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 :).

Colorado Pumpkin Party

The Wilson's hosted the Colorado Pumpkin Party last night (19 Oct 09). Everyone had pumpkins to weigh except the Adams family. The picture above has Wayne & Linda's, Matt & Nicole's, the Wilson's and some non competition pumpkins. Expect bigger and better things next year from the Colorado Chapter. Two lessons learned from this year: Start earlier and get some hail netting. The Adams Family next year will be trying some innovative things so watch out.

Wayne and Linda with their 5 pound pumpkin

The Strizich family with 2 of their pumpkins. Weights 71.2 pounds and 70.2 pounds. Not bad for rookies.

The Forsyths (Matt & Nicole) with their biggest pumpkin to date weighing in at 109.5 pounds. Very good effort this year!

The Wilson's with their pumpkins. Brett only weighed two pumpkins. Their biggest was 123 pounds and the carved pumpkin weighed in at 89 pounds.

And finally, the Pearsall's pumpkins. I believe the two largest are the Montrose pumpkins with the smallest belonging to Josh & Tammy Pearsall (the newlyweds). The official weights for the two largest have been posted previously. Josh & Tammy's pumpkin weighed in at 30 pounds.

Strizich Harvest

Harvested on 10/1. The Strizich GIANT weighed in at a whopping 71 lbs! followed by 70, 63, 44 according to our scale...which Susan reminded weighs a bit heavy.

Montrose Harvest

The cold finally pushed my dad to harvest. In the first picture below you can see the lengths taken to extend the growing season (hair drier and drop light).

Next the 2 small entries from the Montrose garden with weights and measurements.

Left in pic. - 114Lbs, 52" Stem-Blossom, 46" Side-Side, and 83" Circumference

Rigth in pic.-102Lbs, 50" Stem-Blossom, 47" Side-Side, and 78" Circumference

Finally the big one on the scale (weight in bottom left is without my dad on the scale), measurements and seed info can be found in the bottom right of the picture. For those of you who don't believe the picture the pumpkin will be at my house this Friday (Oct. 9th 2009), and can be viewed by appointment by any skeptics. I will also bring the big one and one of the small ones to the Wilson’s house for the Oct. 19th pumpkin party.

306 Lbs, 65" Stem-Blossom, 66" Side-Side, and 102" Horizontal Circumference

My Grandma, the other half of the Montrose group, gave in at the first hard freeze and gave away her pumpkins without measuring or taking pictures of the 2009 success.

Snow and Pumpkins - Not a good mix

Sept 23, 2009 Monument Colorado. We were on our way to a record setting growing season for the Monument pumpkins and then what? SNOW!!! We just needed a couple more weeks of nice weather to get the biggest pumpkin ever. NOT!! Actually we have the best looking plants we have ever had but no pumpkins. Our first two pumpkins rotted. We have some very small pumpkins but not enough time for them to do anything. Watch out for next year. We will be doing some creative stuff.

Griffey enjoying his first snow. He's a wild thing!

Montrose Pumpkin Part 2

Montrose pumpkin patch 2 - Joining the pumpkin growing contest this year after a disappointing 2008 season is my grandma. Below are a few pic. of her 2009 plants. First the plant that never did much, but atleast it didn't die.

Next the plant with all her hopes of the big one. The pumpkin plant has 2 nice looking pumpkins, one of 128 inches and of of 129 inches corresponding to 51 and 52 lbs respectively.

Hail! Yikes!

But no worries - our giants are still intact! The biggest pumpkin is 141 inches for 61 pounds and the 3 other are just slightly smaller.

bummer!

Matt added wrong. He wrote down the numbers I gave him and somehow got 181 inches. It's really 151 inches or ~79 lbs. Still the biggest one we've ever gotten but not over 100 lbs. :(