Jane & I would like to thank John & Susan Nieuwenhoff, along with Paul Dettweiler & John Matesa for opening up their home & gardens on Saturday for the annual GVGO Patch Tour. It showed they spent countless hours keeping their gardens in tip top shape for the annual summer get together. John Nieuwenhoff had a couple very nice pumpkins on the go, along with many of the other giant vegetables grown for competition. He had a very nice field pumpkin, along with some massive cuks, big tomatoes & more. It was nice to see & learn a bit about all these other giants.
The Friday night before the patch tour wasn't very nice to our other 2 hosts. An F2 Tornado went through their area & cause a lot of damage in the area. Both Paul & John Matesa grow in the same place & both have some very nice pumpkins on the go. Unfortunately they were hit HARD with hail from the storm & was to the point that there wasn't much of any green left on any of the leaves & many leaves were broken off. The pumpkins had a lot of pot-marks from the hail as well. Hopefully by some miracle the plants will survive & continue to put on more weight. A few new shoots escaped the carnage, so hopefully they will be a new beginning for the pumpkins & help them grow to bigger weights.
In true GVGO spirit, the guys still hosted a great tour & we were able to see 1st hand the ugly side of Mother Nature. Lunch was terrific with John Matesa serving up enough Burgers & Hot dogs to stuff everyone in attendance. Oh & don't forget the chocolate cake for dessert. Man, I ate too much. "BURP". All in all it was a nice tour. We wish Paul D. & John M. all the best throughout the remainder of the season. We look forward to seeing you both at a weigh off this fall. Hopefully dragging some big-A$$ed pumpkins behind you. We're cheering for you.
Thanks again guys for hosting this year's tour.
Cheers,
Jane & Phil
Thanks for the kind words and thank you to everyone for visiting. It was great seeing everyone after a few years of not growing.
It was really dissappointing to have all the hard work that Paul and I put into ensuring our plants were healthy and well taken care of destroyed in a few momoments. I know we were really looking forward to showing off our hard work. I had one pumpkin taping over 400lbs on day 36 and picking up a lot of steam before the storm
I went back after 3 days to assess the damage and give the garden some time to bounce back...it didnt. So I cut away all the foliage that was either broken or completed gone which resulted in about more than half of each plant now without leaves and the remaining leaves are completely shredded.
I gave the patch a healthy spray of Seaweed and SiTKo .
Since there isnt really any foliage left ,I've decided to divert my efforts to doing drenches instead of foliar sprays at least every/other day. The roots and vines are in great shape thats how the pumpkins are going to get all the feeding and the leaves will be kept disease free.
Hope to see everyone at the various Weighoffs this year
Good Luck to everyone!
John Matesa