‘I think it’s a bloody miracle’: Lloydminster grower wins weigh-off with pumpkin over 2,000 pounds

Then sunshine brought bigger gains.

“So really, I look at this, I think it’s a bloody miracle,” he said. “I was absolutely ecstatic. I was like, ‘2000 pounds? I made it to 2000 pounds?’ Told me that on day 40. I told you you’re crazy.”

Don Crews’ winning pumpkin, weighing more than 2,000 pounds, sits in his greenhouse. The Lloydminster grower took first place at the Smoky Lake Great White North Pumpkin Weigh-off and Fair. (Image Credit: Don Crews)

Both developed splits in their stems. To help keep the openings dry and prevent rot, Crews used aquarium pumps to blow air into them, drawing on advice shared by other growers. He said B.C. grower Dave Chan, who visited him, had used the technique successfully.

Even in the final days before a weigh-off, months of work can be lost if it cracks.

“You just sort of sitting there holding your breath,” he said. “You go out and check your pumpkin. Okay, yeah, no, we’re still good.”

He also had a pumpkin weighing 838.5 pounds that would have placed third if it hadn’t cracked.

Crews started his seeds in the last week of March and transplanted in early April. He recalled pollinating the pumpkin on May 28 and put the time from pollination to harvest at about 127 or 128 days.

It was still growing when he harvested it, he said.

During vine growth, he estimates he spends about two hours a day per pumpkin moving and tending vines so they can put down roots without crowding one another.

His setup includes greenhouses, soil-heating cables, pumps, water heaters and drip lines. He also monitors for pests and fungus and manages fans and temperature.

Extending the growing season at both ends gives the plants more time to develop, he said. Moving the pumpkins to Smoky Lake means loading them onto a trailer with a forklift or skid steer, then strapping them down for the trip.

The hobby began with a packet of giant-pumpkin seeds Tina brought home from a store.

She thought it would be funny to plant them in his mother’s garden, but the seeds sat in the kitchen for a couple of years before he tried sprouting them.

“It’s kind of funny because it was my wife’s fault, so,” he said with a laugh.

His first pumpkin weighed about 50 pounds, and he recalls growing it around 1999 or 2000. A 544-pound pumpkin followed, which he recalls growing around 2001.

“And that, when you first see one that’s like 500 pounds, you go, holy moly, what have I done?”

He estimates he has grown about 50 pumpkins over the years. He used to grow three a season but cut back as additions to the process meant more work.

The growing community also gives him people to exchange ideas and seeds with. As a member of the Giant Vegetable Growers of Ontario, he shares seeds through the club and receives varieties of pumpkins and other vegetables in return.

Some of his own pumpkin usually becomes cookies and pies. The rest goes back into the garden, where it breaks down before he tills it into the soil in spring.

It took him several years to start winning, and he does not keep a tally of his victories.

“I don’t do it to win the weight off. I do it to grow a giant pumpkin,” he said.

He said each season’s mistakes give him reasons to return and try to do better. He wants to beat the 2,537-pound pumpkin he has already grown and said growers are aiming for 3,000 pounds.

Growing bigger also means being prepared for things to fall apart.

“For instance, if you can’t take heartbreak and heartache, this is not for you because you will split,” he said. “There’s a certain percentage of pumpkins that will split, and you’ll never make it to the end.”

“So you have to be willing to understand that success is long-term. You have to keep doing it.”

On that note, he is already studying results and seed genetics for next season.

“Why do people climb mountains?”

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com

by Kenneth Cheung

‘I think it’s a bloody miracle’: Lloydminster grower wins weigh-off with pumpkin over 2,000 pounds

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