Have you ever seen a pumpkin over 100 pounds? How about over 300? 600? This year we had our first ever giant pumpkin growing competition with 4-H youth in Union county. I had the pleasure of working with them as a coach. Growing the pumpkins was a group effort with Patrick Fix, Tim Grizzle, Timothy Jennings, Mickey Cummings, Ray Covington, and Frank Riley all helping to lead the charge.
Growing a giant pumpkin is no easy task. It requires months of work with a lot of attention to detail. We had eight 4-H students submit a pumpkin to the Georgia 4-H Giant Pumpkin growing competition. Five of those had a pumpkin that was over 300 pounds. Union County finished in 1st and then 3rd through 8th. So I want to congratulate these kids on the hard work that they put in and on the fruits of their labor.
The pumpkin growing process began back in April. All the seeds were planted in containers inside to allow the plants to germinate before we planted them outside. Planting this way ensures that you only put seeds in the ground outside that will come out and grow. A giant pumpkin needs 900 square feet to grow, so if one doesn’t germinate you’ve lost a lot of space. Germinating in containers also protects young plants from cold damage, getting washed out by rainfall and other environmental factors.
Once the pumpkins were in the ground, this season had its own unique challenges with the heavy rainfall that we had. Downy mildew is a disease that infects a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. It can have devastating affects if it is untreated. Downy mildew really likes wet and warm weather, which made it a big challenge this past summer. There are fungicides available to prevent downy mildew from infecting your plants, but with the amount of rain we had it was difficult to find a time to make good applications.
The amount of rain we had also encouraged copious weed growth in our pumpkin fields. Once the pumpkins vines are large and established hand weeding is required to go in and pull out the weeds around the vines. Hand weeding obviously can take some time in the summer sun. The pumpkins also needed weekly fertilizing so that they could grow to their large size.
Growing plants is an excellent educational experience for youth. They are able to learn about the hard work that it takes to grow plants for food, and appreciate farmers who do that for us. They also learn that growing plants is a continual learning experience. Every season is going to be different with its own unique challenges. Farmers have to be lifelong learners to be able to keep adapting to the change of pest pressures, new commodities, and new technologies out there.
I am very proud of all that our 4-H students accomplished this year, and I’m looking forward to coming back next year and competing again. We’ll be looking to push the boundaries even further to see how big we can grow our pumpkins. I’m also thankful for the support that we got from the community. This was a huge success for our first year and we’re looking forward to the next.
If have questions about growing your garden for you or youth, contact your local Extension Office or send me an email at Jacob.Williams@uga.edu.