forward. Time for some boring photos. First up is the 604.5 Warren. I'm just going to leave the tire around this one and see how it does.

Cold spell now 3 weeks long...................................

Lows in the 30s, high winds, ...

Hard to believe, but overall I can't complain. But this week I've needed to cut holes in the greenhouses to let the main vines come out. With the holes now cut in the plastic, that combined with 50 mph winds yesterday has resulted in even more torn plastic. That has lowered the temperature to the plants, and will cause growth to nearly stop until the weather warms up. We're not predicted to see a warm up until at least Friday. 

Anyone in this part of the country who has tried to do this without greenhouses is going to be way behind this year. If you are in Idaho and reading this (other than Brian) please drop me a note and let me know how things are going. I'm trying to work some ideas through the state fair this year... and I need to get an idea of what we might plan on for this fall. Thanks.

Cold and rain...

I've been traveling the last few days. Back at home we've continued to have cold weather and rain. Things are going pretty well considering the weather, which hasn't been good at all.

Turning the corner?

The 857, 964, and 1185 are officially "down", as in the vine is on the ground. The 1092 is coming soon, and the other two might take some time. I'm anxious to get the plastic down... I just don't know, I think this plastic is limiting the light intensity that my plants see. Well, every year it's this way, I start searching for reasons that the plants haven't hit high gear yet. I actually do have a good reason......... the last 10 days have been very cool for this time of year.

All we need is a stretch of warm weather and the plants should take off.

Yesterday I cleaned up the weeds and did some very minor pruning. Pruning, just so the plants will become accustomed to the idea.

964 Wolf

The 964 Wolf. Has some large leaves and some smaller, just growing pains...

1185 Bortner

The 1185 Bortner, looking perfect.

604 Warren

The 604, I have just recently put a tire around this one. We'll see how that works out.

857 Christensen

The 857, running to the left instead of straight at me...

1092 Martin

The 1092 Martin. Looking fine, but has taken a long time to actually lay down and run.

I'd like to see the sun...

OK, well, we've been in thick clouds, cool and rainy for much of the last week. The plants are fine, but going nowhere fast.

I've made the culls down to the final six: 1092 Martin, 857 Christensen, 1085 Bortner, 604 Warren, 964 Wolf, and 1186 Bowles. Elise's plant is the 1016 Christensen, and it is way behind because it hasn't been in a hoophouse.

No genetic problems, except for one of the 604 plants developed a ribbon vine. This was the same seedling that had 3 seed leaves. Since it was double-planted next to another 604, the decision to cull was easy. The only other problem I have, other than being slow, is that the 857 is wanting to go east instead of north. I'll have to turn it slowly.

Remembering Howard Dill

The past two days have been gray, cold, and rainy. Not much is happening, just staying alive.

This week it is quite appropriate that I stop and recognize Howard Dill, breeder of the Dill's Atlantic Giant seed, who passed away May 20, 2008. I never met him, but wish I had. His contribution to the hobby, pastime, sport, whatever you want to call it, is immeasurable.

Things are going OK...

So far, everything is looking pretty good. Not too much different than other years... usually at this stage of the game I start looking at the plants and wishing they would finally lay down and start to run. Anyway, all of the plants are looking good. The largest three are the 1092 Martin, the 857 Christensen, and the 1185 Bortner. Each of these is developing a main that is heading straight up, but leaning the right direction. I'm anxious to see them touch down and start to crawl.

Right now it's difficult to find even 10 minutes a day to spend with the plants. Just keeping them watered. But one-by-one life is calming down to a summer pace. For the kids, track season, soccer season, choir season, piano season... etc., have come to an end or will shortly come to an end. These things are nice, but in May they take every single night. I'll still miss it when it's gone.

857 Christensen

Here is the 857, looking great!

1092 Martin

The 1092 Martin in the background, and a 1354 Vogler closer to the camera. The 1354 is one week younger. I'm not concerned about the strange leaf on the Martin. These plants tend to do strange things when they are young.

My Patch

Here is the patch. Three on one side, and three on the other. It looks a little ragged. I still have time to run the tractor right down the middle and between the plants one final time. Only one of my protection structures is a "no-hoop" house. They are very time consuming and fairly expensive to build.

Another close one...

Last night, everything was alive. I think they're all still alive, but we had one of those times where I didn't get home until around 10pm, then the weather said 32 for the low. It turned out to be 26. Elise's 1016 is still in a WoW, so it's fine. Same for the 1186 Bowles and 1290 Poirier. They are in the triangular "no-hoop" house, and one nice thing about that is it's easy to get into and place a WoW around the plant. But these two plants share a site.

