Backyard Giants Read online

  The record books were about to close on the 723 and the 845, making way for the next generation of hot seeds. As it happened, one of the most talked-about seeds of the 2006 season was the 1068 Wallace—taken from a 1,068-pound pumpkin grown by Ron and Dick Wallace in 2003. The 1068, a child of the 845 Bobier, already had climbed to the number-two ranking after just two years of planting. And Ron and Dick were determined that 2006 would be the year their 1068 Wallace unseated the 723 Bobier as the greatest pumpkin seed of all time.

  On an icy Saturday afternoon in late January, several members of the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers club gathered at the Wallace house to discuss the club's strategy for the new growing season. Giant-pumpkin growing wasn't just a spring and summer hobby anymore—it was a year-round obsession. Across the land, pumpkin patches were shrouded in blankets of snow, sleeping, waiting. But pumpkin growers knew no rest even in the frozen months. This was the time for planning and researching and gathering supplies for spring.

  Though the weigh-offs were months away, already Ron's kitchen counter was lined with ribbons, trophies, and plaques that Dick had accumulated as he looked forward to the new season. In the winter, Dick passed the time combing through catalogs and Web sites for colorful ribbons and trophies to award as prizes at the weigh-offs. Some were left over from the year before. More were arriving in the mail every week. Taking advantage of Joe Ju-tras's custom woodworking shop, Dick tapped Joe to help turn out exquisitely crafted wooden plaques and pumpkin-themed trophies. Dick's wife, Cathy, could only roll her eyes at the excess. "Sometimes it gets ridiculous," she said, eyeing the stacks of gaudy gewgaws filling the counter. She teased her husband: "I hope you don't get any. I don't want to have to put them in the house."

  This year brought a new kind of pressure to the Southern New England club. They had a reputation to protect. The Wallaces' personal record might have suffered another blow in 2005, but at least they were part of a club that had established itself as the best. Ron liked being at the top, and he wanted to stay there. Though growers often insisted that they grew giant pumpkins for the fun and satisfaction of the hobby, there was never any question that it was, above all, a competition. Ron was determined that the Rhode Island club wasn't going to be just a flash in the pan. "I want to come back and kick everybody's ass again," he announced to the gathering of pumpkin growers, and they all sounded off in enthusiastic agreement.

  The half-dozen growers were sitting in the formal living room on the upper level of Ron's house, where a picture window looked out onto the snow-whitened landscape of the Wallace homestead and pumpkin patch. In the middle of the yard, a six-foot circular indentation in the snow marked the spot where the Wallaces' biggest pumpkin had grown, a reminder of what almost was. But that was history, and the Southern New England growers had come to the Wallace house to talk about the future.

  Ron had on a pair of faded jeans and his favorite Buffalo Bills hooded sweatshirt. His devotion to the upstate New York football team was second only to his pumpkins. As they discussed different seed prospects, Ron's excitement began to boil over with the peculiar jargon of giant-pumpkin growers: "pollinators" and "fathers" and "mothers" and "crosses." He rattled off seed names like a math professor expounding on the Poincare conjecture.

  Ron shot a question at Steve Connolly: "Steve, what did you put into your 1333 ?" That was the pumpkin that had placed second at the club's 2005 weigh-off.

  "I used the 1253 Sperry," Steve answered.

  "There's power in that pollen," Ron said, nodding approvingly. "The 1333 could be a central player this year. Steve's a good pollinator. That 1253 plant also produced a 1,210 for you this year, didn't it? So that's why we should be excited about that plant. Now you've got heavy on both ends."

  Ron believed the club had to give priority to planting its own seeds to assure a deep stable of potential champions. But given that a dozen of the club's growers had produced several world-class pumpkins each, that still left a lot of new seeds to choose from. "You know, Joe's 842 could have been a 1,400-pound pumpkin at some point if it hadn't split," Ron mused. "If anyone asked me what I thought, if I only had one or two to choose from of the unknown stuff, I would take Steve's 1333 and I would take Joe's 1228."

