Besides corn dogs, lemonade shake-ups, the
butter cow and giant slide, the Illinois State Fair has much to
offer. My favorite part of the fair is seeing products that
Illinois residents have grown or made. Therefore, my first stop is
the Hobbies, Arts and Crafts building, which houses the finest
Illinois produce, handmade textiles, yummy baked goods, and
displays of hobbies.
This year, the talk of the agriculture show is
the big pumpkin grown by Dan Polistina of Andrew. This
prize-winning monster tipped the scales at 561 pounds. This
peach-colored, beanbag-shape gourd was so heavy a forklift was
needed to bring it into the Hobbies, Arts and Crafts building.
Dan credits his father and grandfather for his
passion for gardening. He has been working the soil since he was an
8-year-old 4-H member. He’s passed his gardening talents to
his 10-year-old son Joel. For the past 7 years, Joel has entered
the Large Pumpkin, jack-o’-lantern class. This year Joel
placed first with his perfectly round pumpkin. As for Dan, this is
the third year in a row that he’s won first prize for the
biggest pumpkin. How does he do it?
He starts with championship seeds. Dan
obtained his Dill’s Atlantic Giant seeds from Howard Dill
Enterprises, a Canadian firm (www.howarddill.com). The Atlantic
Giant is noted as the granddaddy of all humongous pumpkins, and
Howard Dill Enterprises claims it is the world’s largest
pumpkin variety. Dill’s Atlantic Giant pumpkins are yellow to
orange in color and are perfect for jack-o’-lanterns or fall
displays.
The seeds are started indoors in April and
plants are moved into the garden in mid-May.
Pumpkins need a full sun garden location,
sheltered from winds. The soil should be high in organic matter
with a pH of 6.5 to 7. In the fall, Dan adds lots of compost and
manure to his pumpkin garden.
Dan hand pollinates the pumpkin blossoms.
After the first pumpkin is set, he removes future blossoms from the
plant and begins to apply a balanced fertilizer of 20-20-20.
The prize-winning pumpkin came from a
20-by-40-foot plant that Dan watered every other day with about 50
gallons of water. This was not an easy task because his water comes from
a well. Dan watered in the evening so that he wouldn’t run the
well dry in the morning. The pumpkin was covered with a canopy to keep
it from getting sunburned. A sunburn could cause a crack in the skin of
the pumpkin.
To keep bugs at bay, Dan uses Sevin spray and
dust on the pumpkin plant, stem and the fruit.
Harvest pumpkins when the rind is hard and has
a deep, solid color. If vines remain healthy, harvest the mature
fruit in late September to early October. Obviously, pumpkins
entered in the Illinois State Fair must be cut before this stage of
development.
So what will become of this giant orange
beauty? Dan will cut the pumpkin up at noon Sunday, Aug. 21,
outside the Hobbies Arts and Crafts building. He estimates the
pumpkin will have about 500 seeds.
Though Dan Polistina won the blue ribbon at
this year’s fair, his is hardly the biggest ever grown in
Illinois. The largest pumpkin in Illinois (not entered in the fair)
weighed 1,139 pounds and was grown by Joe Richards of Steger in
2004. The world record is held by Al Eaton, of Richmond, Ontario,
whose pumpkin weighed 1,446 pounds in October 2004.
If you want to grow a giant, the Pumpkin Patch
Web site (www.backyardgardener.com/ secert.html) offers detailed
instructions. In order to produce a big beauty, you must be
diligent in caring for the plant.
This article appears in Aug 18-24, 2005.
