Pumpkin Weigh-off Video

The following is a little video from yesterday's giant pumpkin weigh-off in Denver Colorado.

A New Personal Best Pumpkin at 924.5 Pounds

Last night we cut the pumpkin from the vine and much to my surprise and relief the bottom of the pumpkin hadn't rotted out. This morning I hauled my pumpkin and the kids pumpkin to the weigh-off at Jared's Nursery. Hauling a giant pumpkin is a real hoot. People wave, honk their horns and take pictures the entire way to the weigh-off. 364 days a year you can get teased some for being a giant pumpkin grower. Let's face it, the cool crowd on South Beach don't spend a lot of time growing giant pumpkins. But on the 365th day Heidi Klum could be standing next to a nice, orange giant pumpkin and people might not even notice her.

Pumpkin weights this year were way down in Colorado because many growers lost pumpkins due to rot and splits this year but there was still a good number of pumpkins at the weigh-off. My children took first place with a 146.5 pound pumpkin in the children's division. They did a very good job of taking care of their pumpkin this year. Later my pumpkin was weighed and came in at 924.5 pounds. A new personal best! Not as big as I thought it would be this year (after the pumpkin split the pounds went from 20 down to about 7 per day) but it is still the biggest and best looking pumpkin I've ever grown (let Jerry Seinfeld know that giants don't have to be ugly). Overall my pumpkin would have been in 2nd place for weight and won the Howard Dill award for the prettiest pumpkin but it was disqualified because of the splits. It looks like my pumpkin may end up being the heaviest Colorado grown pumpkin this year (Joe Scherber lost his 1,475 pound pumpkin last week due to rot) that goes to the scale.

Top honors for the day went to Ron Hoffman of Wyoming with a nice 1,012 pound pumpkin. I was very happy for Ron. He is a great grower and deserves the win. A well deserved second prize went to Gary Grande who beat out his brother by nine pounds.

Got the seeds out of my pumpkin tonight. Not a ton of them because of some rot that had started inside but I was happy to see some at all. These seeds are now officially the 924.5 Johnson (1204 Scherber x 1810 Stevens).

Come to the Biggest Pumpkin Weigh-off in Colorado

The much anticipated 6th Annual Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers Pumpkin Weigh-off will be held on Saturday, September 24th. Last year, more than 3,000 people attended this event that featured 1,500+ pound pumpkins measuring more than 14 feet in circumference.

“We saw some amazing pumpkins last year and look to see some giants again this year.” said Gary 'The Wiz' Grande, President and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers (RMGVG). “It is always fun to see the children’s faces the first time they see the pumpkins. They are something straight out of a fairy tale and we might see a new state record this year." The current Colorado record was set by Barry Todd of Littleton last year at a whopping 1,308 pounds.

“The weigh-off is a celebration of our growers’ hard work and is a fun way to kick-off the fall season,” said Jamie Johnson, Vice President of the RMGVG who was featured on NBC’s The Marriage Ref this summer with his pumpkin. “It is a great event with food, straw mazes for the kids, music, face painting, haunted house, audience voting and of course, some really amazing giant pumpkins.”

The record for the world’s largest pumpkin was 460 pounds until 1981, when Howard Dill, a grower in Nova Scotia, came up with one that was close to 500 pounds. He patented the seed, and growers around the world jumped to buy Dill’s Atlantic Giant. As they crossed and re-crossed varieties, the pumpkins grew ever larger; by 1994, the symbol of Halloween had passed the 1,000-pound mark. The world record pumpkin was grown last year by Chris Stevens of Wisconsin and weighed an amazing 1,810 pounds.

The event will take place at Jared’s Nursery in Littleton, 10500 W. Bowles Avenue, starting at 10 a.m. with the junior division, followed by the giant pumpkins at 11 a.m. Admission is free to the public.