  The other growers were mostly silent, listening thoughtfully as Ron tossed out calculations and theories. Steve Sperry, a slender man of 50 wearing a black turtleneck, sank back into a corner of Ron's couch, occasionally running his fingers over his close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard. Steve Connolly sat in a chair across from Sperry. Dick, from his chair in the corner of the room, tried to lighten the mood when he thought Ron was getting too intense. "Ahh, we're all just a bunch of liars," he said, laughing. "We're sitting here together today but really we're all scheming against each other."

  But Dick was concerned about the coming year too.

  "It's going to be tough for this club to do what we did last year," he observed. Despite their success in 2005, Southern New England was still a small club compared to others in New England, Ohio, California, and Canada.

  Joe Jutras, leaning against the picture window seat, was the only one to occasionally argue a point with Ron. His calming, good-natured voice was the counterpoint to Ron's preacherly zeal. "I think we've got the upper hand," said Joe, upbeat as ever.

  "We've got the seeds and we've got the guys who can do it."

  "Yeah," Ron agreed. "We're going to start pulling more from Massachusetts this year." The notoriety the club had gained with its 2005 success meant more top growers from Massachusetts and Connecticut would bring their big pumpkins to the Rhode Island weigh-off this year. "We'll be a tough act to catch," Ron said. Especially if the club rallied behind its best seed: the 1068 Wallace. Ron and Dick were convinced the 1068 Wallace was capable of producing the next world-record pumpkin. They were so convinced that out of the 10 plants they planned to grow in their new patch in 2006, half were going to be 1068s.

  But if the 1068 was going to unseat the 723 Bobier, the Wal­laces had to get other top growers to plant it. That wouldn't be so difficult now that the seed had produced several 1,300-pound-plus pumpkins and sat at number two on the list of all-time best producers.

  Ron's confidence had soared over the winter along with the reputation of the 1068 Wallace seed, thanks to the buzz created by its success at auction. Among the rituals of winter for competitive pumpkin growers are the Internet seed auctions held on Big Pumpkins.com to raise money for the various growing clubs around the country. Connecticut grower Ken Desrosiers, a programmer for a software company, had launched the site as a place to try out new programming applications his company intended to use for its products. It quickly became the preferred cyberspace watering hole for the giant-pumpkin community. Growers used the site to exchange information in discussion forums, to gossip and bellyache in chat rooms, and to keep diaries charting their growing experiences each season.

  Using the chat feature, the clubs held seed auctions each winter featuring as many top seeds as they could gather. Each club donated seeds from its growers to other clubs for their auctions—in part out of good sportsmanship, but also as a way to build the rep utation of its seeds by getting them into the hands of as many growers as possible.

  The Southern New England auction was held late in January. The 1068, the star of the auction, was the last seed offered for bidding. With pumpkin growers around the world perched at their computers to watch the action, the first bid to pop up on the screen was $250, followed quickly by $260. The bidding narrowed to a war between two growers, rising steadily through the $300s. The Rhode Island growers sat at home at their own computers, rooting on the bids to help keep the bidding going. "Many predict this seed will grow the next world record!" typed Ron. Within a few minutes, the 1068—a single seed, with no guarantee it would even sprout—had sold for a whopping $410. "How do you explain that to your wife?" one grower quipped after the final bid.

  The auction results helped beef up the treasury of the Southern New
England club and added to the renown of the Wallace seed. At other club auctions that winter, the 1068 sold for prices ranging from $350 to $425.

  As the 1068's reputation soared, so did the number of seed requests. By the end of January, more than 100 e-mails jammed Ron's account and he had two garbage bags stuffed full of bubble packs sent by growers asking for a 1068. Some included seeds in trade. Some included money, which Ron always returned to the sender. Never mind the hundreds of dollars the 1068 had fetched at auction—"It's not about money," Ron said. If he wanted a grower to have a seed, he sent it free of charge.

