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Kentucky - USA

Hey guys.. I'm back and getting geared up to grow some big one's this year. I was just wondering how some of you guys ever got interested in growing giant pumpkins?

I got hooked a few years ago when I decided to treat a bigmax pumpkin plants with lots of tlc. Around the mid season I found this great website and started learning about the ags. I have been hooked ever since.


Tim

3/6/2003 8:43:00 PM

Amherst, WI

What got me hooked was going to the '01 Pumpkin Fest in Nekoosa, Wi. As I looked at all the pumpkins there, I knew that I wanted to learn how to grow them and enter one in the contest the next year. Now, I am hooked... big time. I've been tuning into BP.Com for a little over a year now, and I think I'm hooked on that too.

3/6/2003 9:35:40 PM

Montoursville, PA

I was having a problem and found this site, found a heavy hitter living close by, saw a 1000+ X 3 in his back yard and was given a seed that night. That did it!

3/6/2003 9:45:33 PM

Puyallup, WA

The PNWGPG had a booth at the local fair in 1999. Mari Lou Holland showed me pictures of these huge pumpkins and then showed me those BIG seeds! I bought some right then and there. After "falling on my face", I got mad and vowed "I can do this!"

3/6/2003 10:26:43 PM

[email protected]

The Durham, CT fair where I never had the luck to meet folks like Alan Reynolds or Bart Toftness who frequent that weigh-in. And an agriculture magazine article about Howard Dill back in '94. But it took 8 years to find seeds (I wasn't looking very hard I guess) through this awesome website.
Burpee Prizewinners, Red Max, CT Field, Howden, & the like for many years prior.

3/7/2003 5:42:54 AM

Webster, NY

I tried to grow pumpkins for halloween and failed. I found pumpkinnook.com and got advice and seeds. After that I was hooked. Then I found bigpumpkins.com and was really hooked.

3/7/2003 7:01:11 AM

Rm, Tn

I started to avoid a family fued! My Daddy, who's 72, would sneak around and plant pumpkins seeds in our potato patch, in with our beans and even in my flower gardens. Last year rather than get mad at him again, I challenged him to a pumpkin race. We both grew one around 50lbs. Now we're both hooked and ready to try again.

3/7/2003 9:25:38 AM

South Western Pa

As a kid ( 30 years ago ) I grew a Big Max and won a clock radio at an Agway contest, it only weighed about 60 lbs, but as a 10 year old kid from a poor family it was a big deal. In more recent years going to the Canfield, Ohio Fair over the years and seeing the pumpkin display reignited my interest. Then having access to the internet and finding this great site. And finally I joined a group, the Ohio Valley Giant Pumpkin Growers Association last fall. I went to the new growers seminar two weeks ago and learned a whole lot, thanks Tim Parks it was a great presentation.

3/7/2003 10:38:50 AM

Massillon, Ohio

well i didnt win a clock radio, but back in middle school i aquired some 'unknown' origin seeds that they were giving away at a local feed mill. they were just marked 'big pumpkin' seeds and the mill was holding a contest for the biggest pumpkin grown from those seeds. mine ended up around 110 and i got 4th place. now in college, someone told me about this site, so i got seeds and had a great time growing last year (even though that someone beat me in the informal contest we were having ...grrrr). CANT WAIT TILL THIS MAY!!

3/7/2003 11:24:01 AM

Garden State Pumpkins

Who's hooked.....I'm not hooked..All those trees were just blocking my view to the neighbors house they had to go! Hmmm and I always went to town circus hoping to score a big bag of elephant dung....yeah and I needed that 30 foot high pile of leaves so I could see the smoke coming out of my neighbors chimney!...and besides that I always wanted an 88 pickup truck with rotted sides in my driveway and the neighbors shaking they're heads pointing...hooked no way...and don't believe a word that cloud or jeff say anyway! G's not always forthcoming either....nah I'm not hooked just that my computer always opens this site by itself...I can stop any time I want...

3/7/2003 11:49:23 AM

Garden State Pumpkins

how did get here!

3/7/2003 11:49:50 AM

Pulaski Tn [email protected]

i HATE TO BE TRUTHFUL AND TELL HOW I GOT STARTED CAUSE EVERYONE ONE HERE WILL HATE MY GUTS FOR EVER.. I PROBABLY DID THE MOST UNSPEAKABLE, LOW DOWN DIRTY, GOD FORBIDDEN ACT THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF GROWING A.G'S..,I WAS LOOKING FOR SOME LUMINA SEEDS ON EBAY AND STUMBLED ACROSS A PICTURE OF A LITTLE KID SITTING INSIDE OF A GIANT PUMPKIN SO I...I..I..."bought"..(SIGH) MY FIRST SEEDS FROM EBAY...PLEASE FORGIVE..I WONT DO IT AGAIN...I PROMISE.. YOU BELEIVE ME DONT YA CHUCK??? I MEAN IT!! NEVER AGAIN WILL I PAY FOR A SEED!!!! I'LL QUIT GROWING PUMPKINS BEFORE I PAY FOR ANOTHER SEED!! THANKS ALL YOU GUYS TO WAKING ME UP TO EXPECT FREE SEEDS!! I'M NOW WANTING MORE FREE STUFF.. THE VERY IDEA OF WORKING ALL DAY THEN ACTUALLY PAYING FOR SOMETHING!!! HA!!

