The Pumpkin Patch

Someone at the Wall Street Journal likes pumpkin stories.

Less than three weeks apart, the A-Hed piece has been about pumpkins. The first one was on 10/26 regarding the professional pumpkin decorators that have sprung up who will for somewhat vast sums of money decorate your porch in the autumnal spirit.

The second is in the paper, 11/11, regarding growing giant pumpkins. Truly giant pumpkins growing from hybrid seeds that might cost $1,000. It's the kind of story I think I've read about annually.

I once met a WSJ reporter who told me the gateway to the A-Hed piece is a senior editor who has been doing it for years. No name given, and he might not even be alive now. But the way in to getting your story in the paper was to pitch the idea to him. I've never read the same byline twice, so there is definitely no favoritism. I once thought there might be a bias toward stories from Belgium, but now I think they're coming from the pumpkin patch.

I know there have already been stories about the pumpkin bashing contests, where 2-ton pumpkins are hoisted by a crane and dropped on a junk car, to wild applause. There's something about smashing a pumpkin, small or huge that somehow has appeal.

At least no one to date has been filmed blowing a pumpkin up with dynamite like the people in Oregon did once to a beached whale they couldn't move. The flying blubber created a new problem. I imagine pumpkin pieces flying through the air might be dangerous.

Pictured at the top of this posting is Andy Corbin, who has developed a genetic tool that allows giant pumpkin growth. There are pumpkin seed auctions. But not all seeds take and produce gargantuan gourds. Space is needed to grow the pumpkin, up to 1,000 square feet. This thing is not going to grow on your windowsill in the kitchen. Then it needs a constant temperature and up to 150 gallons of water a day. Tender loving care. This is not the middle school science class.

And lest you think this is a wacko pursuit to just grow and smash pumpkins, consider the rigors of science applied to it. Chris Hernandez, who has a Ph.D. in plant breeding from Cornell University, and who judges pumpkin contests, leads the University of New Hampshire's Cucurbit breeding and genetics program. It is a thing.

Cucurbit? Yes. The OED tells us: "A plant of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. Formerly, a gourd." I think there is a Jeopardy clue in there somewhere.

Chris is youthful looking fellow who can see the humor in judging giant pumpkins. The A-Hed reporter, Rhosan Fernandez, tells us Chris, who has to look under giant pumpkins before evaluating them for quality, envisions his own death and obituary kicker:

"If this thing falls on me and kills me, it's gonna be like , 'Giant-squash squashes squash-professor.'"

Live long, Chris.

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