2011-06-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

The Pumpkin Patch

As back yard gardeners vie to produce the world’s heavyweight champion, Passions grow and grow.

THE WALLS of Don Black’s house in upstate New York are bare except for a few world champion pumpkin plaques. His laundry is heaped all over the floor because the slipper factory at 5:30 am., as well as two or three times a night, he trudges out to the pumpkin patch, checking for intruders woodchucks, deer and saboteurs. Along with bout 5000 other com.

Farmers start:-

growing giant pumpkins for fun,

Petitive growers, Black, 40, is trying to grow the four minute mile of pumpkin Dom: a 1000 -pounder.

In Canada, Herman Box of Brockville, Ontario, grew a 990 pounder in 1994, at the time the largest in history. He gives some credit to the septic bed over which he grew it. His friend, Barry Dejong, grew the second largest 9451/2 pounds. At the October I weigh off that year, they split $ 28,000 in prize money: not bad for two 32 years olds working in a soap factory.

It was Howard Dill, a Canadian dairy farmer in Nova Scotia who began growing pumpkins in the late 1950s, who created the new pumpkin variety Dill’s Atlantic Giant. Dill won four consecutive worked championships, and his seeds or their descendants have been responsible for virtually every world champion in the last 20 years.

BACK YARD GARDENERS WEIGHIN

Since 1954, The Guinness Book of world has been listing the heavyweight fruit and vegetable champions of the world. While none can beat the almighty pumpkin, here are some of the contenders:

Apple	I.47kg	3lb 4 oz	Hood Rivers. Oregon 1994
Beet	18.37 kg	40 lb 8oz	Newport, United Kingdom 1994
Broeeoli	15.87kg	35 lb	Palmer, Alaska 1993
Cabbage	56.24kg	124 lb	Llanharry Rhondda, Wales 1989
Cantaloupe	28.12 kg	62 lb	Rocky Mount, North Carolina1991
Celery	21.80 kg	48 lb loz	Newport, United Kingdom1996
Onion	5.55 kg	12 lb 4oz	Anstruther, Fife, Seotland 1994
Radish	17.2 kg	37 lb 15oz	Tanunda, South Australia 1992
Rutabaga	28.27 kg	62 lb 3oz	Stouffville, Ontario 1996
Squash	408.5 kg	900 lb 8 oz	Baltimore, Ontario 1994
Watermelon	118.84 kg	262 lb	Arrington, Tennessee 1990
Zueehini	29.25kg	64 lb 8oz	Llanharry, Rhondda, Wales 1990

Ciliberto is devastated:- Like a seductress, this day in October, growers bring their giant pumpkins to the sites. In 1993 Don Black grew an 884 pounder. He had promised himself that if he ever grew a world champion contender, He loaded the pumpkin into his pickup and drove 22 hours straight to Nova Scotia to be with Dill for the weigh off.

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