Time to Get Started ... Again

by Dean Baker

The days of wandering into the kitchen and having a relaxing cup of coffee, while reading the paper, with my wife have pretty much come to an end.

Dean Baker, and friend, at the Carefree Pumpkin Festival

61 more days until Giant Pumpkin season starts again in Arizona.

I just wish my wife wasn't so happy that I'm off at sunrise to turn dirt and dig water lines.  (Something about being out of her hair.)

There's a lot to do, before year-end, to get ready for the new season.

• Early season weather protection needs to be planned, and erected, before we transplant our pumpkins outside.
• I am working on laying new water lines for both patches; and erecting a shade cover over the new patch.  (I traded out my smaller patch for a larger patch at the community garden.)
• New shade cloth needs to be ordered for the larger patch.
• Insect cloth needs to be ordered to provide the pumpkins some protection from the squash bugs, cucumber beetles, and other little creatures that will start driving us nuts in March.
• Mycorrhizal Inoculant and other fertilizers need to be ordered for the season.
• Soil samples need to be sent off to Western Labs so we can have benchmarks to work with. 
• A review of seed inventory needs to be made - and new seeds must be added to help give diversity to our pumpkins.

It's both exciting, and tiring, to think that we're about to start the "serious" part of our hobby as giant pumpkin growers.  And, just to make it more fun, I am going to be growing a "greenie" this year.  I know the giant squash weights tend to be lower than the pumpkins, but I want to see what that means to us in the Southwest Desert.

The AZGPG Spring Harvest Festival, sponsored by Harpers Landscape & Gardening Centre, is scheduled for Saturday, May 28.  We encourage all growers to bring their giant pumpkins, giant squash, giant tomatoes, long gourds, etc. to the event.  The Arizona Giant Pumpkin Growers will once again be a Team-Pumpkin event.

A new giant pumpkin record was set at last year's event.  However, we didn't quite reach 501 pounds, therefore, that is still the base goal.  It's Operation 501 until this spring when we all bring new records to the scale.  Good luck to all.