A DANDY PUMPKIN

I coached this associate for five years. Now we have for the first time a baby.
She is his baby. The coach accepts the honors with the grower. You are looking at the first pumpkin over a thousand pounds ever grown in our part of Pennsylvania.

About a half dozen growers achieve this or a heavier one each year. The record here is just under fifteen hundred pounds while the world record is just under seventeen hundred pounds.

The answers are: About seven hundred pies. It grows in ninety days just like any other pumpkin. Most of them get carved. They get loaded with back hoes and fork lifts. Many get wholesaled to major population area garden centers. The retail price is about two dollars a pound plus delivery.

WOW! I'm impressed at the size, not to mention the $2 a#. That would buy a lot of seed, organic fertilizer and pest control. Ric

Congrats! coach! good job! thanks for posting about it, fun.

Holey Moley!!!!

Doc, Your legacy lives on!! Congratulations to you and protege. Now, do you get a piece of pie???

Best I have ever grown was near 800 lbs. This grower had everything right to grow in downtown Williamsport, Pa. and so we did. He grows in a vacant lot. His father gardened in this lot. To get the first 1000 or over in our area the grower has grown five and six a year for five years and spent an average of a thousand dollars a year doing it. Most years he could sell some to cover maybe half his expense. This hobby is not about money.

This is his fifth year trying.....he now has two possible 1000 lbs. and one over 800 another over 900. He will be able to make his expenses this year if he does not give to many away.

My piece of the pie is nothing but the pleasure of seeing our guys attempt to grow over a thousand pounds. We now know it can be done here. The next goal is over fifteen hundred pounds. The real goal is now two thousand pounds or a one ton pumpkin. Most expert growers think that will happen within the next five or so years.

I never mentioned profit Doc, I know you all do it for the challange and enjoyment, but it would be nice to cover expenses. Ric
Once again a job well done, Coach.

Hi all. Congrats doc! That is amazing! Now for the important question: who gets the 700 pies? ^_^

that's great!!!

Oh, so the Great Pumpkin will soon rise out of the punpkin patch and bring toys to all of the children in the world!! That is a big one, Doc, and congratulations!!

Don't those biggies get raffled off in Fall festival contests or rolled to the Zoo to be fed to the elephants? I can't help but ponder its fate.

That would be cool--let some elephants smash it up and eat it, if they would. A more glorious demise than the compost heap.

One of the many pumpkins grown across the country is sold to a Harley Cycle shop. They are advertising a genetic first in their parking lot. The advertisement goes as such: SEE AN AMERICAN PUMPKIN CHANGED INTO A JAPANESE SQUASH... 2 PM SATURDAY. It will be dropped fifty feet onto a Honda Bike. Free food and a cash suds bar. Win a years worth of gasoline for the closest guess on the number of seed in the real squash.

The seed will be recovered befor the drop. Part of the squash will go for cattle feed while part will be shoveled up and sent to the junk yard.

The location was intended to be held in secret. To name the place here would be pure advertising. There are several such acts on UTube if you know how to find them. Letterman usually does somethng amazing with one of the largest in NY. Several talk shows have booked the new world record if one is created this year.

That's a lot of fun.

Here is a really nice pumpkin grown by the Checkons in Central Western Pennsylvania. This is the largest weighed last Saturday in Pennsylvania. There was one larger grown here but it went into New York to be weighed. The size of the cash prize took it away from our weigh off. $3000.00 difference!

That lends new meaning to "go for the gold".

Would love to see that huge pumpkin dropped on a Honda or a Kawasaki.

doc--

a few years ago someone was posting day-by-day--week-by-week reports on growing a HUGE Pumpkin.
She was posting pictures of all her set-ups and dweekly progress....

I cannot/don't want to spend the time to dig this Post up. It WAS very interesting, though.

Anyone remember this?????

CricketsGarden--vegetable forum I think. It was better than Days of Our Lives

Gita...........I have a flat sheet day by day what to do and what to expect. I require that I be ask for this on regular Email. I know how to do it that way. LOL As an area coach I developed several subjective specific flat sheets.

Before somone gets to excited one needs a patch at least 35 X 50 feet to grow just one. At least the sum and total of one hour a day. The financial cost to do it right runs about $250.00 over the prep and the growing season....and could be higher depending on a number of factors. The gentleman whom I showed in the first picture spent about $1500.00 growing four. He nearly broke even this year after five years of learning. These numbers are an average of what I personally spent growing mine and what I see others doing today.

Why would anyone do this? One it is fun. Two it is growing the most amazing beast of a plant and fruit I know of. Finally it is better to have run the race and lost than not to have run in the first place.

I will conclude my pumpkin thing with a carving of a pumpkin tower. It is the most amazing carving by Bruce Cully, World Book of Facts, Oregon Carver working, in New Hampshire, if my memory is correct. This carving took two days...two long days. It lasted two weeks.

Doc, That is absolutely beautiful and awe inspiring. Congratulations to the grower and artist! Truly a labor of love.

really nice... last year Randy and I carved some nice ones... just to be eaten a few days later... pumpkin remains were everywhere in the driveway

this year we are not going to put them out until halloween

I truly miss my real pumpkins, but I just can't bear the thought of giving a feast to those evil voles. One year, they ate clear through to the stems of 10 hugh ones. When I went to pick them up, they were hollow and not even 1 seed was left. They had not been carved.

