Dave and Carol Stelts of Enon Valley, Pennsylvania, won the Ohio Valley Giant Pumpkin Growers competition on Oct. 11 with a pumpkin weighing 2,565.5 pounds (about 1,164 kilograms), the largest they have ever grown, beating 41 growers. The couple broke the world record in 2024 and finished eighth in the world this year, reports Farm and Dairy's Liz Partsch.
Dave began growing giant pumpkins with his father in the 1970s and returned to it in 1994. In 2013 the couple moved to their present land because their old two-acre hillside plot could not be rotated. Dave crowned and tilled the field so water drains to the edges, and set up telephone poles to divide four plots and hold a shade cloth. "You can always add it. You can't always get rid of it," he said of water.
Their season starts in April with seed saved from the previous year's pumpkins, started indoors. Ten days later the seedlings go out under plastic, a polytunnel and a mini-greenhouse, with soil heating cables. By the end of May that cover comes off, the soil is amended, and wooden walking boards and drip irrigation go down. "We never walk on the ground so we don't compress the soil," Dave said. The plants are fed nutrients including nitrate and potassium, the leaves are staked with bamboo against the wind, and the flowers are hand-pollinated in June.
They grow eight pumpkins over 10,000 square feet, and at their peak the biggest gain 50 to 60 pounds a day for a couple of weeks. The soil is tested regularly and prepared four years ahead, with rotation, cover crops such as mustard and winter rye, and compost.
Weather is the hardest part. The couple counted six tornadoes this year and record late-summer rain, and Dave said heat, humidity and wet conditions send diseases into "hyperdrive." They lost three of their eight pumpkins and are considering a greenhouse. After the season the pumpkins are kept for seed and sold to community groups and businesses for displays.
Photo: Nick Ares / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Farm and Dairy
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