For more information about the RMGVG weigh-off or to get more information on how to grow giant pumpkins or vegetables post a comment below

To watch a short video of last year’s RMGVG pumpkin weigh-off event visit http://www.pumpkinlink.com/pumpkin-video.html

Monster Big Pumpkins

A great grower who I've been privileged to spend some time with talking pumpkins over a plate of buffalo wings is Ron Wallace. Super nice guy and former giant pumpkin world-record holder (1,502 pounds). I just found out that Ron had the big one get away from him. In the later part of August he had a pumpkin estimating at about 1,780 pounds go down on him because of a pin hole split after 4 inches of rain. It still had more than 40 days of growing left and based on his best estimates it would have ended up around 2,100 to 2,200 pounds! just amazing.

As for my little pumpkin, it is still growing as of the last measurement. Two weeks from today I plan on cutting it off from the vine. At this point the pumpkin still seems solid so I think there is a descent chance of it making it. Today I'll be giving the plant some seaweed and calcium.

Thanks To Joe

A big thanks to Joe Scherber who watched my plants for me while I was out of town for the last week. Even though I may do a dispute over pumpkins with my wife on national television from time to time, in reality family comes first. Just got back from a great trip to Canada to see my wife's family and then some camping in Waterton and some time in Glacier national park.

The pumpkins put on some nice weight while I was gone. Both pumpkins are more than a foot bigger in circumference than my pumpkins last year and both pumpkins last year were personal bests. No complaints where things are at right now.

The 868 had one concern this evening however. A tiny bit of sap was coming from the blossom end. It was a clear, gel like substance. In that area I wiped it down with a solution of 50% bleach and the put a little sulfur powder on it.

Gave both plants a touch of fish & seaweed along with some calcium.

Want to Grow a Giant Pumpkin? Get Giant Pumpkin Seeds from The Pumpkin Man!

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Got Seeds? And another First Place!

Congrats to Bode and Haddie on a great pumpkin season. Yesterday they got another first place finish with their pumpkin. An eating establishment in Aurora will be putting it on display this next week. I asked the kids if they wanted to sell it and told them it meant they wouldn't be able to carve it as a jack-o-lantern and my son replied, "I want toys." He is a chip off the old block.

Haddie and I got the seeds out of the pumpkin this evening. I really like this cross. Both pumpkins are a nice orange, with an almost ribless skin and the 208 Johnson was flawless inside. If you would like some of the 208 Johnson (1129 Orleck x 1161 Rodonis) and you will grow them next year please let me know and I will get you one.

Bitter / Sweet Part II

Another bitter sweet day at the weigh-off. Pumpkin #2 ended up a respectable 4th place, I got a personal best, but ended up going about 9% light on the scale again with a pumpkin that ended up weighing 868 pounds. Although it was a bit discouraging I think the seeds in this pumpkin are going to be good ones. The cross is 1161 Rodonis x 1544 Revier. I'm hoping that the 1544 Revier will add the heavy gene and a bit more growing punch to this cross which is the two things that the 1161 needed to improve. The root system and leaves on the 1161 were amazing so I look forward to seeing what this cross could bring next year.

Congrats to Pete Mohr in Longmont on a fantastic new state record of 1,306 pounds. Pete also grew an 1161 and had a great looking pumpkin from it.

Pumpkin Party and RMGVG Weigh-off

A big thanks to everyone that was at the Johnson Pumpkin Party on Friday. I think we probably had 100 people in attendence and for those who weren't able to make it this year we hope you can make it next year and see some even bigger pumpkins.

Saturday was a bitter/sweet day at the weigh-off. The weather was ideal and the attendence was great but the pumpkin didn't go as heavy as we anticipate. The 1236 Harp eneded up at 820 pounds, a peronal best, but 16% lighter than what the estimation charts said it should weigh (150lbs less). You can't be overly sad about growing your biggest pumpkin ever however.

If anyone would like some seeds please let me know. The cross for the now 820 Johnson is 1236 Harp x 1161 Rodonis.

My children were the big winners on the day. Their 1129 Orleck ended up at 208 pounds taking first place in the Juniors division and set a new Colorado state record for Juniors. Great job kids!

