The New Guard Dog

Meet Griffey. 11 week old yellow lab. Jerome is still hanging in there but this little guy will make sure nothing destroys our pumpkins. We have no recent pictures of the pumpkins because we are waiting for them to vine. A big hail storm went through last night but the pumpkin house did it's job. No damage to the pumpkins. All three plants look great, just wish they would start vining.

Giant Pumpkins - Strizich Edition - Part 4

We are truly having a blast watching these babies grow. They change every day. We run out to the patch first thing in the morning, check throughout the day, and then bid them good-night in the evening. We worry about them when the clouds look ominous and have taken measures to protect them against the severe Colorado weather we've been experiencing every afternoon. Even Sophie has found a new perch atop a rock in our backyard and peers down upon them. Although I suspect she does not have their best interest at heart. Looking forward to the emergence of flowers!

Forsyth July update

The Forsyth pumpkin plant is looking really good so far. It grew like crazy while we were in England! It's taking up about 1/3 of the patch. I hope we made the new patch big enough! These pictures were taken on July 5th. We even have the first signs of a female flower...

Wayne's Pumpkins Last Day of June

Very nice. June has been a very wet month. Look how nice his yard is and of course his pumpkins

See we could grow pumpkins!!

This picture was probably taken in 1985 when we used to live in Sunnyvale,CA. We would be really happy if we could grow just one like any of these. This would be Meghan with the pumpkins.

Where's Cinerby???!

This isn't a trick... has anybody seen a pumpkin plant running down the street?! The picture above is where "Cinerby", our adopted pumpkin plant, was planted in the ground. What happened you ask? I don't know! I don't think an animal came and ate it because we've had the greenhouse over it and I never noticed any opennings. We kept it pretty well sealed. The last time I saw it though, it looked pretty sick. It was shrivled down to 1 leaf the size of my thumb nail.

The picture above shows a hole right about where I planted Cinerby. Maybe I should put an ad on one of those missing persons milkcartons...

Here's our other plant. It's looking pretty good. I think it got a little too hot and that's the reason for the brown spots on the leaves. We took the greenhouse off last night and put the hail netting up. This one plant is our only hope for this year :(. But it's going to produce some prize winning pumpkins!!

The Pumpkin House

While I was in Kansas helping Corey move into his new apartment, Herbie and son #3 built the pumpkin house (as Corey calls it). The netting is to protect the pumpkins from hail and deer.

Giant Pumpkins - Strizich Edition - Part 3

Nicholas and Jack helped Dad today!

And now the Strizich Pumpkin Patch is complete!

Giant Pumpkins - Strizich Edition - Part 2

YAY!  We have baby pumpkins!  #1 sprouted this morning and #2 is really close to pushing through its bed of soil.

Now it's time to make a proper outdoor home for these babies!  Brian has cleared a perfect spot in the backyard and we had a ton of dirt delivered today for the Strizich Pumpkin Patch!

Now all that's left is to create a barrier for you-know-who:

Giant Pumpkins - Strizich Edition

We are growing giant pumpkins this summer!  It's been an exciting adventure so far.  We have become connected with a group of giant pumpkin growers in Colorado Springs.  We are linked in a unique way.  One family, I had the privilege of getting to know this year as their son was in my class.  The other is a co-worker of Brian's.  We were invited to this elite group this week and are really excited to begin.  With some really specific instruction from Brian's co-worker and a bit of encouragement from the student in my class we began our adventure this week. Here's our baby pumpkins, germinating under their grow lamps.  In a week we should see little sprouting pumpkin plants!