
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994                   TAG: 9410260033
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

GOOD GRIEF! MAYBE OL' LINUS WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL

THEY CAN GROW 30 pounds a day and reach a half a ton. Giant pumpkins are no good for eating but, hey, that's not the point.

The Great Pumpkin does exist.

While other gardeners were tending marigolds, gung-ho growers armed with hyperactive seeds and a fondness for fertilizer have made breakthroughs in producing giant pumpkins - shattering records as easily as teen-agers smash jack-o'-lanterns.

Five years ago, the world saw its first 700-pound pumpkin. Then came an 800-pounder, and this year, the 900-pound mark was pulverized. With a half-ton pumpkin now looming, we may be witnessing a golden age of giant vegetables.

``It's not just pumpkins,'' notes Ray Waterman of the World Pumpkin Confederation in upstate New York. ``We have a squash that weighs 900 pounds. We had a guy from England who grew a 116-pound cabbage. I grew a 14-pound radish. It's as big as your lower leg.''

Yet it's giant pumpkins that get the greatest acclaim, what with Halloween, jack-o'-lanterns and Charlie Brown's comic strip friend, Linus, who believes in the fabled Great Pumpkin. After all, few youngsters dream of The Great Radish.

Today's giant pumpkins are so amazing that they can gain 30 pounds - in a day. They grow so fast that they sometimes explode on the vine. And they're so heavy that they're often moved with a forklift.

Fueled by global competition, a loose-knit group of hobbyists worldwide - but concentrated in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Australia - has gotten serious about selecting seeds from the plumpest, fastest-growing mega-pumpkins.

The reigning world champion pumpkin is a 990-pound behemoth grown this year by Herman Bax of Ontario, Canada. It's on tour in California.

As critics sometimes point out, giant vegetables aren't good for much, other than wowing the public. They're so tasteless that they're not good eating. Organic gardeners would shudder at the high doses of chemical fertilizer used.

Even growers have a little trouble explaining the competitive desire to grow weightier watermelons and plumper pumpkins.

``Why did we go to the moon?'' Waterman asked.

by CNB