Busting through 60"

As a present for our increasingly large pumpkins, I ordered two new tapes that go to 120", instead of 60".  This is my measurement this morning, from stem to blossom.

Couple more MT 76's on the other vine - the other vines are growing really well, but the Hester vine has stopped growing completely.

My second largest pumpkin has the classic MT shape, about 25 lbs right now.

Propped up for support on the slope, and to ease pressure on the main vine.  Also found that my soaker hose has a leak, so this is also keeping the board out of a puddle of water... =\  Sprayed for powdery mildew again this morning, as the older/crispy leaves on the Hester are starting to fade...

Baby Power

Mark's not the only one that can charm babies with a pumpkin... Rhiannon dropped in for a spell.

Pumpkin Nerd Updates

This is where we capture the data for daily circumference measuring.  If anyone is interested, the formula is above for how to calculate in Excel or a google doc - it starts working when a pumpkin is over 16" or so - good rough estimate on a fairly round pumpkin.

Mark still breaking new records daily... another heat wave this week, so I'm hoping to close that gap.

Kai getting smaller and smaller in comparison to Mark's pumpkin...

Protecting my pumpkin from vine scratches

Maybe Baby, Maybe...

Trying to catch Mark is going to be tough.  He's already broken our prior record, and is probably over 100 lbs now.  The angle of this picture doesn't do it justice- Kai is now dwarfed by it.  =)

For mine, growth coming on quick now... 10 days behind Mark now, but growing 3-4"+ per day, about 45 lbs now, adding 4-8 lbs per day.  Loosened the main vine near the stem- wanted to keep the tap-roots nearby, so I just dug down under them a ways, and raised the soil.  Skin is still very supple, so I'm hoping no slugs are taking up residence under it.  At this rate, going to have to build a bigger platform, good problem to have I suppose.  I do like how well the sunflowers went with the pumpkins this year, will do that next time, too.

Also have a decent size prizewinner in the front yard, so 4 total right now (Hester, MT x2, Prizewinner)... hopefully get a couple more carving ones going soon.

Charting fun

Growth to date... comparing against our largest pumpkins from previous years.  Pretty obvious that records are going to broken this year, the only question is if I can catch Mark...

A question easily answered with some rosy projections of growth... which won't happen, because we'd both be over 500 lbs at that point.  It's just a matter of when we'll level off this year.