Enough Pumpkin for 1000 pies

Growers from coast to coast are spending every gardening minute tending their crops of ‘Cucurbita maxima’ in an effort to grow a pumpkin that weighs over 1700 pounds.

Magic Pumpkin Seeds

When I launch the gasbag that arrived last calendar week , I feel a little like a quality in the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy taradiddle . The small packet contain two big seeds with the potential difference to overwhelm my garden .

But instead of bean to raise a jumbo beanstalk , the envelope contain seeds to grow elephantine pumpkins . Each of these seeds is nearly as big as a quarter and they ’re mean to grow pumpkins that will tumble the scale at more than 1000 pounds .

In Zone 5 where I go , seeds with the genetic know - how for growing pumpkins the sizing of a mini barrel maker , require 130 days to produce . So they have to be begin in January , then fondly run in hoop house through the bounce , protect from hail during the summer and then transported in pickup arm trucks to the prescribed weigh - off in tumble .

While it ’s too late for me to originate giant vines with mammoth fruit this year , C of other growers across the body politic are spend every gardening moment trying to mature a pumpkin of epic proportions .

The success bring World Record bragging right and a modest hard cash prize . Christy Harp , a high school math teacher from Jackson Township , Ohio , grew last year ’s record setter . Her pumpkin vine weighed 1,725 pounds .

Now that ’s a Great Pumpkin !

All these pumpkin growers owe a boastful thanks to Howard Dill , an inexpert germ stock breeder from Windsor , Nova Scotia . He ’s the one who developed the ‘ Atlantic Giant ’ seed and help move the sport forward by giant leaps and bounds .

Every agriculturalist guide a dissimilar approach to growing the giants . Some remove the seed pelage before germinating and others employ special grease . Seeds are often started in greenhouses with special misting systems and heating coils .

New scientific advances almost guarantee even bigger Cucurbita pepo in the next few long time . Growers are experimenting with inoculating soil with beneficial mycorrhizal fungi , using N - fixing bacterium additives , trying in high spirits - yield natural foliar nutrient and applying other uttermost agriculture proficiency .

If giant pumpkins are n’t your affair , there ’s still pot of time to tap into your free-enterprise gardening spirit and stress to grow a 1,200 Lebanese pound squash or mayhap a 7 - pound Lycopersicon esculentum .

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