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.

964 Wolf pops!

The "blanket over the whole works" is working well. This morning, the 964 Wolf was already pushing up. This was just under two days in the pot, and 2.5 days since I filed and soaked.

Seeds in, and the season's first problem...

OK, well, 13 seeds are in their pots. Twelve for me considering my double-planting strategy, and one for Elise. Her's is the 1016 Christensen.

I was all set to go. Two trays of seeds with a heating mat for each. Only now, late Saturday night, I discover that one of the heating mats isn't working anymore. The one that is still working is a heating mat that isn't designed for seeds... but it's good in that I can crank the heat up on it and try to get it to heat both trays. At the moment the one heat mat is supplying heat to two trays, each with a portion of their surface touching the mat. I threw a blanket over the whole works to try to preserve heat until I can come up with a better plan. It's either that or make an 11:00pm run to WalMart, and I'm too tired for that right now.

I hope I don't wake up in the middle of the night in a panic over my seeds...

Season starts today... well, maybe tomorrow

Looking outside, this just ain't spring yet. But looking at the calendar, based on a trip I need to take, I think I'll go ahead and file and soak seeds tonight, and put them on the heat tomorrow. That should put me "all up" on the 23rd, Wednesday. Transfer to one-gallon pots a week from today, and out to the patch sometime during the week of Monday April 28th to May 2nd. Nope, it's not too early!

My nine year old, Elise, insists that she is growing one "all by herself" this year. Hmm... I need to find a spot for it!

Can't control the weather...

Still cold here. It snowed late last September on weighoff day, and we haven't had any real warming since. The grass is still brown. Normally I would be mowing by now. My tomatoes should have gone out a week or more ago. Now after investing many weeks in them, they're getting leggy.... We can't even put them out to harden them off!! Well we could, but going from a 70 degree house to below 40 outside is pretty hard on them. Now I don't know if these will work or if we'll need to start buying tomato plants. Sigh.

Right now the prediction is for above average temps on Saturday.

The "no-hoop" house

Click on the image for a larger version.

This is what I'm planning to build this year. It worked for my neighbors last year, and that's quite a big deal considering the wind we get. I need six of them............. don't know if I'll get them all done, but I will build as many as I can.

869.5 Calai added to the lineup

I have acquired a veteran free agent to bolster this year's lineup, an 869.5 Calai. THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE. ;-)

A generous grower friend had one and decided that it didn't fit into his plans, so I'm making room for it. I can already envision a cross between it and the 1071 Christensen, which is (869.5 Calai X Self). Then if I could only grow that out to 4 digits or more, people might want to have an inbred true orange seed for their collections...

Slow warming trend this week. Well, it should warm up to about "normal" by the weekend.

Zion

Here's one from Zion last year... click on the image to see a large version.

San Diego

For all of us in the northern half of the continent, here is a break.

My 12 year old son Bryce enjoyed the nice scenery. To keep this pumpkin related, Bryce has no interest in giant pumpkins.

Blizzard

Just got back Saturday from a trip to San Diego with the family. Wow, it's tough to come back here. This spring really hasn't arrived yet. This morning we have snow and high winds... I suppose it should be classified as a blizzard. I could take a picture, but who wants to see another boring white photo of snow?

Normally the beginning of April ushers in all the things I love. Baseball starts up, warmer temperatures show, and I'm already in the garden with cold crops planted, and working tirelessly toward getting things in place for the giants. But right now it's hard to believe that I'd like to have plants out there in 3 to 4 weeks from now.

Still winter here.............

A year ago yesterday, it was 75 degrees in my town. Yesterday it was 40 with snow on the ground.

Orange bonanza

I don't know how many people noticed, but my good friend Brian C. grew 8 fruits between 744 and 1071 last year, and all of them are true orange-orange crosses. These are crosses between the 869.5 Calai, 1101 Northrup, 500 Northrup, 857 Christensen, and 670 Daigle. I think one of these is going to do well for me this year.

Two plants from one seed?

Well, here is an idea that might be worth writing about.

We talk a lot about cloning, which perhaps isn't technically "cloning", but simply keeping a plant alive all winter and growing it out the next year. Why not try propagation?

I've got a plant going in a gallon pot, which I don't intend to actually put in the patch. I'm just experimenting. We have an old container of rooting powder. I decided to take a cutting and see if I could make a new plant.

So, I cut the first true leaf, dipped in the rooting powder, and planted it in very moist soil, planting a good portion of the stem and firming it in well.

I don't know if this was a wise choice of plant part... that is it might make a whole lot more sense to propagate a portion of a vine rather than the leaf. Well, at least I can see if I can keep it alive.

Remember, you can click on the images to see a larger version.

This once was a 400 pounder...

Here's my neighbor's ~400 pounder from last year. It's still there, in front of the house..... ;-)

Fun squash

This is going into the garden this year along with the giants and all the other stuff. Should be interesting.