Washington update
Well the P-patch has finally been tilled, the cloches are up, and some of
the plants are in. Nothing went as scheduled this spring but progress is
being made. I'll be growing three plants again this year. One of them is
the 563 Geerts 95. Germinated well, miserable looking little plant though
with curled and wrinkled cotlyledons and a small first true leaf. I have
the 508 and 427 Michalec planted side by side. The 427 was germinated later
as is was the second start for that seed. The first one looked bad with
small white colyledons that had holes in them. Once they've had a chance to
get a running start I'll cull one. My third choice for the season was the
909.5 Lloyd. It failed to germinate and I only had one so I started a 730
Stellpflug, that too failed to germinate so I started a second one. We're
approaching 72 hours on that one and still waiting. I germinated a 729
Bobier so we'll give that one a chance if the second Stellpflug doesn't make
it. The lesson here is start your backups at the same time as you first
choices so they're all ready to go at near the same time. You can usually
find a home for the ones you can't grow yourself. I have had good luck
germinating seeds in the past and hadn't counted on having failures.
Weather here has been cool and damp. 50's and 60's for daytime highs and
40's at night. Pretty typical May weather for this part of the country.
I've done a lot of prep work in the patch getting ready for this season and
getting my soil prepared. My pH was much lower than I wanted so it took a
lot of lime starting in October and continuing through March. By July I
should be in good shape with that. I'm hoping for a real summer in the
Northwest this year and at least another 200lbs on my heaviest pumpkins.
I'll post again from time to time when there is something of note to give an
update on. I plan on talking less and growing bigger pumpkins. Best of
luck to everyone for a successful season. Lets all grow our biggest
pumpkins, (or squash,) ever in 2000.
Chris Michalec
Covington, WA
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