779 germination

I decided to take a couple of 779 seeds and germinate them. They came up fine. Nice, green, sturdy seedlings. Not unexpected, but nice to see anyway. These seeds have a simple white coat, so I think they will come up readily without any sanding of the sides.

Seminar date moved...

The new date for the Giant Pumpkin seminar at Town and Country Gardens is now April 9th. More details to follow as we get closer to that date.

Some seeds to think about

I got my seeds from the NYSGPGA. Here is seedlist rev 1.1:

1. 779 Warren, with another 779 as a backup.
2. 964 Wolf. I do have yet another 964, so if one doesn't germinate I'll just use the other.
3. 1459 Sundstrom and 1121 Bobier - these two do battle, one survives!
4. 1392 Breznick (904 Stelts X 1502 Wallace) The 904 produces nice orange. This seed is getting some buzz for a first year seed, and I have two.
5. 955 Brinkley - Orange.

I might throw in some 720 Warren seeds as backup on the orange sites.

Giant Pumpkin Seminar Coming

I just signed up with a local nursery to do a giant pumpkin seminar. The date is March 26th, at Town and Country Gardens in Pocatello. More details to come. I hope we can generate more interest in growing the giants in our area.

The seed list, Revision 1.0

Here is the annual 2009 seed list, first draft. Of course, this is incomplete, and will change a half-dozen times before mid-April. Five plants this year. Each seed has a confidence level on it. This is a guess on the scale of 1 to 10 as to how confident I am in wanting to plant the seed.

1. 964 Wolf - confidence level 10

2. 779 Warren - confidence level 10

3. 1121 Bobier - confidence level 7

4. 1191 Zunino - confidence level 5

5. ?? - something orange? or big? I don't know.

Seed germination...

I was reading Brian's page (see the link from this blog) and noting the seed germination experiment that Brian and his daughter are doing. I find it fascinating that at 80 degrees they got 43% germination, at 85 degrees they got 83%, and at 90 degrees, 84%. Take a look. This supports the long-time rule of thumb... get those seeds up to 85 degrees Fahrenheit if you want to have good results!

2009

Here we are in 2009. This is the really slow time for us giant pumpkin enthusiasts. Actually, last night I got the bug and decided that I would do some test germinations of last year's seeds. But then I went looking for potting soil and found that we don't have any in the house. But within three or four weeks, early season germinations of tomatoes and such will begin again!

I'm also on the lookout for the seed distribution from the NYSGPGA. Yes, I love New York.

Meanwhile, due to the downturn in the economy, in the first half of the coming year I need to take some time off (without pay). What this means is, I'll have lots of time to work on the pumpkin patch and the garden. I won't have a lot of extra money to spend on it. No vacations, just staying home, so I should have lots of time. Fortunately I still have a job, and in the industry I'm in that's pretty good.