Category Archives: GIANT PUMPKINS

Growing giant pumpkins again this year!

Closeup of giant pumpkin-Isn’t she beautiful?!

This year I’m going to attempt growing giant pumpkins again. Back in 2011 I grew a New Mexico state record of 448 lb pumpkin. That’s not big as far as giant pumpkins goes but it was big enough back then to set a New Mexico state record. Since then the record has been shattered with a pumpkin grown in Albuquerque over 900 lbs.

My best giant pumpkin for 2012-‘ORANGE CRUSH’-385 lbs

I don’t think I can grow a bigger pumpkin than that one up here in Santa Fe at 7000 feet high with such a short season, but I’m going to go for a personal best. I have tried since 2011 to grow these behemoths again but to no success.

This was back in 2008-my first year of growing giant pumpkins

I once asked a giant pumpkin grower friend of mine from Colorado how he got 2 Colorado giant pumpkin state records and he said it took him 20 years to get it twice. If it was easy he said, you could get it every time but it is not easy to grow giant pumpkins.

My best pumpkin for 2011-set a NM State Record at 448 lbs

They require a lot of time, work and water to get them big. You must baby them. You must coddle them. I think this will be a good year to try giant pumpkins again as I’m spending more time at home.

Here are the pumpkin plants I just germinated for 2020. The seeds came from a 2009 lb pumpkin! Let’s see what happens this year! I hope this year will produce a big beautiful pumpkin!

Giant pumpkins in 2016?

giant pumpkin

One of my giant pumpkins in 2011. Wasn’t she beautiful?

I am trying to grow giant pumpkins again this year and haven’t talked much about them as I have not had good luck growing them the last 3 years. I broke the NM State Record for giant pumpkin in 2010 and broke my record in 2011 and then my record was broken in 2012 by someone else. Since then, nobody has set any records here for New Mexico as far as I know. It is not as easy as I first thought. I must have had beginner’s luck.

This was back in 2008-my first year of growing giant pumpkins

If you can get one to take and keep growing, nothing is more beautiful in the garden than seeing these huge orange globes in a sea of green leaves!

This year, I bought some seeds from the world record holder 0ver 2300 lb and both of them never germinated. Arrgh! So now I’m down to 2 pumpkin plants that came from a 2009 lb pumpkin and 1 pumpkin plant from an 1879 lb pumpkin and 1 pumpkin plant from an 1135 lb pumpkin. The 1135 pumpkin plant had some animal dig by it and it got buried for a while but might come back. Actually doesn’t look too bad but should be growing a little faster-it might have been set back from the incident. That’s why I grow more than one-sh*t happens. And the last 3 years, it’s happened a lot regarding giant pumpkins.

giant pumpkin plant from 2009lb pumpkin

giant pumpkin plant from 2009lb pumpkin

So far, one of the 2009 (grower-Langevin) pumpkin plants looks very good, growing nicely, the other one is a little slower but still good and the 1873 (grower-Steil) plant is looking pretty good too. A glimmer of hope! I fertilized all of them on Monday with a cocktail that had fish fertilizer, mycorrhizal, Azos, kelp emulsion and 2 fungicides-Rootshield Plus and Companion.  I give them some fungicides because I’ve had some die from some fungal wilt before so I’m trying to be preventative. I always say I’m giving them some juice which really is a cocktail of a mix of things all at once and all must be compatible. All giant pumpkins are BIG EATERS so fertilize them 1x a week with at the least fish/seaweed fertilizer. My first year I only did that and got some 200-300 lbers. This is not like the ‘Biggest Losers’ show where you starve the pumpkins in our lousy soil but more like the ‘Biggest Winners’ by feeding them a lot and giving them a lot of water too. You don’t get to be 500-1000 lb+ in 4 months without feeding them every week.

Except for the 1138 pumpkin plant, all giant pumpkin plants are in section 3 of my main garden. I have a mantra I say every time I look at them, “Grow nangua, grow!” It means pumpkin in Chinese. I guess I hope it brings me good luck this year! Time will tell…

What’s up in the garden!

I’ve been busy in the garden. Which is why I haven’t written lately. Hard to write when so many things need to get done. Here’s the latest update.

