Great Pumpkin Grows Up

Thousands of new growers, even including some in the warm, pumpkin-unfriendly climes around Washington, have been attracted to the mad-scientist thrill of growing a fruit the size of a boulder. For some reason, at least 80 percent of them have been men.

Over the years, more growers have meant more pumpkins, and more chances to cross one behemoth with another.

As this practice has become more popular, the seeds of certain well-known pumpkins -- such as a 723-pound New York specimen whose illustrious offspring have made it the Alydar of squash -- can bring hundreds of dollars at auction. At training seminars, growers will play "pumpkin poker," for one seed a hand.

Everyone's dreaming that these unions of big pumpkins will produce a generation that is bigger still.

"We've put a man on the moon. We've run the four-minute mile," said Ray Waterman, who runs a seed and supply company outside Buffalo. "And now we're going to grow a 2,000-pound pumpkin."

Beauchemin, who runs a landscaping business in a tiny burg north of Manchester, N.H., didn't reach that goal. But his win at Topsfield has made him one of the top growers in New England, and placed him eighth in the world this year, according to a ranking organization called the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth.

"People say, 'Don't you have a life?' " Beauchemin said. "Well, you know what? This is my life, in the summer months."

His prize winner began with a seed that germinated in April. By July, there was a golf-ball-size pumpkin in Beauchemin's garden -- although in this case, "garden" does not mean "dirt."

While the pumpkin's roots were sunk in the soil, Beauchemin shaded its prized fruit from the elements and placed it on a low-friction fabric. In the weeks to come, he knew, the mega-pumpkin would expand so fast that the roughness of the bare ground might slow it down.

"It never felt the dirt," he said. "And it never felt the rain."

After 10 days in the garden, the pumpkin was the size of a softball. At 20 days, it was a soccer ball, and after 30 days, a beach ball.

"Then all the growing kicked in," Beauchemin said. For 10 days in August, fed by hundreds of gallons of water and a fertilizer made of seaweed and liquefied fish parts, the pumpkin gained 35 pounds a day.