How to grow next year’s Great Pumpkin

Believe it or not, at 685 pounds, Jim Kern’s giant pumpkin is a mere pipsqueak. On Oct. 2, a world record-breaking cucurbit, grown by Alan Eaton of Ontario, Canada, weighed in at a whopping 1,446 pounds, and last year’s Oregon-grown winner tipped the scales at 1,385. That’s a lot of pumpkin.

What’s the trick to growing these marvels? The secret, Kern says, is in the seed. Most prizewinners stem from a variety called ‘Dill’s Atlantic Giant,’ introduced in 1984 and now widely available, with seed as large as a man’s thumbnail, flowers as wide as Frisbees and leaves like elephants’ ears.

Kern belongs to the Pacific Northwest Giant Pumpkin Growers Assn., an offshoot of the World Pumpkin Federation. He and other competitive members shell out big bucks -- up to $500 per seed -- for progeny of proven winners.

To raise your own great pumpkins in Southern California, start seed in containers in early March, and transplant seedlings to a sunny spot no earlier than April 15. Pumpkin plants respond to day length -- longer is better -- which explains why the biggest ones are grown in northern latitudes.

Kern -- a University of California Cooperative Extension master gardener -- teaches gardening and grows goliath pumpkins (and many other crops) with youngsters at the L.A. County Office of Education school at Camp Miller, a probation facility in the Santa Monica Mountains.

This year, they distributed 4,000 field pumpkins to schools, youth groups and other charitable organizations. He recommends 400 square feet of nutrient-rich, compost-enhanced soil for each pair of pumpkin seedlings, set four feet apart with vines directed away from each other. Thin pumpkins when small, leaving no more than three per plant, and provide plenty of water. By Halloween, they should be massive.

Incidentally, to prevent diseases that plague pumpkin plants, Kern suggests recycling Halloween pumpkins in the green or black recycling cans -- not your home compost pile. He also recommends crop rotation: that is, never planting them or other squashes in the same garden soil two years in a row.

For more on growing giant pumpkins, the giant-pumpkin community and special seed sources, go to www.pumpkinnook.com.