WEATHER: How about this crazy weather? Hot, cold, hot. Go figure! That’s how it is this time of year. It actually hailed 6 inches last Saturday between Harry’s Roadhouse restaurant and Seton Village Drive on Old Las Vegas Highway-a very small section of land. Drove through it right after it happened-would not have want to been in that one. Luckily we didn’t get much hail at the farm-thank you universe! Just missed us. One friend of mine was not so lucky and all her veggies got wiped out. Now it is getting warm again.

HARVESTING: Still harvesting lettuces and spinach. In fact I picked almost all the spinach as it will bolt soon with the warmer weather and the lettuce will also bolt soon, so much of that is picked too. The old kale is done now. The new kale ready to go in. The rhubarb is fantastic with many stalks ready to pick. I feel a strawberry-rhubarb gallette coming soon!

PLANTING: The main garden is about half weeded-Ugh! But the beds are all cleaned up and ready for all the tomatoes that will be planted next Wednesday. Now I just have to finish weeding the pathways.

DRIP SYSTEMS: The drip systems are now up and running. I hate it when they act up. Sometimes it takes 2-3 days to get everything going and not leaking. Feels great when it’s done. I can’t believe it went as smoothly as it did this year.

GIANT PUMPKINS: My first giant pumpkin was planted today at my friend, Deborah’s house. Hope it does well out there! Still have 3 more to plant next week here in my garden plus I have some giant long gourds and 2 giant zucchini (marrows) to put in. I’ve had trouble the last 3 years with getting any of my giant pumpkins successfully grown. Hopefully one of the pumpkins will do well this year. I have a plan!

DEER!: We had some deer come and eat all the Orach (which is ok) and half of one of my grape plants (which is NOT ok). Ate the leaves and the flowers of what woulda been future grapes. I covered the rest up with row cover. Hopefully they will not explore and find the plants. There is not much in the main garden to eat so hopefully they will move on. Luckily they did not eat the garlic plants!

MORE PLANTING: The peppers and eggplants starts will be planted the first week of June and the seeds of other warm season crops will go in next week too.

Busy time of year! Phew!

 

No Giant Pumpkin This Year :(

Courtesy of pumpkin pic_history.org

Pumpkin picture courtesy of http://www.history.org

So disappointing. No giant pumpkin this year-not even a little one. I started with 3 plants. Two died of a wilt. I checked to make sure they didn’t have a squash vine borer in them-which they didn’t. I pulled both by the end of July. I just pulled my third and last giant pumpkin plant and sent it to the State Lab last week to see if they could diagnosis what disease it had. The leaves were weird – they were stiff and broke easily, the stems were weird with galls and the blossoms wouldn’t open or stayed small and dropped off—all of them. I didn’t even have one to pollinate. This is the first time since I started growing giant pumpkins that I’ve had this kind of trouble. Some years I’ve grown great pumpkins, some years not so great but I’ve always had at least one giant pumpkin. Not this year – nada and no annual pumpkin bash! What a bummer.

The results just came in from the State Lab. They had to send  it to an independent lab to confirm their diagnosis. They both came to the same conclusion-CURLY TOP VIRUS!! No. no. I know Curly Top Virus is transmitted to tomato plants via the beet leafhopper but didn’t know it could transmit this virus to giant pumpkin plants as well. And I even had it covered with row cover until July but I guess that wasn’t long enough as it only takes one leafhopper to infect plants. 😦

One last pumpkin goes in

giant pumpkins_050514

Barry Todd’s pumpkin, 556 Todd second from left. Photo taken May 6.

barrytoddToday I planted the 3rd and final giant pumpkin plant that has been growing steadily in the greenhouse. A pumpkin friend, Barry Todd, from Colorado gave me some pumpkin seeds a few years ago and I planted one of his last year and it was doing great when a rabbit or squirrel ate it down to the ground. So this year I wanted to plant another one of his seeds especially when I heard he was ill. He has been battling leukemia and is pretty sick but fighting on. This seed I planted is a cross between Cristy Harps’ 1725 giant pumpkin that broke the World Record in 2009 and another pumpkin Barry grew out a few years back that he is quite fond of-the Todd 50.  It is the 556 Todd. I was going to grow a giant bushel gourd where the pumpkin will go but I bumped the gourd to squeeze in Barry’s plant. I’m not sure if Barry is planting any pumpkins this year.

