Ella May a little bigger

Ella May is a litte bigger. She had a growth spurt and then stopped. We have another little one on the other end near the door. I will keep that one until we see Ella May perk up a little. We pulled all the other flowers and pumpkin buds off the plant. It is now creeping onto our walkway. It has a huge grass area in which to grow, but chose to sneak around to the door. Funny Pumpkin....
The Looks....

Ella May...

I think she is going to grow. This is Ella May. We have a couple more starting, but Ella May is the biggest.
We finally have a chance in the big pumpkin race....

Keisha at 6 days

I am so sorry to hear about the Looks' little girl! Wow, that is difficult. Here's to hoping a quick growth spurt for the newest one.

Here is a pic of Keisha today. She is now bigger than the water bottle! As we like to say on the farm, "she's growing like a weed!"

We must soon decide if she is the ONE and eliminate all the other little pumpks we have on the vine. This will be a hard day for sure. I pollinated one more girl-start today - it is way down on the vine and may be a better chance of growing BIG. But, then again, it's mid-August and we don't have all summer to sprout new pumpkins. A quandry for sure.

Who else has a pumpkin????? Speak up people!!

We have another one!

We had a beautiful little girl, but while we were gone at our family reunion, some great big unthoughtful monster came and ate it while we were gone. We came home excited to see how big our baby had grown (bigger than the Richardsons we were sure....) but found it had been slurrped away.
Now we have a new little one, and I am guarding her with my life.

She's Arrived!

We are proud to announce the newest addition to our family! She is beautiful, about 4" across with nice, healthy, light green toned skin. She scored a 9 on the APGAR chart.

Her name is Keisha Blimpie Richardson.

Her mom, dad and two brothers are so excited to have her be a part of the family and are looking forward to showing her off soon. Visitors are welcome!

Copier zoom: 120%

This plant looks like I put it on the copy machine and zoomed it 120%. Look at this photo compared to one 9 days ago. It has now crossed the walking path! It is so fun to see something grow so quickly.

On the downside - still no official pumpkin. New business created here - Richardson's Fertility Clinic. We specialize in pumpkins, but maybe we'll expand into other areas soon. I hand fertilized a few girlie flowers with the stamen from a couple of boy flowers. I will leave all the jokes, life lessons and gorey details out of this blog. One pumpkin seems to be taking. I worry because it is almost August and WE HAVE NO PUMPKIN!

I figure we have about 12 weeks until The Great Pumpkin appears and that means our pumpkin needs to gain 30 lbs/week to get to giant-size. That is IF we get a pumpkin!

Will we get a pumpkin??

Okay, so we seem to have the biggest pumpkin plant of everyone, but the idea here is to grow a PUMPKIN. We still don't have any real, polinated, growing pumpkins yet. I see some pumpkins thinking about getting started and looking for pollination, but the birds and bees have not come our way - yet.

So, in the meantime, we'll enjoy the plant for what it is - so far.

the runt...

I am pretty sure I got the runt of the family...which is fine, runts have great potential. I have done everything the directions say to do....and yet my baby fails to grow....quickly anyway. My squash in the backyard are growing....just not the pumpkin. I am not giving up....

B-I-G-G-E-R

Another photo taken today. Lots of blooms, some boys, some girls. We still don't have a long enough vine for a really big, or should I say giant pumpkin to grow. I guess we'll just wait and see what happens. I am working at training one of the vines to go the direction of my choice. Man vs. Nature.

Fertilizing this guy every weekend. I wound a soaker house at the base. I just gotta figure out how to connect my soaker to a water source. hmmmm.

The start of a real pumpkin

It is the Richardson's 22nd wedding anniversary and what better way to celebrate it than by hovering over our newest family addition, our pumpkin plant. We have stopped measuring it using the yardstick and now just use garden landmarks, i.e. it is now beginning to climb the little wall, almost creeping into the walkway. We are beginning to realize that this vine may indeed hinder visitors entering our front door in the near future!

Another exciting happening is the start of our first potential baby pumpkin!!! I posted a photo of it below. It, of course, is growing in a very precarious spot on the vine that will absolutely not work out - it would eventually kill the vine since it is only about 2 feet from the root, so it won't be our real pumpkin, but it sure is cute to see it start up. So, our dilemna is whether we "off" it now and let the nutrients focus on another pumpkin or keep letting it grow for a bit. We'll keep you posted on what we decide...

July 7

We are amazed at the daily changes. I think our pumpkin plant is the biggest one of them all. If yours was bigger, you'd post photos!

Grrrroooowwwing

Wow, this pumpkin plant is really taking off. Here are more photos of the Richardson's plant - see for yourself. The plant has increased over 15" this week. We'll see how this plant fares through the monsoon, tho. First photo - June 26, last photo July 1.

The Growth Has Started!

Okay, we have now put a yardstick out by the pumpkin plant. Saturday, 6/28/08, the plant grew 4.5 inches! The diameter of the plant is over 25" now!

We are watering it 2-3x/day. I am putting a small amount of organic fertilizer on it weekly.

I think Bob & I are way more excited about this project than the kids, but I think now that the growth has started, hopefully they'll get more interested.

ummmm....

So...is this what your gigantic pumpkin looks like?? It is June 10th. Shouldn't there be a little more? I sang a song to it today....a grow, Grow, GRow, GROw, GROW already song. I will let you know if it worked.
My weeds grow....

Planted Pumpkin

We didn't have a cardboard box, and I read that two plexi glass peices could be put together as a tent, so that is what I did. Hopefully slugs won't figure it out that they can get in.
Grow, Grow, Grow, Grow........ The Looks

Our Big Hole

So here is our gigantic hole. Do the Pumpkin roots really go down that far? What is the purpose of the 3x4 hole? Ours is more like 2x2 and 1/2ish. We filled it in with a mixture of peat moss, manuer, and good fertilized compost. I am getting a bunny so I will soon have bunny fertilizer.... Here are pics of the Richardson's Big Hole.

Testing this out

Okay, here is the first official post for the Biggest Pumpkin blog. As soon as I can get the photos off my laptop, I'll post them. I've got pics from the giant hole Bobby dug and some of our cute little seedlings just a few days above ground.

Hopefully, we can all post something exciting soon! By this weekend, the weather should be warmer.

When you do plant your seedlings, remember to water them with WARM water and put them in the ground late in the day so they won't dry out over night. Also, put a cardboard box around them (without a top or bottom) so the sun can get to them, but the bugs and slugs can't.

Kirsten