June 16 - Sprout missing most of one of its cotyledons.
June 16 - All sprouts. Notice the ring of sand for slugs and
crawling insect powder for catepillars, roaches, as so forth.
June 24 - Young pumpkin plant.
July 2 - A little older plant. Also coaxing them to grow in the
right direction with my "U" hooks. Damn cockroach also ate the
backup sprout in the lower right corner.
July 14 - Taken in the evening, hence the strange light. Notice the bamboo skewers
to stablize areas with cracks and to keep vines in place in case of wind.
July 21 - V2 growing towards camera and about to reach the new grass.
July 29 - Male flower on V2, second one of the season.
July 29 - V1-V4 several feet into new grass. V6 & V7 about to cross into new grass.
August 7 - Female flower on V6.
August 7 - View of the patch. Much of the new grass covered.
V1 & V2 reaches the fence and are redirected. V6 redirected towards yard.
August 7 - Vine tip on V4 burned by 99�F heat. V3 suffers same fate.
August 9 - Looks like it's gonna be o.k. for V4. V3 also sprouts secondaries.
August 14 - Root node at the base of a leaf stem. Some grow on the
bottom, some on the side (like this one). Some also grow into the
ground themselves, others will grow if you cover them in soil.
August 16 - Blooming female on V7.
August 16 - Panoramic view of the patch from the other direction than previous photos. My first attempt at stitching photos together. Looks good but I need to step back a little further next time, a little bit of the upper left is out of frame. Also, note the white spots (Powdery Mildew) on the leaves nearest the camera.
August 17 - What Green Light Tomato Bloom Spray II does to pumpkin leaves
when sprayed on them. However, they perk back up in a few days.
August 17 - Ice under a bucket to help cool down pollinated female on hot day.
August 24 - "Siamese" female flower on V6.
August 24 - Pumpkin on V7, slightly larger than grapefruit size. Hmm, that secondary
and tendril will need to be trimmed.
August 31 - The strange leafless part of V6. The Siamese flower didn't make it.
September 2 - Panoramic view of patch. Oldest leaves lost to Powdery Mildew.
September 7 - Old/brittle/Powdery Mildew-covered leaves shredded by heavy rain.
September 13 - Pumpkin on vine with nearby leaves covered in Powdery Mildew.
It has been a bad year for PM all over North America at least.
September 24 - Panoramic view of patch. Most of the patch is now bare except for the newest growth, some of which is growing back into the bare sections.
September 24 - Here is the part of patch to the far right the panoramic view can't catch.
September 24 - Something strange is happening to V2 (now 53 feet long!). The newer leaves have been developing with these yellowish spots on them. As leaves further down develop, more of their surfaces become less green and more yellowish. The picture to the right shows V5 on the left and V2 on the right. This is happening as the leaves appear and is not a result of PM or other disease introduced later on. My theory is that V2 is growing so long that it is starting to encounter nutrient deficiencies.
September 28 - A vine that is shriveling up at its base.
October 2 - A tree branch that fell on the patch after a storm.
Many old leaves are also shredded by rain.
October 5 - The pumpkin on V2 is displaying strange spots like the leaves are on that vine.
October 5 - What a huge bee! (about one-inch long)
October 15 - Just to show you what old shriveled leaves on the vine look like.
October 25 - When a vine stops growing, the thickness of the vine itself shrinks dramatically in the last foot or two and a bunch of leaves and flowers (much more than usual) develop at the tip as shown.
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