I met Barry a few years ago at the Old Colorado City Giant Pumpkin weigh-off and he was so nice to me and offered some pumpkin seeds for the following year. He was the Colorado State Champion for giant pumpkins with a 1308 lb pumpkin in 2010.We have been in touch since then regarding pumpkin growing and he has given me some great tips on how he grows em. I consider him one of my pumpkin mentors. I don’t know much about Barry except he is passionate about his pumpkin growing and his religion and I think it’s his faith that keeps him going. I wish you a full recovery Barry and hope this little plant breaks the NM state record. No matter what it does, I’m growing it in honor of you.

I still have one more plant in case one of the others get eaten or dies.

Giant Pumpkins are in!

pumpkin hotels

My giant pumpkins are in! Last week I managed to get them in the ground. They are being shaded from our intense heat and wind right now in these new low tunnels or ‘giant pumpkin hotels’ as I prefer to call them. This is the newest rendition of the low tunnels for them and I’ve had many designs. All I did is take one of my tomato cages which is made of concrete reinforcement wire and opened it up and put shade cloth over it (while they acclimate). I attached the shade cloth with clothes line pins and held the ends down with rocks. They are staked in the ground so the wind does not pull them up and inside each one is a pumpkin that is also covered with light weight row cover in case a squirrel comes in. As soon as they outgrow the ‘hotel’, I will take them off. They are about 5′ wide by 6′ long and if needed I can put row cover over the cage replacing the shade cloth for more light.

In the background is a strawberry patch I’m revamping but decided to wait before transplanting the ones growing out of their raised bed because they are June bearing strawberries so I want to harvest first. Then afterwards I will complete the move. Also shown are some of my tomatoes in their wall of waters. Some of them are now outgrowing the wall of waters so I am starting to take those off.

It is always amazing to me how desolate the garden looks when I first plant and how lush it will be later.  Nature’s miracle…oh ya and a LOT of HARD WORK!

Giant Pumpkins are UP!

giant pumpkins_050514Here is my final lineup for my giant pumpkins for 2014

HOW TO READ THE LINEUP BELOW:
The first number is how many lbs the pumpkin parent was, the next is the name of the grower, then the date it was grown, after that is it’s genealogy below it (it’s grandparents). It’s important to see who they were because they could have been bigger than the plant the seed came from. The genealogy can go back several generations further.

556 TODD 2011
-comes from: male: 1725 Harp 10/female: 50 Todd

856 Hoffman 2010
-comes from: male: 1544 Revier 09/ female: 1180 Pukos 09

1104 Wallace 2012
-comes from male: 1409.5 Miller/female: 1789 Wallace

1579 Wallace 2012
-comes from: male: 1381/female: 1789 Wallace

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Here is the germination pics. They were planted on April 14th.

Here is my germination process: You need to start them inside the house where it is WARM. An unheated greenhouse or hoophouse will not work very well.

1. I first filed the edges lightly avoiding the tip until I see a little color change on the edge. Do not file too much.

2. I then soaked them for 12 hours in warm water with a few drops of seaweed emulsion.

3. I take a 4 or 5 inch peat pot and cut it in half on the sides only (not the bottom of it) and re-tape it so I can remove the plant more easily later if I need to plant up or if I can plant outside.

4. I planted them into 5 inch peat pots this year (I got the 5 inchers from Lowes here in town) with a good seed starting mix. (Some people put them on damp paper towels in plastic bags on heat mats until the root germinates but I prefer to direct seed them in the pots.

4. I then put them on a seed heating mat and cranked up the heat to 90-95°F. This is important as giant pumpkin seeds germinate faster when the heat is this high. So move other plants off this mat if they can’t handle the heat. If you don’t have a thermostat on your heating mat, you will need one to control the temperature.

5. Check them twice a day and keep moist until they germinate. Sometimes one of the first leaves that germinate (called cotyledon leaves) will push up with the seed shell still attached as in the picture above. I waited a day and gently pulled it off without damaging the leaf.

6. Once they germinate,  you can turn down the heat to about 80° F. They like heat-no they love heat.

7 . I water with a weak solution of seaweed, fish emulsion and microbe brew from Fox Farms (it has mycorrhizal in it to help produce more roots) every week in between their normal watering.