The winner at the weigh-off was a monster 1,532 pounder by Kevin Marsh of South Dakota. Congrats Kevin. It was a great looking, solid pumpkin.

This coming Saturday the 1161 Rodonis will be going to the scales and I anticipate that it should weigh more than the 1236 Harp did.

The 1236 Harp Pumpkin Seed

The picture to the right is the 1236 Harp. It has an interesting cross being 998 Pukos x 1385 Jutrus. The pollinator for this plant was the 1385 Jutrus that grew the world record 1,725 pound pumpkin. The pollinator for the 1385 Jutrus was the 998 Pukos that grew the 1,689 pound world record. The pollinator for the 998 Pukos was the 1446 Eaton that grew the 1,446 pound world record. Are you beginning to see a pattern? I'm just hoping for a nice, big giant. This plant so far has been completely resilient to sun, clouds, hot or cold. It almost always looks the same. It hasn't been a super fast grower but it hasn't been slow. Christy said that the first month her world record pumpkin grew it was a relatively slow grower. She hoped it would get to 1,100 pounds by the end of the season. Apparently it found another gear to get to 1,725 pounds. I'm hoping this plant carries those genes.

755 Johnson Pumpkin Seed. Big Orange Genetics!

The seed I grew my rookie season came from Howard Dill, the grower and former world record holder that developed the genetic lines that most growers grow today. The seed came from a non-descript "300-500 pound pumpkin" bin. My thinking at the time was that any pumpkin over the 141 pounder I had grown the year before would be better than seeds I could get locally and I wasn't sure how I would move a pumpkin over 500 pounds. Later I wished I had gone for a little "better" seed.

Today I found out the genetic background of the 755 Johnson seed. I met Danny Dill, Howard's son, when I was in Niagara and he told me he would be able to track down it's parentage. The pumpkin itself didn't have an offical weight so it is simply a 500+ Dill, but the cross in that seed was:

589 Dill '05 x 730 Dill '06

The 589 is 670 Daigle x 846 Calai

The 730 is 1016 Daletas x 810 Dill

Every grandparent in the 755 Johnson has the prettiest orange pumpkins that you could find. It is only missing the 500 Northrup and in my book it would have all of the best orange genetics available in Atlantic Giants. The 755 Johnson took second place for the Howard Dill Award in 2008.

Niagara Giant Pumpkin Seminar

This last weekend I went to the pumpkin seminar in Niagara. The three day event was a lot of fun and very informative. After arriving in Buffalo the Biz, Wiz and myself went to the Anchor bar with Schweigert to get some of their world famous wings. The Anchor bar is famous for being the inventor of buffalo wings. At the Anchor bar we met up with Ron Wallace, former world record holder and a really nice guy. I had many highlights on this trip but being able to sit down and ask Ron a whole list of questions was a real highlight and he was gracious enough to thoughtfully answer everything asked by everyone.

Off all of the seminars at the conference the most interesting for me was John Tabernas on soil. I've spoke with John last year after Thad Starr had hooked me up with him and it was a real pleasure. Talking with John about soils is like drinking from a fire hydrant. 70% of the time he is over my head, but what John has been doing this last year with his lab is soil and tissue sampling on Atlantic Giant pumpkins with top growers to determine what these pumpkins really need. Some of the things he said really turned the heads of a lot of heavy hitters. Like suggesting that we are over watering the pumpkins late in the season. I video taped this section of the conference and I'm going to need to watch it a lot of times before I can start to fully grasp the ramifications of his suggestions.

