What Does It Take To Grow The World’s Heaviest Pumpkin?
- On September 21, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Books, Plant Spotlight, Veggies, What In Tarnation?
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There’s a lot to love about the Minnesota State Fair, but the contests have always been on my Top-10 list. Across the fairgrounds, everything from pies and jellies to seed art and orchids compete for praise and ribbons. Standing in front of the brightly lit cases and displays, it’s not always clear why one chocolate chip cookie beat out another, or why the dahlia on the left is superior to the one on the right when both were displayed singly in empty Michelob bottles.
But when you get to the Horticulture Building and enter the vegetable room, things become much more straightforward . Sure, there is still some head scratching to do over the difference between, say, the award-winning red potatoes and the losers. But it is immediately clear how the winner of the “Largest Scalloped Squash” contest nabbed that title.
And the same is true of the “Largest Banana Squash” and the seemingly vast yet strangely uncrowded category of “Largest Squash (other than banana or scalloped).” The rules are simple: You are the biggest; you win. Giant pumpkins don’t have it so easy. In the world of pumpkins of unusual size, weight is what matters, and the biggest pumpkin isn’t necessarily the heaviest.
I know this because I just finished reading Susan Warren’s Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever. If the subtitle sounds hyperbolic, let me assure you, it isn’t. Warren, who is a deputy bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, spent a season with a handful of the many enthusiastic and, okay, obsessive people who grow giant pumpkins all over the world.
Dick and Ron Wallace, a father and son team who have been growing giant pumpkins in Rhode Island for years, are the main duo we get to know. But there are other endearing growers at the center of this book, and Warren followed them all as they endured bugs, heat, rain, lightning, rot, ulcers, varmints, foaming stump slime, financial pain, jealousy, heartbreak and more in hopes of growing the world’s heaviest pumpkin in 2006.
It sounds weird, I know, but the ups and downs of the growing season were so suspenseful, I honestly couldn’t wait to get to the end of the book and find out who wins. Now all I need to do is check to see if there are any giant pumpkin weigh-offs going on around here yet this season. If I’ve missed them, I am definitely going to get to one next year. The results of the 2012 Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth weigh-offs are still coming in. But you can check them here if you’re interested. In 2011, Jim and Kelsey Bryson of Ontario won the world record with a pumpkin that weighed in at 1,818.5 pounds. Check out of photo of them and their otherworldly pumpkin here.
Farming: A Love Story
- On May 22, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Books, Organic Gardening, Soil, Sustainable Agriculture, Veggies
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Peaceful people, I’m telling you what: By the time you get to the point in “Turn Here Sweet Corn” where Atina Diffley is fighting to defend her Eagan, Minnesota, farm against Koch Industries’ attempts to run a crude-oil pipeline through it, you’re going to want to get yourself a pitchfork and help her and her husband Martin stand their ground.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press earlier this year, Diffley’s memoir is often billed as a David vs. Goliath tale, an inside look at organic farming and a love story combined. That’s an apt description, but readers will likely gravitate to the thread that draws them in. What kept me turning pages was the love. Love between Atina and Martin, love of growing healthy food organically, love of the land and other loves more difficult to define.
“Turn Here Sweet Corn” may have been the words Diffley read on a roadside sign when first visiting Martin’s Gardens of Eagan farm. But those words could just as easily be read as a term of endearment coined by a farmer for his/her love. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Diffley thinks that too as this is no ordinary memoir, and it’s no farming primer either. Warm and lyrical, Diffley’s writing is enviably good by any standard.
Read More»Reading Your Weeds: What Do Weeds Really Tell Us About Soil Conditions
- On April 27, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Annuals, Books, Organic Gardening, Soil, Sustainable Agriculture
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Years ago, when I was a news reporter at a weekly paper, an editor yelled in my face that I wasn’t fit to be a journalist because I was too easily “spun.” It wasn’t the first time this guy had wigged out at my inability to see the world in the same black and white way that he did. But it was the last. Maybe I am easily spun. I didn’t deny it. I prefer to think, that I can usually tell the difference between someone who is selling something and someone who is offering their informed opinion—whether I agree with them or not.
Sure, it does mess with a well-defined story idea when research and sources don’t take you in the direction you thought you were going to go. But that happens sometimes. In fact it happened with this story I’m posting here, which is a longer version of a recent article I wrote for Norther Gardener magazine about using weeds as soil indicators.
I have read and heard for years that weeds can be good soil indicators, and gardeners who understand what their weeds are saying can remedy soil problems accordingly. “Read your weeds,” people often say. I never paid the idea much mind. But last summer, after hearing that advice for what felt like the zillionth time, I decided to look into it.
Read More»The Great Worm Escape
- On March 21, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Books, Bugs, Fertilizer, Soil, Sustainable Agriculture, Vermicomposting
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I’ve read that you can always tell something is wrong with your worm bin if your worms try to escape. Too much acidity, heat from decomposing food and other organic matter, excessive dryness or moisture——there are a lot of things that make worms want to flee. I don’t know what happened in my bin, but last Wednesday morning I went down to the basement to check on the worms and was horrified to find most of them plastered to the underside of the bin’s plastic lid.
Not wanting to squish anyone, I carried the worm-covered lid upstairs to the kitchen along with the rest of the bin. Deadlines were pressing, but I couldn’t just let the worms suffer. So I made myself a cup of coffee, put on an old Smith’s CD (because nobody puts an upbeat spin on misery quite like Morrissey) and sat down on the kitchen floor to sort worms into a separate, clean container.
Read More»Our Silly Book Trailer Got a Nice Mention on Garden Rant
- On March 16, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Annuals, Books, Organic Gardening, Perennials, Soil
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The publishing world has changed a lot in recent years, and if you haven’t already seen one, book trailers are one of the many things publishers are asking authors to make these days. When Timber Press asked Jeff and me to make a trailer, we were happy to oblige.
The only problem was our mutual love of toilet humor turned out to be a bit over the top for the folks at the University of Minnesota where Jeff is a professor. So after a couple of attempts, we finally came up with a trailer that’s gross, but still tame enough to get a thumb’s up.
Amy Stewart at Garden Rant was kind enough to post the trailer after she watched it this week. Thanks, Amy! Go here to see Amy’s post on Garden Rant and here’s the video if you’d like to see that, too.
Check Out My “Rules, Schmules” Post for Timber Press
- On January 24, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Books, Soil
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Timber Press, publisher of my new gardening book with Jeff Gillman, “Decoding Gardening Advice: the Science Behind the 100 Most Common Recommendations,” asked me to write a few blog posts for them this month as part of a special promotion for the book.
Here’s a link to my latest post, which includes a before/after photo of my front yard. It makes my back hurt just to look at that picture!
Not surprisingly given the book’s title, I wrote about gardening rules and how a lot of them don’t matter as much as people say they do. And then, well, some advice is best taken. I learned that the hard way and I imagine I’m not done learning that lesson. I hope you’ll check my post out here.