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Roger Marshall
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A giant pumpkin has set a new record for the state of Massachusetts at the NEGPGA weigh-in at the Topsfield Fair - winning for the first time in 23 years. Dave and Carol Stelts of Enon Valley set the record in Pennsylvania, but Steve Connolly of Sharon, MA, managed to grow the largest pumpkin in the history of the National Giant Pumpkin Grower's Association. The organization, which is under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service , grew the 20,90.5-pound pumpkin at an auction Saturday in Altoona.
Pumpkin farmers are closely following the giant's genetics and are actively working to grow larger pumpkins. Huge pumpkin growers are also trying to grow other giants, including the largest pumpkin in the US and the world and the largest pumpkin ever.
For example, participants choose the giant pumpkin, but the largest pumpkin has a family tree with seeds. Virtually every giant pumpkin is descended from a variety called Dill's Atlantic Giant, which is widely available from seed companies and sold at a typical seed price. Another competitive giant pumpkin is the Atlantic Giant variety, which is bred to size and is the largest pumpkin in the world.
Dill has been carefully cultivating the mammoth pumpkin variety for 30 years, which is rooted in the pumpkin species Cucurbita maxima. After taking samples of giant pumpkins and squashing normal-sized pumpkins to see how much weight they could hold, Hu came up with a theory about how giant pumpkins spread as they grow. When a pumpkin is the size of a basketball, it moves vertically to the ground. Once the pumpkin has established itself, a second pumpkin can be pulled from the vine, if it is about the size of basketball balls, until only one is left.
When the pumpkin is about a foot tall, pick it up and pull it away from the vine a little so that it can grow in the same direction it was growing in at the time of its growth. Ed advises that when planting pumpkins, make sure that the vines grow away from the pumpkin, when planting it, "all the vines grow away from it," he advises.
The vines must be lifted out of the ground during the growth of the pumpkin to prevent the small roots that naturally form on a pumpkin plant. When the pumpkins grow, the vines must rise freely from the ground into the air as they grow to prevent the smaller roots that naturally form on the pumpkin plants. The vines must free themselves from the ground and the sky when a pumpkin grows and prevent the smallest roots from forming on the pumpkin plant, "he advises.
Although some growers are trying to change this, most large giant pumpkins lack the true orange color of a standard pumpkin. Sunlight hardens the rind of the pumpkin and the stiff rind prevents it from becoming as large as possible. If you want to have a good chance of getting a blue ribbon, buy a pumpkin with red, orange or even black and white colour.
Since pumpkins require calcium and other micronutrients, there seems no doubt that growing a pumpkin on milk will definitely increase its size. After reading about feeding a giant pumpkin milk, I suppose it might be funny for a mean and inquisitive mind to grow its goliath with milk. I wondered if any local farmer would be willing to use giant pumpkin as pig feed.
Gienger, 40, has been growing pumpkins for more than two decades and recently perfected a hybridisation method - pollinating the Atlantic Giant seed into a massive pumpkin. He says they may not grow quite as big, but they will grow a giant pumpkin! After studying the pumpkin trunks, he asked the farmer who grew the giant pumpkin to donate them to him and he was willing to give him the parts of the pumpkin he wanted to preserve. Some of them were even willing to help him cut the pumpkin so that he did not have to do it himself.
To learn more about growing giant pumpkins and buying seeds, visit the Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers booth on Saturday, July 23, at the San Francisco Convention Center. Click here to download a free guide to growing a giant pumpkin, and don't forget to visit our seed inventory to find the special seeds to grow this large pumpkin.
Most care is included in our guide to growing a pumpkin, but we do not omit the most important considerations for the successful cultivation of a large pumpkin. The type of pumpkin you want to grow and your location are important, so we will list them all here. In winter, you should plant soil and cover it with compost or some kind of topcoat before growing your giant pumpkins. About five to seven weeks later, you should move the start into the garden and let it grow from the inside.