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.