Another highlight from the trip is the little prank pulled on the Biz. Eddy and the Wiz had hatched a little plan over the last couple of months that I was a part of but didn't know all of the details until it had happened. Eddy was talking at the table and said he wanted Jim's 1019 Grande seed. Jim said he didn't bring any seeds so I pulled out of my pocket the 1019 that the Wiz had given me for the joke and I said, "Well I've got one for you Eddy." Eddy then handed me a 1385 Jutras that he had promised me but the exchange looked like a trade. Gary then said, "I've got a 1019 for you too" and handed Eddy the packet. Eddy then handed back a packet that I only got a glimpse of but it looked an awful lot like a 1068 Wallace packet. Once it was in the Wiz's hand I looked closer and it was a 1068 Wallace packet and the envelope was sealed. I'm not going to say what was inside that packet but there will be some good genetics in Colorado in 2010.

At the conference the top growers from last year were honored. Of that group I got some time with Don Young who grew two 1,600+ pound pumpkins this last year. He was a really great guy and more than willing to talk and share ideas. It was fun watching the segment of him on Conan Obrien this last fall with him.

Patch prep time is just around the corner now and the warm Denver, Colorado weather of the last few days is getting all the locals hungry to start planting. I started with some minor patch prep yesterday.

New World Record Pumpkin

It is official. A new world record pumpkin. Christy Harp of Ohio grew the heaviest pumpkin ever put to a scale. The pumpkin weighed an amazing 1,725 pounds. Congrats to Christy and Nick on such an amazing feet. The pumpkin was grown from a 1385 Jutras seed.

A New Personal Best Pumpkin for the Kids

My children set a new personal best at the Arvada Festival of Scarecrows yesterday with a pumpkin the weighed in at 85.5 pounds. That beat last years pumpkin by 1/2 pound. They got a nice 2nd place ribbon, award certificate and $30 gift card for their pumpkin. It was a really cold day but we had a good time.

Congrats to Jim "The Biz" Grande on a New Colorado State Record Pumpkin!

Jim Grande smashed the previous Colorado state record set by the Master Joe Scherber by nearly 150 pounds yesterday with a giant pumpkin weighing 1,283 pounds. The pumpkin was grown from his own 1019 Grande seed. The weigh-off at Jared's nursery yesterday was a great event. To see video highlights from the weigh-off go to www.pumpkinlink.com/rmgvg2009.html.

4th Annual RMGVG Pumpkin Weigh-off, Denver, Colorado

The Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers are pleased to present the 4th annual giant pumpkin weigh-off. The biggest weigh-off in Colorado. It is fun for kids of all ages:

Saturday, September 26th 11:00AM
Jared’s Nursery & Garden CenterLocation: Jared's Nursery and Garden Center 10500 W. Bowles Ave, Littleton, CO

10:00 Junior Division Weigh-Off.
11:00 AM Adult Division Weigh-Off

Galleria of Ghouls -- Free Large straw maze -- Free Straw obstacle course -- Free Music --
Pumpkin Pie Baking Contest -- Face-painting $3-$5 --
Junior Division Pumpkin Weigh Off

Food will be available from:
Magill's Ice Cream , Papa Johns, Tommy's Subs, Woody's Hot Dogs

Directions from C-470 and Bowles: Go east on Bowles to Oak St, go south to the 2nd entrance turn left into our bulk yard, there will be parking attendants. West on Bowles from Kipling: OR Go 1/2 mile west on Bowles to Oak street, go south on Oak to the 2nd entrance.
PLEASE DO NOT PARK AT THE CHURCH LOT

2008 Proven Pumpkin Seeds

After sorting through the weigh-off results this year I have come up with the following list of proven hot seeds. The criteria to make this list was that at least two pumpkins had to weigh over 1,000 pounds in 2008 to qualify. Many of the seeds on this list have been hot seeds for a while. Some are new. There are probably twice as many good seeds out there that are not on this list that will never see dirt. Pumpkin seed selection is all about mitigating risk. Growers only have so many spots to grow on so they have to make decisions each growing season. The seeds that get selected more often is a result of a popularity contest (growers with famous names tend to get grown more), marketing (seeds that get talked about tend to get grown more) and proven results. The following list just shows the seeds that tended to grow big pumpkins in 2008 based on weigh-off results:

275 Van Hook
904 Stelts
985 Werner
998.6 Pukos
1041 Mckie
1058.5 Timm
1066 Starr
1068 Wallace
1119 McMullen
1123 Gervais
1161 Rodonis
1178 Lovelace
1207 Young
1231 Pukos
1272 Hilstolsky
1350 Starr
1363 Werner
1370 Rose
1385 Jutrus
1408.5 Daletas
1446 Werner
1462 Gibson
1502 Wallace
1537 Stelts
1556 Rodonis
1631 McKie
1689 Jutras

Of these seeds the biggest newcomer standout for 2008, in my opinion, is the 1566 Rodonis. Almost every pumpkin grown on this seed hit over 1,000 pounds and it saw a lot of dirt. The other two seeds to watch are the 985 Werner and the 1566's little brother the 1161 Rodonis. The 1156 is the reverse cross of the 1566. This seed saw less dirt but did equally as well this year growing two pumpkins with an average weight of 1,365 pounds. Steve Connely's pumpkin grown on the 1566 hasn't hit the scales yet, but if it makes it this Saturday as a new world record the demand for these two seeds will rightfully go through the roof. I and Bill have an ongoing argument as to whether he knows how to pick genetics. He says it was just luck. I believe the 1566 and 1161 are going to be the next 1068 Wallace of pumpkin seeds. Time will tell. What other seeds do you think were the hot seeds of 2008?

Super Bowl of Pumpkin Contests

This weekend my wife and I went out to Topsfield, MA to attend one of the largest of the GPC pumpkin contests. The Topsfield Fair. Last year's world record 1,689 pound pumpkin grown by Joe Jutras (pictured left) was presented at the fair along with some other monsters. This year there were no new records (those will be presented in Rhode Island next week if they hold together) but there were still some massive pumpkins.

The growers in the greater Topsfield area are some of the best in the world. I also found them to be some of the nicest in the world. In the week before the event more than one grower offered travel tips while in Massachusetts and I met probably ten of the nicest guys and gals you could want to meet anywhere while at the fair.

I think a guy traveling out from Denver to Topsfield was a bit of a novelty. At least one reporter from Salem who interviewed me thought so. All I know is that I like big pumpkins and the 1,464 pound pumpkin grown by Wes Dwelly was quite a sight to behold. Makes the biggest ones in Denver look like child's play.

Bill Rodonis and his wife were at the event and it was great talking with them. Super nice guy. Bill grew a 1,566 pound pumpkin last year that was a world record holder for 20 minutes. Bill couldn't grow this year because of a knee problem, but you saw a sparkle in his eye every time a pumpkin went to the scale that was grown on his seed. You would of thought he grew it himself. Thanks Bill for taking the time to talk with me!

Steve Connley was at the event and I had a chance to be introduced to him. Steve has a pumpkin taping out at an estimated 1,900 pounds on the vine right now. If it can survive another 5 days it may be a new world record. Jutas says he has a 1,600 pound pumpkin on the vine that is still growing so it will be interesting to see who goes heavy and who goes light.

I also had a chance to get to know Hooker, Sperry, Ed, Craig, Duff, John and a bunch of other really nice guys from all over New England who share the same passions as I do. Thanks to all of you too!

In the end it was all about the pumpkins however. Lots and lots of them at a really well run event. At the very last it came down to these three big ones. I'm hoping for something like this next year in my patch. Send me some of those seeds guys!

755 Pound Pumpkin!

The pumpkin went heavy and we ended up with a 755 pound pumpkin. I was thrilled. I didn't expect it to go heavy and was slightly suprised with the outcome. I exceeded all my pre-season goals by hundreds of pounds and also won 2nd place for the prettiest pumpkin (the Howard Dill Award). The event was a lot of fun with great crowds and great weather. Haddie's pumpkin took 3rd in the Junior division so we are very proud of her too.  I'd like to thank everyone who helped me with growing this year and I'm looking forward to next year.

24 Hours in the Life of a Pumpkin: