We're leaving town for a week.

The camera is packed, so I can't easily take a picture. The vine has finally flopped over, sort of, and in exactly the direction it was supposed to. Now, if it would just be smart enough to grow down the right path while I'm gone.

I've got a super fancy new water timer, but I couldn't get the darn thing installed last night because the pipe threadings aren't right. So I put the old timer back up, though it will leak 24 hours a day next week. The pumpkn should like that even if the water bill doesn't.

Playing with the Irrigation Toys

You can see the stick in there where I'm trying to encourage the plant to grow towards the yard.

If she runs towards the house instead, I'll have to take out the patio, and that'll suck. But when I have to take out the family room carpet after that, the rest of the family may revolt.

The Big Question right now is...

Which way is the main vine going to grow?
Usually it goes opposite the first leaf, which would have been good.
Then, the plant flopped over in a perfect direction.
Now, it's looking like it will go straight up at first. I just can't tell. If it goes totally wrong, I may pull the plant and start over.


And another question - what are these darn eggs on the plant so early? I picked some of them off at this point last year too. If the eggs are laid on the pumpkin, I assume the hatchlings eat pumpkin leaves. Well, not on my watch, they won't!

No Surgery Needed For Now

I thought I was going to need to dig up the plant and rotate it 90 degrees so that the vine would grow into the yard instead of into the house. But judging from the first leaf, the vine should point ok though not perfectly.

I've decided to use a dollar bill to show size for now. It's about the same size as last year's Coke can, and it's symbolic besides. It is symbolic of how much more money I've spent on this plant than I ever did on last year's plant.

The first leaves have greened up nicely. (Technically, they're not really leaves, but that's not important I don't guess).

The milk jug is sort of a joke. That's what people put in the pictures with their pumpkins to give some sense of scale. But I did need something to show how big (or little) the plant is.

That's the back-up plant in the top right corner. But it looks like my first choice is starting stronger. Excellent!

There's so much that can go wrong

1. An undetected vine borer could kill the main vine.
2. The pumpkin could split.
3. A lot of the volunteer plants coming up in my good dirt are a weird yellowish green - like in this picture. (That's a cucumber seedling, not the pumpkin!) Do I have evil dirt somehow?!
4. A disease like mosaic virus could wipe me out.

You know, to be honest that's a shorter list than I was expecting. And the pumpkin plants are looking pretty good today; I'll post a picture of them tomorrow evening.

Let the Photosynthesis Begin!

It ain't much, but she's all I got... there should be leaves by Sunday.

I've almost been reluctant to get started. Deep inside, I think I'm worried. Last year was so fine. But what if this year ends in disaster? So many things can go wrong.

My pumpkin growing buddies Doug and Lee and others have been helping my through this rough pre-season stretch. The chatting we do on-line is good therapy when the burdens of my expectations have got me down.

I've Created Life!

Ok, so this is the backup seed - I just had to dig it up and see what was going on. It's safely back in the ground now, and I'd expect the plants to pop out of the ground on Friday.