Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/CSM Staff.
Volunteers struggle to lift a giant pumpkin off the straps that were used to hoist it up for weighing.
Gotta love people with unusual ambitions. An ambition to grow the largest pumpkin at an agricultural fair, for example.
Cameron Pugh writes at the Christian Science Monitor about great pumpkins for the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts — and the people who love (but stress out over) growing them.
“They eat their caretakers out of house and home. They cost thousands of dollars to raise, draining paychecks. They require near constant babysitting, and sometimes prompt a rush home from work to contend with emergencies.
“ ‘There’s a lot of stress involved,’ says Henry Swenson. ‘Like, a lot of nights where you’re not sleeping, and where you’re thinking about it, you’re having dreams about it.’ Mr. Swenson, if it isn’t clear, is talking about growing giant pumpkins.
“Nevertheless, Mr. Swenson and many other competitive pumpkin growers keep coming back year after year, vying for ever heavier weights. They pour their all into the hobby, driven, like competitive runners, to top their personal bests. Mr. Swenson’s heaviest pumpkin, at 1,349 pounds, weighed more than a concert grand piano. But the weightiest of these gargantuans approach 3,000 pounds – about the size of a sedan.
“This is the most competitive time of year for New England’s hobbyists, who describe their pumpkins almost like parents describe a newborn. (Some even get names.) Every fall, regional growers lug their pumpkins – often via some combination of truck, trailer, and forklift – to Topsfield. …
“Their hues range from ivory to verdant green to classic sunset orange. (In competitive circles, green pumpkins typically get categorized as squash.) Most are bloblike, not quite resembling the more shapely kind found in grocery stores. …
“Among the most respected and seasoned growers here is Woody Lancaster, who has cultivated giant pumpkins for over 30 years. … Mr. Lancaster has always been a gardener, going back to his days growing up on a farm in rural Ohio. But his appreciation for giant pumpkins began here in Topsfield. He lives around the corner from the fair, and his son fell in love with the giant gourds there during grade school. The pair began growing them, starting with a variety that hits about 150 pounds. The hobby stuck.
“ ‘He got interested in other things, and I stuck with the pumpkins,’ Mr. Lancaster says. …
“The practice reaches back to at least 1979, when a Canadian man named Howard Dill patented the seeds for the Atlantic Giant. Virtually every giant pumpkin, known scientifically as Cucurbita maxima, grown today descends from Mr. Dill’s seeds. These days, competitive growers crossbreed the biggest parents to grow even bigger children, trading some seeds for free and selling others at prices surpassing $1,000.
“The plants – ‘big babies,’ as Mr. Lancaster calls them – require near-constant upkeep. They can grow up to 70 pounds per day and consume more than 100 gallons of water daily.
“Growers pollinate their plants by hand, replacing insect pollinators. (You want to breed your pumpkins with the biggest you can find, ‘not some small squash from the neighbor,’ Mr. Lancaster says.)
“They prune relentlessly to manage growth, prevent rot, and direct as much energy as possible to the fruit, and they diligently repel rodents. One of Mr. Lancaster’s pumpkins sits covered by an umbrella and a tarp – protection from the sun and the cold, respectively. …
“ There’s friendship and camaraderie to go around in the pumpkin-growing world, even across generations. … Nonhobbyists, too, get joy from giant pumpkins. That’s part of what keeps Tom Keenan growing year after year.
“ ‘It’s a happy thing. So, for example, when you drive it here on the back of a trailer, people are blowing their horns,’ he says. ‘You stop at a rest area, [and] there are people all around taking pictures.’ …
“Mr. Lancaster, who plans on retiring from pumpkin growing this year, is favored to win big. (His pumpkin broke the lifting equipment when he tried to move it from his yard.) It’s a boon for him, whose goal this year was to ‘go out with a big pumpkin.’
“And go out with a big pumpkin he does. Mr. Lancaster’s pumpkin weighs in at 2,598 pounds – short of the world record, but breaking the records for the Topsfield Fair and Massachusetts.”
More at the Monitor, here. No paywall. Pretty funny photos. Do any of you gardeners grow for competition?
