Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 33 Entries. Tuesday, January 15 View Page Jack O Lantern snake   Friday, January 18 View Page High Tech Pumpkin Abuse! https://youtu.be/Runa7TVXKpI   Tuesday, January 22 View Page First blooms on winter tomatoes   Saturday, March 2 View Page So much snow this winter, ready for spring!   Wednesday, April 10 View Page Ready for Spring to get here!   Thursday, April 11 View Page It was a little windy here last night.   Saturday, April 13 View Page Germination round one. These babies have been filed, soaked, & will hopefully show signs of life within the next few days!   Friday, April 19 View Page From round one: 1791 Werner germinated Unfortunately 1381 Checkon & 2255 Eddy Z did not. Bummer, Heavy Sigh   Friday, April 19 View Page so tonight I started the process with these two.   Saturday, May 4 View Page Here we go! Not my best looking seedlings ever, but I think they'll like it better outside.   Monday, May 6 View Page Picture for last entry.   Thursday, May 16 View Page Decided to ix nay the flat vine 1791 Werner   Thursday, May 16 View Page Replaced it with 2185 Brandt   Friday, May 17 View Page Had a fun day yesterday planting 2 acre food plot (sorghum) for our CRP food plot in northern Iowa. Looking forward to shooting pheasants here next fall!   Friday, May 17 View Page And last, I finally got my patch roto-tilled yesterday, finishing just a few minutes before a big storm hit. As per some helpful recommendations from Team Beard, I tilled in: 20 pounds potassium sulfate 1 pound manganese sulfate 1 pound copper sulfate 10 pounds elemental sulfur to lower pH 1/2 pound borax Plus some alfalfa meal, and humid   Tuesday, June 4 View Page After my last post, we've had a crazy amount of rain, which started right after I got my patch tilled on May 17th, and turned my patch into hard-pan. May 31st tilled for a second time. In the foreground you'll see a Bonnie Plants School Mega Cabbage. That's right I have a 3rd grader. My last 3rd grader won the Bonnie Plants cabbage contest for our state and a $1,000 scholarship. Hoping for a repeat!   Tuesday, June 4 View Page Oh yeah, my 1676 also went flat vine, so my keeper for this year is 2158. This pic is from May 31.   Friday, June 28 View Page Had a bummer last week when I got home from a trip for work, the main vine had snapped during a thunderstorm :-(   Friday, June 28 View Page The good news, while I was gone, my daughter had done a pollination (not sure how many lobes), just before the break.   Monday, July 15 View Page This evening we harvested the giant cabbage that Elyse grew for the Bonnie Plants 3rd Grade Cabbage Contest. It weighed 20 pounds. She stayed on top of plant care, especially keeping up with watering on these hot days. Great job Elyse!   Tuesday, July 16 View Page Pic to go with last post   Friday, July 19 View Page Tomorrow is Day 30. Dealing with a stretch of 95-100 degree weather :-(   Friday, July 19 View Page Try that again   Friday, August 16 View Page Still growing   Saturday, August 17 View Page Overhead shot of my patch.   Saturday, August 17 View Page Tall Corn and Sunflowers   Wednesday, August 21 View Page A severe t-storm with high winds ripped through central Iowa yesterday morning, knocked down most of my tall corn and sunflowers :-(   Friday, September 27 View Page Last evening we picked and measured our tallest corn stalk, which was 23 feet - a new PB! Variety = Tehua In August a severe thunderstorm knocked over most of my tall corn and tall sunflowers, so that's why this stalk grew curved at the end.   Friday, September 27 View Page New PB Tall Corn: 23 Feet. Most of my tall corn and tall sunflowers got bent over in a windstorm in August so that's why this one was growing curved   Thursday, October 10 View Page A few pics about our entry at Anamosa Pumpkinfest last weekend . . . Guy down the street with the loader was unavailable at the last minute so we threw together a tripod, and got loaded after dusk, and just before rain moved in. Whew!   Thursday, October 10 View Page 2185 Brandt X Self is now the 1049 Boelman. It went 6% heavy, and was 10th Place out of 27 entries. I am totally stoked to have finally crossed the 1,000 pound barrier!!   Thursday, October 10 View Page And finally, congratulations to Marc and Dan on the new state of Iowa record 1,800.5 pounds! That was so great, and was the icing on the cake to have a couple of Iowa growers come out on top at Anamosa!!   Thursday, October 31 View Page Ran out of time to do a regular carving job, so did this cave idea that I'd seen another grower (Woody) do something similar.