Giant Prize Pumpkins

To top the best, you've got to be able to grow half-ton-plus pumpkins.

Moving competition-size pumpkins calls for a forklift.

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When it comes to garden giants, the pumpkin is the granddaddy of them all. "If you want to take one of these home, you'd better have a forklift," says master gardener Paul James. He's not exaggerating. While it's unusual to find a super-sized pumpkin that's perfectly round, it's not uncommon to find one that weighs more than a half-ton.

Geneva Emmons in her pumpkin patch.

Seattle gardeners Geneva Emmons and her husband Don have been growing giant pumpkins for a decade, and Geneva won a world record for a pumpkin that weighed 1,262 pounds. "That's about the size of three Sumo wrestlers--or maybe a longhorn steer," James observes.

Geneva files her pumpkin seeds before planting.

To wind up with such a mammoth pumpkin, she starts barters for the best seeds with fellow growers. Banking on a good lineage, she helps her seeds germinate by filing the hulls and agitating the seeds in a special solution. The plants start in gallon pots under grow lights, but within a week, the best vines head outdoors. Geneva fertilizes the soil, keeps her plants covered and watered and then hopes for the best.

Kathi Houghton of New Hampshire celebrates her husband's prize-winning pumpkin--1,338 pounds.

A truck and a makeshift 14-foot pumpkin crane help get the best candidates to the fair. Geneva attaches water-filled plastic bags to the vines so the pumpkins stay hydrated--and possibly gaining weight--then covers them with wet blankets. A disease in the pumpkin patch has taken her out of the running for another world record; her pumpkin weighs in at 1,038 pounds. Across the country, the winning pumpkin is 1,338 pounds.

Win, place or show, these massive pumpkins have an artistic future carved out for them after they've retired from competition. Giant pumpkins don't make good pies.

"Until 1996 no one had ever grown a pumpkin over 1,000 pounds," says James, "but with improved seed genetics, that’s routine for elite growers. So if you want to jump into the game and grow garden giants, don't be shy. Some folks have stellar results in their first year."

Just don't expect them to be pretty and round.