Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 16 Entries. Thursday, January 15 View Page I started the 2026 season on Sept 21 2025, the day after my local weigh off. Cleared the patch and had the first amendments in the ground. By about the 2nd week of October the first cover crop was planted. It has since been tilled in and I'm on my second cover crop at the moment. We had some awesome amounts of rain the past month which slowed things down a bit. As the season is fast approaching and sunshine has arrived, the pre season projects must commence. First project was to get my tank out of the dirt and on dry ground. My wife liked it so much I made a second trip to Home Depot and added more pavers around the jacuzzi. She's gotta be happy too, I've been told. Monday, March 9 View Page There was a slide at the convention which showed an animated scene at a hardware store and the question, "what are you doing with all that?" The response: "I'm building a temporary shade structure!" Or in my case, a temporary green house. Thursday, March 12 View Page My weigh off is September 19th. I started my seeds on 3/9. Thursday, March 12 View Page New for me this year. Simple construction.. Buried the 4x4's a few feet into the ground. Rebar at the footings of the PVC ribs. 1 inch PVC all around. I did use 1 & 1/4" pvc at the spine to hold the two sides of each rib together, it all slides into place very nicely. The plastic will be here in a few days. Friday, March 13 View Page Signs of life at the 4 day mark. Friday, March 13 View Page I am a member of the "plant a pumpkin seed laid flat" society. As the roots grow, the seed casing inverts and falls off. The cots push through the soil surface with ease. No sanding necessary. Photo for illustration. "I was inverted!" - Maverick Monday, March 16 View Page Update- my 2020 Paton seed might have been a dud. Still have hope, but not to fret! I had 6/7 successful germinations and removed one mutant backup plant before snapping this photo. Monday, March 16 View Page We have one heck of a heat wave on the way. Summer came very early in SoCal this year. Tuesday, March 17 View Page Dug in two 100' gutter cables today (only one pictured). The greenhouse plastic arrived today, that'll be for tomorrows list of to-do's. Friday, March 20 View Page We. are.. LIVE! Drip tape going in tomorrow. Sunday, March 22 View Page I have 3 plants in the ground. In no particular order, the 1365 Matter (2560 Gienger x 2144 Barron), 1955 Bledsoe (2287 Sadiq x 2365 Wolf) and a 2459.9 Olsen (2319.3 Stoeckl x selfed). Saturday, March 28 View Page Not too much to report. Weather has dropped back to the low 80's and looks to stay there or lower for the next week or so. Great March weather we've been having. Thursday, April 9 View Page Here's a night time photo. The vine is laid down and starting to run on my 1365. This is the best start I've ever had, and I'm hoping this keeps up. I'm doing a lot different this year, but some things remain the same. In the category of "same,"Soil heating cables are in and turn on at 70*, off at 75*. I am still hand watering, but that's going to change soon. The new: Obviously, the high tunnel. The heat being generated is really kicking things into gear. My soil temps are phenomenal, even in the areas that don't have cables. I unfortunately did scorch a leaf while I was away, but I'll take the casualty this time. I'm using lights to extend the morning and night light hours. I'm determined to get my plant really humming along. I don't think I've had big enough plants in previous pollination timelines, so this year the plant will be about 18' - 20' before I even think about it. I hope this will translate into a fruit gaining 40+ lbs a day, which would be my best to date. Crossing my fingers. Wednesday, April 15 View Page The green house / high tunnel experiment has concluded, I've begun its disassembly and am transitioning to shade cloth using the existing structure. The good: I had a great start. I mean, the best I've had yet. Soil temps were up, routinely 75* at any given time. Night time air temps were consistently 8*-10* higher than outside air. C02 at night was around 1200 ppm with the addition of some bags, up from the natural 800 ppm I was reading from soil biology at night, Secondary development was immediate, something that had been slow going on previous plants. The bad: Day time temps were simply hard to control. My plant was looking stressed during the day, despite rolling up the sides 5 ft and opening the end wall where my door/entry was. I did had fans running non stop. It was typically 10*-15* hotter inside than ambient outside air temps. I don't know that I would do this exact setup again without a misting system. Conclusion: It worked. It did what I wanted, fast start. It came with negative side effects that I could have solved had my wallet been fatter and time been unlimited. Now that the plant is established and running, I want to see if there is a change in early growth rate pre-pollination. Wednesday, April 15 View Page Shade cloth has been tagged in. After I was done, I stood back and a thought occurred to me.. My structure was unintentionally modular, and accepted my cloth with almost no adjustments needed. It is short one "rib" section from covering the whole patch, or about 7 feet. But that can be fixed another day. Saturday, April 18 View Page A picture says more than I can. Im happy so far. Cautiously optimistic for what this season will hold!