It took some creativity to get the pumpkin out of the yard and ready to go, but Jeff Martin’s gourd was ready to be entered into the Anamosa Pumpkin fest, thanks to the help of some friends Friday afternoon.
Martin’s gourd topped the scales at 340.5 pounds, placing 12th overall at the Anamosa Pumpkinfest Saturday, Oct. 6.
Martin began growing the pumpkin this year, thanks to his friend, Dave Pittman’s urging. Pittman had propagated the pumpkin plants earlier in the season, and they were planted in Martin’s back yard just after the final frost of the season last spring.
“I chose to plant it right next to my compost pit, something I’ve been using in the backyard since purchasing the house in the 2000s,” Martin said.
This was the first year that Martin had grown a pumpkin in his back yard, but he thinks it likely won’t be his last.
“I know we lost one of the pumpkins in the patch right at about the 110-pound mark, but the one here continued to grow,” Martin said.
Watering the pumpkins was important, especially as the area has been experiencing a bit of a drought.
“I know if I had been watering this pumpkin more regularly during the growing season, it would definitely have gotten much larger,” Martin said.
Martin said he was amazed how much space the pumpkin vine took in his backyard, but he was also impressed with how beneficial it was for all sorts of pollinating species.
“Bees and butterflies and hummingbirds were always around,” Martin said. “I hadn’t seen a lot of hummingbirds in my backyard before planting a pumpkin.”
And when the pumpkin grew to over 300 pounds in size, then it became a matter of logistics on how to get it out of his backyard and down the road to Anamosa.
Cue the help from friends Pittman, Steve Rose and Keith Huebner, who worked to help load the pumpkin onto a wooden pallet and then used a crane from Global Water Services to lift the gourd from Martin’s backyard to a trailer Friday afternoon.
Huebner’s advice for next year, especially if the pumpkin were to be a little larger in size – plant closer towards the fence, as the pumpkin was almost out of reach of the crane’s arm from the alley near Martin’s property.
“If it had been 200 pounds heavier, we’d have needed a different crane to get this out,” Huebner said.
Martin said that growing said pumpkin is “one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever grown.”
“Yes, it took a lot of time that I could have spent on other areas of my yard, but that also might not have been as much fun,” Martin said.
Steve Rose, Dave Pittman and Jeff Martin work at securing the pumpkin to the pallet with a series of straps ahead of being connected to a crane to be lifted over the fence in Martin’s back yard.