The other plants look good. In each of the huts I have WoW in there but not around the plant. The plants are too big. I also have milk jugs full of water in them. This really helps, I believe. I say, the plants look good considering they just went through a very cold night. I might have some leaf damage on some of them. I just hope the parts that form new leaves and vines are OK.

Hopefully I can post some pictures later today.

So far, so good...

Things are going fairly well. Right now everything is still alive (imagine that!). If I were to list the early plants that are looking good, they would be the 1092 Martin, followed quickly by the 857 Christensen, the 1185 Bortner, and the 964 Wolf. The 1092 has me excited.

Snow Plant

My daughter's 1016 Christensen plant isn't in a hoop house. It's just in a wall-o-water. Well, this morning when we got 6 inches of snow, the top of the WoW was a bit "open", not pushed together like a teepee. When I went out to look at it the 1016 had a good two inches of snow on top of it. Right on the plant!

This afternoon I went to check again. The temp is up to around 50 and everything is melting. The plant is fine! Although the temp on the surface of the plant was likely very close to 32 degrees, it wasn't below that and now the plant really looks healthy.

6 inches of snow

Sigh. Welcome to May. Actually we do need the moisture.

Cold Spell

The next few nights will be below freezing around here. I've put a wall-of-water around each plant. I just hope next week will be better.

Plants are set out

After all we've been through this spring, we finally have some great weather. Highs in the upper 70's. I put all of the plants out.

Site one: 1092 Martin, and 1354 Vogler as a backup.

Site two: 857 Christensen. This plant is looking real nice.

Site three: Two 604.5 Warren plants. Each of them is looking good, one of them is a "tri-cot".

Site four: 1185 Bortner, with 1367 Sundstrom as a backup.

Site five: 964 Wolf with a 125 Wolf backup.

Site six: 1290 Poirier and 1186 Bowles. One to survive.

Also, my daughter Elise is growing the 1016 Christensen.

The strategy to use one gallon pots that are cut in half and reassembled with duct tape has been great! I will use this again.

Three seed leaves on my 604

Here is something I haven't seen before. One of my 604 seeds has three seed leaves!

Click on the images to see a larger version.

Would you believe, more snow?

Well, it's not much, and not too abnormal, but we have some extremely light flakes flying around out there in the middle of the day. On April 24th.

The 1016 and the 1290 came up, as I predicted they would based on my "digging". I'm already transferring the earliest risers into one-gallon pots. This is going to be necessary because I can't even harden the plants off at this time. I think the plants will go out for real, between Monday and Friday next week. Wow, I still have so much work to do. Patch prep is done, but I need to get the coldframes finished. I have the material, I just need a block of time to get them built.

More on seeds...

I don't know why I have so much bad luck with seeds. About 70% of them come right up for me. But I do get a fair amount that send a short little "club root" out and then stop. Usually at this stage in the game I start digging, to find out what's going on. Here is the scoop:

1071 Christensen and 1040 Christensen -> club root. Classic case. I've re-potted the 1071 but the 1040 was a lost cause.

The 1290 Poirier and 1016 Christensen -> I think they are on their way. They're just slow to rise from the soil.

Ah, the 869.5 Calai. No action whatsoever. The seed hasn't opened at all. I put it back in the soil. It's an old seed, so maybe it will take some time.

I do monitor temps. It's always between 85 and 95. Slight moisture, perfect conditions (I think). Very high quality Fertilome potting soil, although maybe I should look into "seed starting mix".

In the meantime, I'm starting more backups. Some of the notable ones are the 1367 Sundstrom and the 1354 Vogler. Actually, those might become frontliners.

Why are the orange seeds always so slow?

As of this morning I have 8 of 13 up.

Up: Both 604 Warren, 125 and 964 Wolf, 857 Christensen, 1186 Bowles, 1185 Bortner, and 1092 Martin (Yes!!).

Not up: 1016, 1040, and 1071 C, 1290 Poirier, and 869.5 Calai.

So, I have two orange seeds up, the 857 and 1186. But the other five that are not up are the heart of the orange plans. What is odd to me is, every year it is like this! The no-color seeds come up quickly and easily, while the color seeds take their time and have spotty performance. Oh well, it's only day 3. More of them will come up. No need to panic yet.

The Calai is a year 2000 seed, so it might take some time.

The others... if they don't show by this time tomorrow, I have plenty of backups to try.

More up...

When I arrived home Monday night the 857 Christensen, 1186 Bowles, and one of the 604 Warren seeds were coming up. This means I can take these off the heat and put them under the light. I can now condense (barely) the two trays into one, so I have no trouble keeping all of the seeds warm.