How do people grow giant (>2000lbs) pumpkins?
In: 115
Holy shit, something I’m weirdly a bit knowledgeable about.
Background:
My childhood neighbor both competed in, won, and then ran one of the countries (United States) better known giant pumpkin contests (Topsfield Fair). I live in the NorthEast in case you are curious.
ELI5 Version:
Selective breeding using the seeds of previous giant pumpkins, then careful selection and some extreme TLC for those few remaining pumpkins.
Longer version:
I think one of the other top comments makes a good point that these varieties (like Atlantic Giant) won’t just produce a 2000 pound pumpkin, they generally produce something closer to 200 – 400 pounds. To get the absolutely monstrous ones requires a lot of careful tending and selection.
Most of us, if we wanted to grow a big pumpkin, would buy one of these varieties, then in spring (late April/early May for me) would germinate the seeds inside and a couple weeks later move them outside to a vegetable garden with some good space (30×30′ or more – pumpkin vines get big). Most pumpkins (and squash in general) produce dozens of flowers and fruit over the course of a season. We would probably just let them grow and assuming good weather, no animals, and nothing kills the vine, we might get 3 or 4 good sized pumpkins probably in the range of 80 to 250 pounds plus a few other smaller ones. Pumpkins of these varieties often have problems like fungus, pests, rot, or splitting open, so expect to lose some.
The people who grow the 2000 pounders approach this much more extremely. This is fairly anecdotal, but my neighbor used to germinate his seeds in early March, and he usually grew a couple of different varieties. The seeds he used often came from the previous winners of various giant pumpkin contests, so selectively bred from previous 2000 pounders (which may have started as something like Atlantic Giant). He grew them inside until maybe the second week of April and then moved them outside to his garden where he constructed a heated tent to keep them growing. This gave him almost a months jump on the normal growing season. At this point I should also mention he turned his whole yard into a pumpkin patch.
Once the vines started producing flowers he hand pollinated and often cross pollinated the different giant pumpkin species. When the fruit appeared he picked the few strongest and cut all other fruit off. This means these giant vines were just feeding a few select fruit. Then it was pretty much fertilize, water, and carefully care for those few pumpkins until October. Usually one grows fastest and becomes the key pumpkin, but at the height of growing they are literally gaining dozens of pounds a day in weight and sometimes will split open or collapse in on themselves, so you need a backup if the first one fails for whatever reason.
There’s a lot more to it than just this, like shading them, dealing with fungus, keeping them dry, making sure they turn the right color; but this is gist of how they get them so big.
Latest Answers