FOR MORE INFO ON HOW TO GROW GIANT PUMPKINS GO GROWING GIANT PUMPKINS

 

Fresh Pumpkin Recipes

pumpkin interior

Now that the 5th Annual Pumpkin Bash is over, what can we do with our fresh pumpkin pieces? Here are some ideas.

pumpkin steak cooked

One recipe I love is ‘Pumpkin Steaks’. You can find the recipe here: https://giantveggiegardener.com/2012/11/05/pumpkin-steaks/

pumpkin soup2

Here are 3 great pumpkin soup recipes you can find here: https://giantveggiegardener.com/2010/11/21/3-great-pumpkin-soup-recipes/

512px-Pumpkin_Pie_from_a_*real*_pumpkin,_November_2007

Of course no pumpkin recipes would be complete without a pumpkin pie recipe but this one is for FRESH pumpkin:

FRESH PUMPKIN PIE

1 unbaked pie shell
2 c. freshly prepared pumpkin
1  can evaporated milk
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg or allspice
1/8 tsp. cloves
2 eggs, beaten slightly

To prepare fresh pumpkins:
Use small to medium size pumpkins OR really giant ones like I do! Cut pumpkin into quarters or big pieces. Whatever will fit on a cookie sheet. Leave rind on. Put a little oil on cut edges to keep from drying out. Place cut edge down on foiled lined cookie sheet. I put foil loosely on top to keep edges from burning.  Bake at 350° for about 30 min-to over an hour depending on thickness. Pierce frequently with fork to check for tenderness after at least 30 minutes. When fork pierces meat easily, remove from oven. Cool first and then scoop out meat and drain in colander for about 30 minutes to release extra liquid. Then use wand, blender or food processor to puree. Use fresh or freeze in Ziploc freezer bags for later use. I like to freeze in 2 cup increments which is exactly what the recipe calls for!

To prepare fresh frozen pumpkin meat:
By now, if you are like me, you have some pumpkin you prepared as above and froze it. All I do is defrost it and if still a little watery, let it drain a few minutes then follow directions below.

Pumpkin Pie Filling: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix the 2 cups of fresh pumpkin with rest of the ingredients. Pour into pie shell. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake another 45 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. If edges of crust start to turn too brown or burn, make a ring out of foil and put on edges of the pie crust.

2013 Pumpkin Bash Pics

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Here are some of the pics from this year’s Pumpkin Bash. Everyone enjoyed the camaraderie, sipping apple cider and bashing the pumpkin ‘Honey Boo Booo’—named because it was so small-only 176 lbs (which is teeny for a giant pumpkin). Who needs therapy when you can do this?!

5th ANNUAL PUMPKIN BASH!! This Saturday Nov. 2, 2013

honey boo booo

Hey friends – I do have a giant pumpkin just waiting to get bashed by you! Now keep in mind it’s not a ‘giant’ giant pumpkin but rather a smaller giant that weighed in at 176 lbs. Still that’s more than most people weigh. Since it is small, I’ve named it Honey Boo Boooo because of its pint size. So come and have some fun-watch it get axed or take part in the axing and sip some hot apple cider. Don’t be late as it won’t take long to bash it. Afterwards, take some of the organic pumpkin home to make your favorite pumpkin dish. The rest of the pumpkin will go to Kitchen Angels to feed the hungry. Be there or be square!

Event: 5th Annual Pumpkin Bash

When: This Saturday, November 2 at 9 am

Where: Liquid Light Glass, 926 Baca Street, Santa Fe, NM

Pumpkin disaster

pumpkin plant eaten

Well I started about 5 giant pumpkin plants this spring and am now down to one. Last night a squirrel (or rabbit) did my biggest plant in by chewing through the stem and killed it. Finito. Done. No hope for that one. And it was amazing because it had 2 layers of row cover on it and some shade cloth over the row cover but something must have gotten underneath all that. This is too bad as I started it in mid April in the house and felt it had the greatest possibility to produce a GIANT giant pumpkin. Now I’m down to only one plant (the back up) which is actually the seed from my 2010 NM State Record but it was started a little later as 3 other of my seeds didn’t germinate at all. I’m actually going to plant 2 more seeds directly in the ground now to see if I can get a backup to my back up. The soil is certainly warm enough but I’m not sure I will have enough time now to grow a really big one unless it is some super seed that takes off!

