Islanders invited to learn tips and tricks for growing giant pumpkins

Thinh Nguyen · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 10, 2025 12:19 PM EDT | Last Updated: March 10

Prince Edward Islanders looking to effort their manus astatine increasing elephantine pumpkins volition person the accidental to larn from the champion this Wednesday evening.

Mark Tremere, P.E.I.'s reigning champion elephantine pumpkin grower, is hosting a store astatine the York Community Centre, wherever he'll stock his apical tips and tricks for cultivating colossal gourds.

Tremere said the Island has a tiny but dedicated assemblage of competitory growers.

"Worldwide, there's rather a fewer competitory growers going for their satellite record, but successful P.E.I. we mightiness person 10 to 15 tops," helium told CBC's Island Morning.

"I'd emotion to spot much people. That's the goal."

The existent satellite grounds for the heaviest pumpkin is 1,243 kilograms (2,741 pounds), grown implicit six months by Guinness World Record holder Travis Gienger successful Minnesota.

As for Tremere, helium won apical prizes successful the pumpkin and squash categories astatine past year's P.E.I. Giant Pumpkin and Squash Weigh-off.

The Marshfield, P.E.I., grower took location $750 for his 668-kilogram (1,473.5-pound) pumpkin and different $200 for his first-place squash, which weighed successful astatine 361 kilograms (796.6 pounds).

Growing giants: Where to start

At the workshop, Tremere volition screen everything from effect enactment and germination to ungraded mentation and increasing techniques.

He said starting with high-quality seeds is cardinal to increasing elephantine pumpkins and squash.

He has seeds from his prize-winning pumpkin and said members of the P.E.I. Giant Pumpkin Growers Association besides person high-quality seeds they're hoping to administer crossed the Island to promote much radical to instrumentality up the hobby.

"If you're going to commencement out, you whitethorn arsenic good commencement retired with a bully commencement of genetics, truthful thing we person would decidedly turn thing up astir 2,000 pounds potentially."

Beyond seeds, helium volition locomotion attendees done captious steps similar ungraded investigating and effect mentation tricks, similar sanding the edges of the effect to velocity up germination.

For his ain pumpkins, Tremere plans to works the seeds successful mid-May, truthful helium volition request to make an optimal increasing situation for them to grow.

"I'll person a hoop location up, astir apt heating cables successful the crushed to lukewarm up the soil, and astir apt a heater wrong of a acold framework mini greenhouse to bring that up to somesthesia and instrumentality it into reasoning it's mid-June to extremity of June," helium said.

"I propulsion that on and hopefully person a pollination by mid-June."

While the archetypal setup requires immoderate investment, helium said it becomes much affordable implicit time.

"Over the years, you benignant of prime up the cables and physique the hoop house. You already person a heater. So dilatory but surely, you prime up the tools and the commercialized and distant you go."

Tremere usually focuses connected 1 oregon 2 pumpkins aboriginal connected and past makes a determination by July connected which 1 to nurture to the decorativeness line.

He said the sharing of radical contented is crucial when it comes to growing elephantine pumpkins.

"It's large to person a community. That's what's truly brought it up to the weights that they are present — the internet, I think, and connection and networking, radical utilizing their cognition and sharing it with everybody."