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How-To-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins
Own a piece of history. The final countdown on How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins has begun. Published in 1993 and reprinted in 1997 and 2003, this title will be going out of print. Annedawn Publishing will no longer be reprinting WCGP_I, and after these final 120 books are sold, there will be no more of this title to sell here. Each of these Limited Edition books will be signed by Don Langevin and numbered as part of this final encore of How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins. Own a piece of the history of giant pumpkin growing. Many people consider this book the start of an enormous popularity increase in growing and competing with giant pumpkins. Many credit it with enabling average backyard gardeners to compete with the world's elite giant pumpkin growers, and spearheaded an assault on the world records that seems unbridled. When this book was published, Joel Holland held the world record with an 827-pound pumpkin. Today, that record has been doubled and stands at an aweing 1689 pounds. Ask Joe Jutras, the current world record holder, if he's read WCGP_I -- for that matter, ask any of the world record holders over the last fourteen years. Buy your copy today. When they're gone, you'll wish you had. WCGP I, 250 color images, 118 pages
118 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1993
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June 5, 2020
This book is Quite A Lot and then not remotely enough all at the same time. It's remarkable.
Here is something you should know about this book: it is about growing world-class giant pumpkins.
That is to say that it is not about growing things that are not those, including giant pumpkins that are not world-class, or world-class pumpkins that are just kind of biggish, or things that are giant and world-class but not pumpkins. In fact, you are reminded at regular intervals that the world-class giant pumpkins being grown are *only* Dill's Atlantic Giant, which is a real pumpkin variety and not something I just made up to be jolly.
Here is something else you should you know about this book: its author, in the About the Author section, notes that he "has not been growing giant pumpkins for very long, but what he lacks in growing experience is more than compensated by his willingness to go to any length to learn from the top giant pumpkin growers."
As a sidenote, someone on twitter recently remarked that they had "the confidence of a middle-aged white man bit by a radioactive middle-aged white man" and I've been sitting with that lately, quite a bit.
Anyway, the author's willingness to go to any length to learn from the top giant pumpkin growers extends to spending an entire 35-page chapter on said gentlemen, "The Heavy Hitters" (yes, they are all gentlemen, these top giant pumpkin growers).
They also feature heavily in the chapter on world-class giant pumpkin competition etiquette, and briefly in the chapter, "The Quest" on the drive to grow the largest world-class giant pumpkin and thus be crowned Pumpkin King, an actual title.
So it's a fairly specialized book, is what.
That said, after reading this book, I have a better idea about laying out pumpkin vines, and designing a better functioning and more attractive pumpkin patch. After reading this book, I can now tell the difference between a female pumpkin flower and a male one (applies for all varieties, not just Dill's Atlantic Giant), should I wish to hand-pollinate my pumpkins, which is what a world-class giant pumpkin grower does, or at least what all The Heavy Hitters do.
Now, fun fact: I grow pumpkins, but not world-class giant ones. I grow little ones. For soups and stews and curry. I love growing them. I think a lot about soil prep, and wind and sun and food. I do not hand-pollinate. And perhaps that is why I am not a Heavy Hitter.
It was also interesting to note just how deeply into conventional death-flinging pesticides and weed controller the author was in 1993, the year this heady tome debuted on the world-class giant pumpkin-growing scene. Organic gardening was apparently not at all the author's thing, except that I can see he followed this book up with 2009's How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins The All-Organic Way, so we will consider that world-class giant growth, as an author and a pumpkin-grower.
Here is something you should know about this book: it is about growing world-class giant pumpkins.
That is to say that it is not about growing things that are not those, including giant pumpkins that are not world-class, or world-class pumpkins that are just kind of biggish, or things that are giant and world-class but not pumpkins. In fact, you are reminded at regular intervals that the world-class giant pumpkins being grown are *only* Dill's Atlantic Giant, which is a real pumpkin variety and not something I just made up to be jolly.
Here is something else you should you know about this book: its author, in the About the Author section, notes that he "has not been growing giant pumpkins for very long, but what he lacks in growing experience is more than compensated by his willingness to go to any length to learn from the top giant pumpkin growers."
As a sidenote, someone on twitter recently remarked that they had "the confidence of a middle-aged white man bit by a radioactive middle-aged white man" and I've been sitting with that lately, quite a bit.
Anyway, the author's willingness to go to any length to learn from the top giant pumpkin growers extends to spending an entire 35-page chapter on said gentlemen, "The Heavy Hitters" (yes, they are all gentlemen, these top giant pumpkin growers).
They also feature heavily in the chapter on world-class giant pumpkin competition etiquette, and briefly in the chapter, "The Quest" on the drive to grow the largest world-class giant pumpkin and thus be crowned Pumpkin King, an actual title.
So it's a fairly specialized book, is what.
That said, after reading this book, I have a better idea about laying out pumpkin vines, and designing a better functioning and more attractive pumpkin patch. After reading this book, I can now tell the difference between a female pumpkin flower and a male one (applies for all varieties, not just Dill's Atlantic Giant), should I wish to hand-pollinate my pumpkins, which is what a world-class giant pumpkin grower does, or at least what all The Heavy Hitters do.
Now, fun fact: I grow pumpkins, but not world-class giant ones. I grow little ones. For soups and stews and curry. I love growing them. I think a lot about soil prep, and wind and sun and food. I do not hand-pollinate. And perhaps that is why I am not a Heavy Hitter.
It was also interesting to note just how deeply into conventional death-flinging pesticides and weed controller the author was in 1993, the year this heady tome debuted on the world-class giant pumpkin-growing scene. Organic gardening was apparently not at all the author's thing, except that I can see he followed this book up with 2009's How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins The All-Organic Way, so we will consider that world-class giant growth, as an author and a pumpkin-grower.
Displaying 1 of 1 review