3/7/2003 12:09:04 PM

Ontario

when i attended the local fair for alot of years when i was growing up. I feiwed the big pumpkins at the fair every year. I tried to grow one in my dads garden but didnt know you had to have special seeds. this was roughly around 1977. it didnt grow very big at all. I started growing jackolantern pumpkins to sell each year for spending money
.
I quit selling pumpkins around 1992.
in 1997 I saw a flyer in a store window stating that if you ever wanted to grow a giant pumpkin to come to a meeting in vittoria ontaria. I went to it and met george lloyd, ken armstrong and other giant pumpkin growers. Ken Armstrong gave me a 935 Lloyd plant in the spring of 1998 and I planted it and ended up with a 750 + lber using the instructions that they gave me. Ive bin hooked ever since.

3/7/2003 5:03:32 PM

Mastic Beach, New York

It all started back in 96 while i was bow hunting at my friends parents house upstate NY.they were growing big max's..(70-80lbs) and i said i gotta try this.how cool it would be to grow a 100 pounder..so over the next few years i grew 85 and 92..but then in 99 i hit jack pot i grew 5 pumpkins over 100lbs, the biggest being 160lbs.so heard of a fair here on the island,that they have a contest with prizes.so i went ,i gotta win, this pumpkin is huge!! we come pulling up to unload and what do i see these big green things called "squash's"..i was happy i didn't have to compete with those,but i was wrong!..i got my butt handed to me by mr"G" with his 500 something pounder..i was like what did i do wrong,i fed it couple of times,i watered ,who knows. a couple weeks go by,in the news paper there's a grower named scott who's hugging this huge pumpkin and the headline say's new LONG ISLAND record pumpkin @684lbs..i was like wow they get bigger then 500lbs and in the article it say's to use howard dill "atlantic giants" seeds and the rest is history..

3/7/2003 6:27:47 PM

North Ga

I came, I saw, I grow!

3/7/2003 6:58:34 PM

Caceres, mid west of Spain

Once upon a time, long ago, I was driving on nasty dirty thin curved mountain road on the north of my region, just near the beginnig of the mountains, when suddenly I had to stopped in the middle of a curve, get out of the car and stay without any sense of time and danger watching an incredible plant in a forgotten vegetable garden. It has one green monster fruit, the hugest living fruit I ever seen... it was a long squash of about 150 lbs I presumed. I was tempted to steal it, nobody was on the surroundings. I jumped the old stone fence easily and got to the fruit. Just couldn't weighed from the groung by myself, it should be over 200 lbs. At first I was desolated, then a little light bright in my head: "You can do it, Carlos, grow one by yourself".
I continue living, time pass, I got a farm, went to live there with a lovely wife, prepared a veg garden, planted a vineyard, time passed, many years building a fine soil. Then the patch soil was ready. "You need a nice seed, Carlos". I didn't know this website and the wonderful people who write here, I just knew that the 2001 World Record was a lady who leaves in Seattle. "OK, let's go there". I arranged a trip and visited her, and another world record holder named Joel Holland, from whom I only knew he was a fireman, and finally I ended in the End of the World for a European, in the Vancouver Island at Jake van Kooten's. Great folks all of them indeed.
I returned with seeds, information and and colossal HOPE.
May is getting closer!!!
Don

3/8/2003 2:47:37 AM

Caceres, mid west of Spain

Sorry for my terrible spelling........Don

3/8/2003 2:50:33 AM

Garden State Pumpkins

I'm NOT HOOKED! no way

3/8/2003 8:21:22 AM

Rexburg, Idaho ([email protected] )

I love to grow things but I can't stand to eat vegetables (although fresh corn is awesome). So growing pumpkins is a great compromise. I get to garden all I want and don't have to eat the things!

3/8/2003 9:28:34 AM

Sloughhouse, CA

About 5 yrs. ago after seeing the big pumpkins at the Nut Tree and Half Moon Bay on the news I found some generic AG's at Matsuda's nursery. I grew 4 about 100 lbs. each. I thought they were huge. Two yrears ago I bought some AG' from a web site and then found this site. Len Stellpflug sent me 4 packets of seeds and with the wonderful growers on this site I am hooked. Now I go to the State Fair and Elk Grove festival. Thanks everyone for all the advice on this wonderful site.

3/9/2003 1:29:12 AM

Ankeny, Iowa

I have been growing pumpkins for five years. I discovered giant pumpkins in 1999 when I decided to try to find better seeds. I have been hooked ever since.

3/9/2003 2:46:23 PM

porterville,california usa

my son is a fireman in seattle. a fireman at his station, who grows ags, gave him some seeds. my son sent me one. he knows i will try anything when it comes to my garden. i put it in the dirt and for 2 weeks nothing happened. one day i had this tree trunk comming out of the ground where i planted the seed. in less than a month it had taken over the entire garden area. leaves 30" across, standing 30" high! i didn`t know anything about ags at the time so i didn`t try to pollinate it or prune it or any of the good stuff we`re supposed to do. i came home after a week-end fishing trip to find it completely flat on the ground!! dead.nothing higher than 2"above ground! i still don`t know what happened to it , but that was all it took to get me hooked. i told my son to get me more seeds. i got a package in the mail from the instigator,my sons friend,shortly afterwards. in it were seeds and a note about bp.com and his phone number, in case i had questions. i had plenty of questions but before i could call him i looked up bp.com. here i found the answers i needed. wise decision giving me this web page. saved a lot of phone calls. but then, "that Darrell Roulst" must be a wise man to get me hooked the way he did!

3/10/2003 3:27:49 AM