The Pumpkin "Grow Room"

This time of year I clean out my office closet and make it a grow room.  At the bottom of the shelves is a temperature controlled space heater and at the top are four 40 watt florescent bulbs along with three 60 watt equivalent CFL full spectrum bulbs inside of brooders.  This setup seemed to work pretty well for me last year.  You can't have enough wattage, but this seems to be sufficient, along with putting the plants outside on sunny days.

Two of the pumpkin plants (1421 and 1799) have been very vigorous.  I sanded and soaked my seeds on Wednesday and as of today the first true leaf is showing up on both of them now. 

I gave all of the plants a nice drink with BiotaMax in the water today.  Biotamax has a number of beneficial bacteria and fungi that help the roots grow as well as help protect the plant from harmful bacteria and fungi in the soil.

On Saturday I started a 335 Scherber and 2009 Wallace seed because two of the 1775 Starr seeds didn't germinate.  They were the only two to not get going but the third one is growing nicely. 

A local grower is supposed to be getting a clone of the plant that grew the 2009 world record last year.  I'm hoping to put that pollen pretty much into all of my plants.  The 335 Scherber wasn't a seed that I had though about growing this year but when some of the 1775 Starr seeds didn't germinate and I was thinking about a replacement the 335 came right to mind.  The 335 is a cross of a clone of a 1421 Stelts that grew a 1663 pounder with a clone of a 1161 Rodonis that grew a 1725 pounds.  My plan would be to put the clone of the 2009 into it, which on paper sounds like an excellent cross.  Genetics unfortunately doesn't read paper but all of those big genes you would think could give you something special.

I also started a 4.46 Marley (7.33 Hunt x self) tomato seed today.  I haven't ever tried growing a true giant tomato seed before, but I thought it was worth a try.  I'm also going to try a giant watermelon this year.  That seed I'll start in a week or so.