  But Ron's generosity had its limits when it came to the 1068. The 1,068-pound pumpkin had produced only 254 seeds—fewer than most giants. There were far too many requests to even think about filling them all. Ron's first priority was to have enough seeds for himself and for his club for years to come. Next were people who had helped Ron and his dad through the years who would never go wanting for a 1068 if they asked. And Ron was more than willing to give the seed to any of the hobby's top growers, who would give the seed its best chance to shine. After that, the remaining 1068s would go to the lucky few who caught Ron in a giving mood.

  By now, the pumpkin world knew Dick Wallace was a soft touch. Dick enjoyed the brain game of the genetics as much as any grower—he had studied the matter even more than Ron. But his competitive fervor clashed head-on with his instinct for generosity and his desire to help other growers. He wanted to win too, but publicly, he preferred to put the emphasis on the friendship and mentoring aspects of the hobby. "That's what I hang my hat on. I like to help people," Dick said.

  Not surprisingly, growers had begun sending their 1068 requests to Dick instead of Ron, and it was getting to be a problem. Ron had no intention of sending 1068s to just anyone. He was enough like his dad that he hated turning people down, but he could be tough when he needed to be. So Dick was under orders to forward any seed requests he received to Ron. One grower wrote to Ron in an e-mail, "I hope you are as generous as your father." Ron chortled as he wrote back, "I'm not." The requests for the 1068 flowed in so fast over that 2005-2006 winter that Ron started to dread even going to the mailbox. He spread the word that he had only a handful of the seeds left. That way, he hoped, people wouldn't take it personally when he told them no.

  4

  All Pumpkins Aren't Orange

  ONE KEY QUESTION arises when any reasonable person views a giant pumpkin for the first time: What on earth is it? Giant pumpkins have been bred through the decades with the isolated goal of getting them bigger and heavier. Obsession can be as blind as love, and most competitive growers just don't care how their pumpkins look. They want beasts, not beauties. Beasts are big. Beasts are brawny. Beasts are winners. So what if beasts, usually, are also ugly?

  It can be a shocking thing to a parent who brings a child to a giant-pumpkin display at the local county fair, expecting to see jumbo-sized versions of those glorious orange orbs so often mentioned in fairy tales. The word pumpkin invokes warm, happy feelings of home and family, and stirs memories of schoolhouse decorations, tasty pumpkin pies, and the ubiquitous jack-o'-lanterns of Halloween.

  Their large size and bright color give pumpkins a supernatural quality that perfectly suits the requirements of storytellers. Giant pumpkins have been part of our popular culture since French intellectual Charles Perrault introduced the idea of a magic pumpkin carriage in his 17th-century folktale about a young orphaned girl named Cendrillon, or Cinderella. Literary historians still debate what the nursery rhyme Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater could possibly mean. One interpretation suggests Peter murdered his adulterous wife and disposed of her body inside a giant pumpkin. The mystery inspired cartoonist Gary Larsen to feature Peter in one of his Far Side panels: Peter's on trial, and his sister, Jeannie Jeannie Eatszucchini, is about to testify against him.

  The most well-known portrayal of a big pumpkin in American culture was provided by another cartoonist, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, who captured the wistful, unrequited yearnings of a young child's imagination with Linus's Halloween ritual. Year after year, the faithful young boy missed trick-or-treating because he was waiting in the pumpkin patch for the arrival of the mythical Great Pumpkin, who was supposed to bring gifts to all the children, but never came.

  But the salient question remains, What are they? In the botanical sense, pumpkins are found in four species of the genus Cucur-bita. Both pumpkins and squash populate these four species, and little distinguishes the two other than tradition and color; pumpkins are supposed to be orange. They're also native to North America. Pumpkinlike seeds dating back 7,000 to 8,000 years have been found in Mexico. Native Americans grew pumpkins for food and introduced them to American colonists, who then carried them back overseas to the Old World. But the word pumpkin is derived from Greek, not Native American languages. Its roots are in the Greek term for a large melon—pepon. The word evolved as it passed through different languages, from the French pompon to the Old English pumpion and eventually the American pumpkin.