How to Grow a Giant Pumpkin

Ron Wallace set a new 2013 Giant Pumpkin World Record with this 2009 lb pumpkin!

Ron Wallace set a new 2013 Giant Pumpkin World Record with this 2009 lb pumpkin!

Yesterday I taught a class on How to Grow a Giant Pumpkin and told them I would put the full color version in a pdf format on-line for them to use. I discussed all the basic information on growing a giant pumpkin from picking a seed to hand pollination to determining the direction the vine will grow to positioning the baby pumpkin as it grows to harvesting it and much more. Here is the handout for those interested:  GROWING GIANT PUMPKINS with PICS

Here is a photo showing how to determine what direction the pumpkin plant will grow so you can be sure it grows in the direction you want (like not into a fence or wall)!

pumpkin vine direction

Below is a drawing showing how a giant pumpkin vine will naturally grow into a ‘Christmas Tree’ pattern with the longest secondary vines closest to the beginning of where the plant comes out of the ground (called the stump) and how they grow shorter and shorter as they grow towards the end of the main vine.

Pumpkin Christmas tree pattern

 

Pictures from the Santa Fe 4th Annual Pumpkin Bash

Santa Fe 4th Annual Pumpkin Bash!!

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Yesterday I held the 4th Annual Pumpkin Bash here in Santa Fe and about 35 people came! IT was COLD but not as cold as later on during the day and people warmed up swinging an axe! My friend Jill Foster called them ‘the choppers’! I also supplied my pumpkin soup (the recipe is in the previous post) to warm the bones. This was the biggest turnout to date. All my friends, Master gardener friends and Homegrown friends came out for the big event. Everyone had fun and afterwards took some pumpkin home.  Must have given away over 300 lbs to friends and the other 85 lbs is going to Kitchen Angels! Let’s figure out how many pies it would make- Take 385 lbs x 16 oz (16 oz in a lb) = 6160 oz. Divide that by 12 oz (1.5 cups is the standard amount of pumpkin used in pies) and we get  513 pies!!  Even if we subtract some out for that stringy stuff and seeds we still get around 500 pies!

4th ANNUAL GIANT PUMPKIN BASH!!

Wanted to invite you to my 4th Annual Pumpkin Bash where people take axes or mawls and try to split my biggest pumpkin in half (this year 385 lbs). Come take a whack! Then we cut it up and give it away to anyone who might want a piece of fresh organic pumpkin. The rest we haul away to Food Depot/Kitchen Angels. It’s quite the happening.  Hope you can make it!

4th ANNUAL PUMPKIN BASH!!
THIS SATURDAY, NOV 10 AT 9 AM SHARP
LIQUID LIGHT GLASS
926 BACA STREET #3
SANTA FE, NM
(Bring an ax or mawl if you’d like!)

Giant Pumpkin Patch wrap up

‘Orange Crush’

Let’s catch up with the GIANT PUMPKIN patch!

My giant pumpkin patch produced 1298 pounds of pumpkins this year but there were no recordbreakers for 2012. My biggest ‘Orange Crush’, weighed in at 385 lbs (which is on display at our glass studio-Liquid Light Glass at 926 Baca Street in Santa Fe) was picked up and transported by my 8 strong buds which I affectionately call my ‘pumpkin crew’. Not as big as my 2012 NM State Record of 448 lbs. ‘Orange Crush’ will be the star of this year’s ‘4th Annual Pumpkin Bash’ on Nov 10th.

pumpkin crew 2012

pumpkin patch with ‘Hugo’ in foreground

‘Hugo’ came in at 262 lbs (already went to The Food Depot to feed people).

‘Casper’, 208 lbs-carved by Erika Wanemacher

‘Casper’ came in at 208 ( carved into the biggest jack o’ lantern in Santa Fe by Erika Wanenmacher), ‘Beautiful Baby’ came in at 190 lbs (on display at Prairie Dog Glass), two smaller ones for the State fair came in at 100 and 153 lbs.

And this year a young man from Albuquerque named Olin, broke my NM State Record, growing a pumpkin (named Shelia) that weighed 530 lbs! He started the seed on St. Patrick’s Day and had it in the ground on April 1! WOW! Putting them in the ground in April would be impossible up here at 7000 ft high with our short growing season. Great to have some competition in this state. Congrats Olin but look out next year!