The Passionate, Heartbreaking and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever
by Susan Warren
I should have guessed that in the world of competitive vegetable growing, there's people whose goal is to produce the biggest pumpkin ever. When this book was written, men aimed to break the record with a pumpkin that weighed over 1,500 pounds (now the world record is 2,624 pounds). This story focuses on a group of giant pumpkin growers in a Rhode Island club, telling the ups and downs that several of them face through one season. The opening and closing chapters, which are mostly about the individuals and their competitiveness, the history of record-breaking giant pumpkins, and the weigh-in that closes the 2006 season, were not that great for me. The writing style tries a little too hard to be enthusiastic and felt awkward in some parts. Nearly stopped reading after chapter three. However the bulk of the book, about how the pumpkins are actually grown and tended, was more to my interest- I can relate as a gardener. Careful selection of seed, testing and prepping the soil, germinating and tending the young plants, setting them out then protecting them anxiously from rough spring weather, pruning and feeding and spraying against pests all summer, fretting over disease and disaster (hungry wildlife, cracked skins, even in one case a suspected fellow grower who jealously poisoned someone's plants!) I'm not a competitive person myself so I don't really understand the fire that makes them work for huge fruit with so much effort- forcing the plants to strain to the max without cracking, rotting or collapsing. I'd rather have something beautiful, useful, or good to eat, than just a right to brag about "mine's the biggest"! But if I ever go to an agricultural fair I'll be sure to stare at prize-winning pumpkins with different eyes now, knowing all that went into getting them that huge size. They do look rather obscene, though.
Rating: 3/5 256 pages, 2007
This is honestly so charming to me -- humans are SO WEIRD, but in a way that I am presently inclined to find delightful. (Ask me again when I haven't been trapped inside and starved of human contact for a year.)
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. I'm sure there all kinds of other obsessive, strange hobbies out there I never would dream of!
DeleteI can always depend on you to read and review books I would never see anyplace else...and I mean that as a sincere compliment. I can't even imagine how you find some of them. This sounds weirdly intriguing.
ReplyDeleteWhere do I find them? Library discard sales, thrift shops, used bookstores and my absolute favorite: the Book Thing of Baltimore. I used to go once a year and bring home a huge haul. It's a building full of free books. I love it. When I'm there, I pick up pretty much anything that looks interesting on a whim. Other places, I'm a bit more selective! Sure wind up with some curious finds, sometimes. Like the GoatMan book- wow, was that one weird.
DeleteThose huge pumpkins always look so strange! I find them a little off-putting myself. But I know a lot of effort goes into growing them.
ReplyDeleteI love learning about stuff like this: Things I hadn't even known I didn't know anything about. On some level I was aware that 'biggest pumpkin' competitions exist, but I never gave any thought to the work that it took to grow them.
ReplyDelete--Thistle