  Like cucumbers, bell peppers, and eggplants, pumpkins are technically fruits, not vegetables. Though most people think of fruit as anything that could show up in your basic fruit salad, botanists define fruit as the seed-bearing ovaries of a plant, formed when a plant's flower is fertilized through pollination. Vegetables are the edible, nonfruit parts of a plant, including leaves, stems, and roots. Hence lettuce, celery, and potatoes are regarded indisputably as vegetables.

  Horticulturalists have chewed over this distinction for more than a century. The U.S. Supreme Court was even asked to weigh in on the question in 1893 in a tariff dispute over tomatoes. Fruit importer John Nix was outraged when New York Customs agents charged him a 10 percent vegetable tax on a shipment of tomatoes. Nix insisted his tomatoes were fruit, which were duty-free, and sued to recover his money. When the case arrived at the Supreme Court, the justices decided to rely on common sense. Since the tariff law had not spelled out precisely what was and wasn't to be considered a vegetable, the Court ruled that the classification of fruits and vegetables should be determined by "ordinary meaning." And ordinarily, tomatoes are regarded as vegetables.

  This conflict between the botanic and "ordinary meaning" of fruits and vegetables has been resolved diplomatically by most horticulturalists by simply viewing the words in their different contexts: botanical and culinary. In the more-common, culinary sense, fruits are generally sweet desserts, while vegetables are part of the main meal, cooked and salted.

  To giant-pumpkin growers, there is no confusion. Pumpkins are fruit, and growers will correct anyone who makes the mistake of calling them a vegetable. Giant pumpkins are for competition and exhibition, not to be cooked up and served on a plate. They are spectacle, not food.

  And yet, giant-pumpkin growers owe their supersized fruit to humankind's need to eat. Civilization has depended on the ability to cultivate crops. In the United States' largely rural infancy, nearly every home had its own garden to produce food for the household. But as the country became industrialized and most people moved to the cities, agriculture became the domain of big business. Now the closest most people get to a garden is the produce aisle in their local grocery store. Consumers no longer even acknowledge the limitations of the growing season; they expect their fruits and vegetables to be available year-round. Now gardening is just another form of entertainment. Most gardens are merely decorative, filled with carefully tended shrubs and colorful flowers. A beautifully landscaped home is a symbol of luxury and status. Some gardeners still grow plants for food, though usually as a novelty. Home gardens can satisfy a basic human need to connect to the earth, but they are seldom necessary for survival.

  Competitive vegetable gardening came into its own in 19th-century England, arising from the trend toward "cottage gardens," small plots of public land allotted to the poor for growing fruits and vegetables. One school of thought viewed the wholesomeness of gardening as a remedy to social plagues such as drunkenness and depressio
n. With so many gardens squeezed side by side, it was inevitable that the humans tending them would begin casting an eye toward their neighbors' to compare. Soon, gardeners were competing over who could grow the biggest and tastiest vegetables. Flower clubs already had emerged as a pastime among tradesmen in the 16th century, with shows and awards for the finest floral specimens. The "allotment gardeners" soon took an interest in blooms, as well, and flower and vegetable competitions became a countryside staple through England in the 1800s.

  Competitive growers owe much of their technical knowledge to farmers. Modern food crops have been genetically tuned through decades—sometimes centuries—of crossbreeding to bring out desirable traits such as sweeter, juicier flesh, better color, larger size, and disease resistance. That's how grasses became grain crops and small green berries became plump red tomatoes. By using the same techniques, competitive growers have been able to figure out how to tailor their plants to the demands of the stage. They've bred taller sunflowers, more brilliantly colored roses, and bigger fruits and vegetables.

  Pumpkins have always been remarkable in the fruit world for their large size. But as they were cultivated more frequently around the world, and new varieties were developed and planted, even prime specimens still weighed considerably less than 1oo pounds. By the mid-i8oos, gardening publications began referring to a "Mammoth" variety of squash, which regularly produced pumpkinlike fruit weighing more than 1oo pounds. But bigger showcase specimens were few and far between. At an 1857 vegetable show in Devonshire, England, a Mammoth weighing 245 pounds was recorded. Then, in Canada, there were reports of a grower bringing a 292-pound pumpkin to an 1883 exhibition.