Jim Pierce is going all out in his new hobby with his very pumpkin harvest this fall, growing two pumpkins that weigh 1,000 pounds each in his garden at his home just outside Baraboo.
Pierce entered his first competition at the Nekoosa Giant Pumpkin Fest scheduled for Oct. 2-3. The two pumpkins he plans to enter in the weigh-off competition, both named Betty and Wilma, weigh an estimated 1,000 pounds each sitting in a tent growing in the family garden he calls “Pierce’s Patch.” Each pumpkin took four-and-a-half months to grow, he said.
“It’s my first attempt at it so we are going to see what everybody else is capable of when we go the competition,” he said.
*SNIP*
When he first started out, he researched and sought advice from other pumpkin growers around the state and nation. Pierce said growing giant-sized pumpkins takes the right seeds, pollination, warm water and slow fertilizer of potassium, he said. As competition nears and both pumpkins prepare for harvest, Pierce said both pumpkins are given molasses.