The Lord of the Gourd: A Q&A

Thank you for your overwhelming support for The Great Pumpkin. So many questions, so much sympathy re: my neglected status. I have been asked what our real garden is like and my answer? What garden? Jamie says the reason our garden did not flourish is due to a pesky vole.

I say the reason was the inordinate about of time spent on The Great Pumpkin.

Jamie could not keep up with all the great comments about his 755-pound beast so, for the first time ever, The Great Lord of the Gourds is making his first verbatim appearance on my blog. Join me in welcoming him as he answers some of your questions! (And please excuse the spacing issues on this post; evidently The Great Pumpkin even defies HTML regulations).

1) So did massive amount of Miracle Gro go into this bad boy or what's the secret?

This pumpkin was grown completely organic, including the small boy up the street that it ate three weeks ago. It was sad to see the boy go but the pumpkin put on 40 pounds that day. Many growers will use MiracleGro and the like to grow giant pumpkins but most of the heavy hitters go completely organic so they can build up the soil and plant on the same spot year after year.

2) What are your plans for The Great Pumpkin?

We are going to cut a hole into the top of it like a Kayak, put it in a lake and paddle around. It is plenty big and buoyant enough to use it as a boat for an adult. Editor's note: Dear Lord, please do not let The Great Pumpkin sink. I cannot bear to see a grown man cry.

3) How much pumpkin pie will that thing make? And pumpkin bread, cake.

Mmmmm. Love the pumpkin bread. Unfortunately, Dill’s Giant Atlantic variety pumpkins aren’t very good eating I’m told. Editor's note: thank heavens for this response. Gutting and cooking up that pumpkin would be akin to life as a hunter's wife.

4) Wow. I'm trying to imagine how much watering/care/etc. a giant pumpkin takes. And yard space!

This pumpkin plant was 30 feet wide by 30 feet long. The pumpkin didn’t fill the entire space but it did take a full 600 square feet of space. Once the plant was completely grown (about 1.5 months old) it was given about 2.5 inches of water per week. I usually tended to the plant about 30-60 minutes per day although Amber would tell you it was about
3-6 hours per day. Editor's note: And Amber would be correct.

5) When I picture this whole thing in my mind …I just have to laugh. The great pumpkin? The whole pumpkin hobby? The planning of vacations and weekends around what else? Pumpkins! Expound.

Some call it obsession, others passion. Let’s be honest however. How many of us have planned our day around a television show(s) or other fruitless endeavors. At least mine produced some fruit. Actually a whole lot of it! lol

6) I will have to consult with your husband next
year. LONG have I wanted to grow pumpkins, but all three times I've tried the vines have sort of melted. Overwatering? General gardening lameness?

Melted? Hmmmm. I would say go to Denver Pumpkins and read what I did. If you start from the very first post you can get a blow by blow of the entire pumpkin season. If that doesn ’t work I’d suggest selling your hoe and giving your shovel a rest. Editor's note: I've been called a lot of things but hoe is probably the most offensive.

7) I'm assuming conversation is going to turn to the new crop, it's not to early to start planning, is it? What are next year's plans?

Next years plans are for more pumpkins and a new patch. This year I grew at my parent’s house. That freaked them out the first half of the growing season so I am now going to be growing in the farmer’s field behind my house. Something about yelling at my mom for not throwing her body over the pumpkin plant, like a soldier throwing himself on a grenade, during the 2^nd hail storm of the season didn’t sit very well with her (I think my parents actually started enjoying it as the season went on however because it is really kind of fun watching the monster grow).

I have already had a soil test done on the field and have started to purchase the proper amendments to make sure the soil is to world class levels next spring. In the coming weeks I will be adding 5 yards of manure and many pounds of organic fertilizers and minerals to the soil. Next year I will have 3 plants (one for the kids) which will allow me to push the pumpkins a little harder in the hopes of getting to 1,000 pounds. Editor's note: Great. That means I have a one-week vacation before pumpkin season starts all over again.

8) This might be a stupid question, but when you cut open this giant pumpkin, are the seeds giant, or normal size seeds? Just curious. That's a great family photo! Jamie doesn't name the pumpkin does he?

Giant pumpkin seeds tend to be a little bigger than the regular pumpkin seeds. They usually have a harder shell too. This year’s pumpkin’s name is DillBoy. Howard Dill is the inventor of Dill’s Giant Atlantic pumpkin seeds that all of the top growers use for competition. He passed away in May due to cancer. The seed that I grew on actually came from Howard so I name the pumpkin DillBoy in honor of him. Editor's note: it is sentimental talk like this that makes me worried the man will indeed bury me inside of a pumpkin. Lord, please don't let me go
first.

9) My question for your interview with Linus (er, Jamie)...how lucky are you to have a wife who not only allows the growing of the Great Pumpkin...but also throws a party for said pumpkin?

I couldn ’t agree with you more. My good wife not only put up with the pumpkin growing, but early in the season surprised me for Father’s Day with a trip for the two of us toTopsfield, Salem and Boston so I could go to the granddaddy of big pumpkin weigh-offs in Topsfield, Massachusetts.

The pumpkin party was completely my idea however. She said more than once “Who is going to go to a pumpkin party? And what are people going to do at a pumpkin party?” My answer, “Stare at the pumpkin.” She just said “whatever” to my reply until it dawned on her that I had invited some of her friends to the party and they had actually accepted. Horror struck my Party Princess wife when she realized that I was serious!

In the end, when the party was all done and the 30-40 guests had all gone home with smiles on their faces that a giant pumpkin has a strange sort of power. We all grew up reading children’s books with abnormally sized objects (fruit, shoes, beanstalks, eggs, candy, vegetables). As a result we kind of think of the whole giant thing as kind of whimsical thing that is way outside of reality. When you see a giant pumpkin for the first time it so breaks the mold of our accepted reality that we have to stare at it in wonder. The typical question, “Is it real or is it fiberglass?” is understandable because the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. How could food be that big? It is like staring at a children’s story book come to life. But then you touch it and stare at it some more the whole thing slowly becomes wonderful because it is like a children’s story book come to life. What could be better than seven hundred pounds of wonderful food all in a single fruit!? Editor's note: sniff. No comment. Maybe I am a sentimental pumpkin-lovin' fool after all....