Forsyth Punkin 2010

At the end of a very fast growing season, the Forsyth punkin weighs 16.4 lbs. Not bad for 6 months!I may be a little biased but I think we've got the best looking pumpkin!!! We're taking the Wilson winter fertilizer secret so watch out next year. The Forsyths will have the biggest Giant Pumpkin of all!

One of the four

I managed to take one of our four pumpkins into school. All three of the kids enjoyed sharing with their classes about the pumpkin. I only have the camera with me for Hunter's class. I'm hoping the pumpkin doesn't rot while at school; otherwise, the janitor will be very upset with me. :-)

Harvest Day Monument Pumpkins (17 Oct 10)

I really thought I had a pumpkin over 100 pounds but we are happy for what we got!

Griffey and his 92, 42 an 10 pound pumpkins!

Herbie and his 10 pounder!

The 42 pounder

Harvesting the 92 pounder

The official weights!

New Pumpkin

6.21
Originally uploaded by suestriz

:(

Well, I guess it's time to fess up and say that the Forsyths are growing a different kind of pumpkin this year. The Strizich adopted pumpkin didn't survive the move outside. :( So here's a picture of our new pumpkin after about 10 weeks of growing...

First Male Flower (July 3rd, 2010)

The first male flower for the Monument pumpkins was on the orange and beautiful. This plant has no females yet. The 1002 pound is doing great with lots of male flowers (none open) and a couple of little female flowers. Goob's pumpkin has a few make flowers (none open) and one very small female flower.

The orange and beautiful:

The 1002 pumpkin:

Goob's pumpkin:

Female flower on Goob's pumpkin:

Wayne's Pumpkins

After 6 inches of hail on June 11th, Wayne's 3 pumpkins (2 from Cindy & 1 from Josh P) and strawberries survived. When Wayne went to survey the damage, much to his surprise, he discovered two orphan pumpkins plants next to the fence. He did not clean up his garden last year and these guys sprouted from one of Wayne's rotten pumpkins

Strizich - Here We Go Again

“Here We Go Again”

The second round of seeds have been planted. One indooors and a few outdoors. May the force be with us this time! All we are really hoping for is a few decent sized pumpkins for the kids to carve at this point! Come on pumpkins and Mother Nature - don’t let us down again!

6.15
Originally uploaded by suestriz

Monument Pumpkins 13 Jun 2010

Three pumpkins are now living outside of their greenhouses. One pumpkin, 4 tomato plants, and two pepper plants (one did not make it) still living inside the greenhouses. The three pumkins have their heater coils in place. Hail netting also up.

The 1002 pound with heater coils which are now buried

The 896 Big and Beautiful:

Goob's 1598 pound with the buried heater coils:

Greenhouses with 1 pumpkin, tomatoes, and peppers:
Hail netting up. Herbie adjusting automatic waterer!

Strizich - 2nd Attempt

“2nd Attempt”

Here we go again. Hopefully we will have better luck this time! Come on Burpee seeds - don’t fail us now!

6.11
Originally uploaded by suestriz

Monument Planting Day

Wednesday afternoon (26 May 2010) we planted 4 pumpkin plants, 1 tomato plant and 1 bell pepper plant (Thanks Josh!). Got the drip system with the timer all hooked up and green houses up. We planted 2 seeds from Dill (one is an orange and beautiful), a seed from Goob and one from Josh's Dad. We are just waiting for the soil heater coils to come! Griffey is not much help this year. He is a little wild.

Strizich - Pumpkin Planting

“Pumpkin Planting”

Today’s the day we decided to plant our baby giant! It’s quite windy but the weather has been consistently warm so I think we are safe from any freezing. Good luck baby giant. We can’t wait to watch you grow and grow!

Forsyth Pumpkin plant adopted

Well, timing wasn't my friend this year. Since our first seeds never germinated, I started a second set. Then, go figure, it was time for Gabe to be born. The hospital stay overtook my efforts to germinate pumpkin seeds. So thanks to the Strizichs', the Forsyths have adopted a plant. The patch was finally set up today. Hopefully the plant will go in the ground before the day is over. More than likely tomorrow though. It's definitely more difficult this year juggling feeding a newborn every couple of hours, eating, sleeping occasionally, and caring for a pumpkin plant. But don't worry, we'll perservere and have a bigger pumpkin than last year!

Wilson Pumpkins are in the ground

The pumpkins the day after we planted them in the garden.
We have three pumpkins for our three children ;-) Oh wait . . . we have four kids. Isabella was at a baseball game with her friend this evening.

Monument Pumpkins Planted

On April 21st, 2010, Herbie planted 6 seeds all from Josh Pearsall's dad's pumpkin. Three from 2008 and three from 2009. We are waiting to get our hands on the seeds from Goober but they seem to be making the rounds. From CA to Brian, then to Brian's wife, then to Jen and then Brett. Who knows where they are now! We are also starting seeds for Wayne since he will be on vacation for 10 days starting today

Strizich - Grow Baby Grow!

“Grow Baby Grow”

Our baby giant is growing beautifully. We are taking extra care to make sure we have the biggest pumpkin of them all this year!

None germinated... :(

None of our seeds germinated. I planted 4 more yesterday from Posh's Dad's pumpkins. Hopefully something comes up!!! I wonder what I did wrong in saving the seeds from my pumpkin...

Wilsons have planted

The Wilson seeds are planted. Brett is trying a new strategy this year. We do not have a cooler covered in plastic wrap. Instead we have a cardboard box with a heating pad under it. We'll see if it works. It can't be any worse than last year when none of our seeds germinated!

Forsyth Pumpkins Planted

Since last years pumpkins didn't seem to be done growing by the time we had to pick them for frost, I decided to plant them a week (almost 2) early this year. We started from seeds from our biggest pumpkin that was grown last year. I planted 4 to start. Hopefully at least 1 germinates. I'll post a picture soon.

Strizich - Seeds!

“Seeds”

Time for seeds again. We have decided to try our hands at starting all our flowers and vegetables from seed this year. Today we visited Lowes and purchased all the supplies. The boys had a great time planting. We are growing many varieties of flowers as well as cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, artichokes and many hebs. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes!

2010 Pumpkin Growing Season

Alright everyone, it's getting close to that time again... It's almost time to start those giant pumpkin seeds (indoors of course since we live in Colorado). This year I want to see fewer excuses and more blogging! Remember, I'm going to be at home checking up on you all. Just cuz there's about to be a baby in the house, doesn't mean I'm going to forget about the pumpkins! We gotta teach the new Forsyth how to grow them so some year he can beat us all and make Mommy and Daddy very happy... So post early, and post often. It'll be a race to see what grows faster, a baby or an Atlantic Giant Pumpkin :).