Doc, you always have such interesting posts.
I did not see the number of really large pumpkins at our local fair this year, there were some pretty tall sunflowers. Guess the older farmers around here are not into growing them anymore.

The pay out for first place is from a low of $1000.00 to a high of $4000.00. The fairs average paying $50.00. That is why you do not often see a real giant at the fairs. I can't even load and deliver one for $50.00. The weigh-off sites in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York number six or seven. They are managed largely by grower members of the individual state organizations as governed by a national organization. I do know that Erie area growers have been recorded at the various weigh-off sites.

In addition one site in Ohio and one in New York have a Pumpkin Regatta the day following the weigh-offs. Regattas draw a lot of six to eight hundred pound pumpkins. That size makes a more manageable boat if manageable is the word for a pumpkin boat. More likely this is silly to say the least but super fun trying to stay in one let alone make it behave in a reasonable way between point A and point B. There are token prizes for the Regattas. There are two divisions....hand paddled and motorized. This all started in Canada about fifteen years ago. It is just now growing into the states.

Then there is Pumpkin Chunken which you may have seen on TV, This is not related to the giant pumpkin growers but none the less it is a wild crazy pumpkin activity. It has been known that four grown men spending ten gran each to build a compressed air gun failed to get a single pumpkin shot in the air. A competive group shot one out of the playing field into a house. That got crazy to say the least. Those pumpkins are limited to twelve pounds. The word accuracy has not yet been invented in these games. I have gone to watch this nonsense. No way dared I even think about getting involved. I liked what I saw entirely to much. Absoute madness with no reason that makes any realistic sense. Just men being boys again enjoying it to no end. LOL

I have carved a couple eight hundred pound fruit. In such instances there was a charity event worked around the pumpkin carving.

People just flat out love pumpkins and all sorts of pumpkin events.

Doc, LOL. I'd love to see a giant pumpkin in a canoe. LOL These events sound like good ideas for some of those reality TV shows. Gosh, I'd hate to clean that pumpkin off the side of my house. That chunkin is an interesting way to broadcast pumpkin seeds.

Love that pumpkin tower. I don't have any home grown pumpkins this year. Too many squash bugs last year so I thought I wouldn't plant any in the Veggie Garden. I did have a volunteer start on top of the compost but we damaged it while moving most of the compost pile last month. I think it would be fun to grow a big one but I don't think I would ever do the really big ones like that.

Stormyla....no no! They cut a side off of the pumpkin, hollow it out and the pumpkin becomes the boat. A six hundred pound pumpkin so fixed up will easily carry a hundred fifty pound captain.

Oh, Doc. That sounds even more hilarious. I'll bet there are a few tip overs.

It's far easier to count the ones that do not go overboard. LOL

Found this video, seeing is believing, a pic is worth a thousand words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNhg93qeQ2w

That's great! It looks chilly too.

And Just for fun!
http://www.onemorelevel.com/halloween/pumpkintoss.html

Now I going to take a pain pill !

LOL, Lady. How many did you get with your good hand??

Not bad......... can you tell I'm board. Actually I have a lot to keep me busy, just restless.

HMMMM--WHERE do you find all these videos????? Do you just Google for them????

I am a video/digital anything "virgin".....(DO have a digital camera!)....

NO games...NO You Tube---NO I-Pods--NO Blackberry--NO skills to get to any of them.....Don't want to!
See--Self defense!
I KNOW I am missing a lot--but I have too much going in my life to find time for any other addictions besides DG!

G.

You're right Gita. I am addicted to Youtube and Wikipedia, but have been avoiding those two for months. Those are winter pursuits for me.

My vote goes to Gita for the stand of the day! I don't care for those modern toys either.

Edited to remove the wine jolk thought to be offensive some.

This message was edited Oct 14, 2009 9:13 PM

HUH--DOC???

Care to put that in plain English so I know WHAT you are voting me for????? Is this a compliment--or a put-down?

What is this all about "Jewish Wines?????" I LOVE Wine! Any kind! As long as I can drink it over 5 ice cubes in the glass. Even the Jewish ones...Sweet!!!

Right now--ALL of you Wine Connoisseurs are cringing--are you not?
Don't ever buy me a fancy "vintage wine" for $$$$ a bottle--or per glass!!!! I still will still drink it over ice cubes! I am a cheap date! If I could ever get one!.....as long as you buy me a seafood platter--which would include a crab cake and a Lobster tail--of a decent size--and about a 1/2cup of drawn butter.....:O)

I know--I have NO couth!!!! That is WHY I buy my wine in those 5L. Boxes...."Franzia--White Grenache"--my favorite.

Gita

Gita, You are too funny. We'll have to find you a date!!

Gita, I typed in pumpkin boats into google. That is how I found the videos. Try typing in pumpkin toss and see what you get.

Doc, I don't have Ipods and very seldom use my tracfone, I think the cell phone is the destroyer of basic manners.
how many times have you been having a face to face conversation with someone and their cell phone goes off and you are left standing there like a complete idiot, and then the person turns away from you to carry on the rest of the conversation.
I guess, I'm your second to the motion.
All this technology is meant to be our slaves not the other way around.

Stepping off soap box now.