It’s county fair time and gardeners are saving their choicest vegetables and flowers for competition. If you’ve ever competed, you know how seriously it’s taken and how fierce the contest can be. It’s easy to walk though the hall and say you’re peppers are better than the winners, but it takes a lot of planning and care to get the perfect number of perfect specimens to peak at the perfect time.
Now consider what it must be like for giant pumpkin growers. If you’ve been having trouble with your tomatoes spliting after a heavy rain, just think about the tension of growing a fruit that can put on 26 lbs. in a day! And once it’s mature, at just over half a ton, you have to figure out how to move it and get it to the fair. Author Susan Warren chronicles the excellent adventure of “Pumpkin Royalty” in their quest to grow the biggest pumpkin ever, in her new book "Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever. It's a fun read, as I detail in my book review and you’ll pick up a lot of growing tips, even if you still want to limit yourself to growing normal pumpkins.
Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2007) licensed to About.com, Inc.
Comments
Thank you Marie for the efforts you give. We have a pumpkin growing in our front yard from last year’s fall arrangment. I let it grow and wonder why this isn’t a hobby of other gardeners out of the limelight. The size these plants become is quite exotic and we plan to seed them intentionally next year. Dare to be different!
There are a couple of photos in the book of people walking through dozens of these giant pumpkins and it looks like something from another world. It looks like fun, but I wouldn’t want to have to move them.