Halfway Through October Already

Woah it’s already halfway through October already and it feels like it has snuck up on me.

Pumpkin Update

I’m going with the 656 Akkerman seed this growing season, my reasoning is if I don’t have the room for a proper patch, I’m better to go with something nice and orange, so no matter what size it is it will still look awesome. Ever turned up with an ugly white pumpkin that no one barely looks at? If you can’t have the largest, you might as well have a pretty pumpkin.

I’ve got 3 on the go right now, and will probably do a couple of backups which if not needed I can give to some people that are keen to grow.

Talking of seed, I now have some for sale on the website right here on the shop page, it’s been a long time coming but I finally sorted that out, I’m going to be putting up some other stuff soon which people should find interesting.

Any money made on the shop side is fed straight back into paying for the hosting for the website and after that anything left over is going to help fund travels to check out pumpkin events.

Watering

I’m looking back into my watering setup for the tiny patch, I was looking at different pieces at Bunnings the other day and I think the drippers I had on my irrigation pipe last year were the wrong type, not sure why I didn’t notice it until now, maybe the packaging changed from last year.

I’m going to try different ones, and I managed to win a basic irrigation kit from Sarah the Gardener (who you should check out) earlier on in the year, so I can replace the main pipe I had last season and I’m having a think about water requirements in January when I’m not home for about a week.

Videos

I’m shooting more video this year, both updated videos to go with the How To Section and also a Vlog throughout the year, sometimes there are little bits and pieces that are too short to justify their own video, but with a vlog you can just through it all together. Videos will be out every 2^nd Monday, so keep an eye out for them, the first 2 Vlog episodes are below.

 

Downhill Pumpkin Rolling

Something that has sort of become a tradition and is a crowd favourite at The Great Pumpkin Carnival is the downhill pumpkin rolling we do at the end of the day.

What’s happened very recently is they have put a walkway underneath the road which I can’t believe they hadn’t done sooner, as trying to cross the road as a pedestrian is super crazy as you have to get across 4 lanes of what is currently a state highway.

I wrongly assumed that they would have the path come out and basically follow the track that the construction guys had been using, turns out they have a nice winding path now right at the bottom of where we roll the pumpkins.

Which is fine, just means we must adapt and find a solution. Setting up the barriers just before the path won’t work as the distance is too short and the pumpkins won’t break on their own.

We’ve identified an area further along into the gardens, it will be a 5 minute walk to get there and people with pumpkins should get there all good too, the gardeners don’t mind us there and there is a big tree which should provide a good thing to aim for and should destroy a few pumpkins.

Lots of records being broken

Lots of state and weigh-off records being broken this season in the Northern Hemisphere, with a large amount of pumpkins weighing over 2000 pounds it is exciting to see the envelope being pushed even further, and all of this means a flow down effect on the genetics with bigger and better pumpkins becoming the norm no matter what level you are growing at.

Hopefully the same sort of thing happens here in NZ, while we do have some epic pumpkins getting weighed around the country by the best growers out there, for a lot of places, if you turn up with a pumpkin that is over 150kg’s you will probably win or at least be in the top 3, and blow people’s minds in the process.

I’m excited about this season, and my own personal goal is to grow a pumpkin as big as I can in the tiny patch so that removing it becomes a challenge.

Will there be a lot more events?

A lot more people have downloaded the free guide to running a giant pumpkin event, so hopefully, this means there will be more events around the country.  And if you are one of those people and you are reading this, remember it is a slow grind, it takes a while to get people involved, excited and to grow your event.