Happy Halloween From, The Great Pumpkin

October 31, 2014 By

Last week, TaRhonda Thomas from 9News asked me if I’d be interested in doing a segment on fun, easy treats for Halloween.

Fun? Easy?  Are there any better words to describe me?

The problem was Bode’s school Halloween party was around that same time so I initially turned it down but then remembered I’m pretty much the Queen of Halloween and how could I miss such an opportunity?

I decided I could arrive late for Bode’s class party but proposed to 9News that maybe we could just tape the segment earlier in the week and I could bring the giant pumpkins as backdrop so I wouldn’t have to miss it at all.  They didn’t go for that so I’m still going into the studio Halloween morning before racing back to Bode.

HOWEVER–they also loved the giant pumpkin idea so TaRhonda asked if she and photojournalist Chris could come to the house on Tuesday. The Great Pumpkin is always open to publicity and I assumed they’d do a quick interview with Jamie and be done with it. I was still in my workout clothes when they arrived as I had no plans to take part but before I knew it (1.5 hours later), they pulled both of us together for some hilarious scenarios that I think will make for a really fun pumpkin piece.

Cutting open the Great Pumpkin

Or it will be utterly humiliating. But that wouldn’t be the first time. (See: NBC’s The Marriage Ref).

Filed Under: 9News, Humor, pumpkins

The Carving of the Great Pumpkin

October 30, 2014 By

Last year, we had professional carver Michelle Barnett carve Jamie’s 1,200+ pound beast Stanley.

This year, Skype commissioned her to carve Jamie’s 500-pounder. She’s working on it as we speak and Skype recorded our call trying to hash out the details (go here to watch or see below).

What would you carve into a Giant Pumpkin? Stay tuned for the big reveal!

Filed Under: pumpkins

Going “professional” at the Arvada Scarecrow Festival

October 23, 2014 By

If the giant pumpkin growers were poorly received at the Jared’s Nursery weigh-off, they were treated like royalty at the Arvada Scarecrow Festival. Jamie’s buddy Joe grew the biggest pumpkin in Colorado this year (1,292 pounds) and instead of putting it on display after the weigh-off, he merely cuts it up. I asked his wife if they could donate the pumpkin for a great cause (us!) and they were kind to give us their pumpkin.

When we arrived at the festival, we were literally mobbed and two hours later, were barely able to pull away because so many people were taking pictures. Now I know what the Beatles felt like.

Just imagine how much more popular they would have been if they grew giant pumpkins.

Side note: I just realized as I posted this picture that someone put their dog to pose with Lucille the giant pumpkin. Just when I thought I had seen everything.

Hadley was still feeling crummy from pneumonia so laid low. Bode, on the other hand? He was a Proud Pumpkin Papa.
As I was was tending to Hadley’s needs, I looked up to see Bode mingling with the crowd answering questions about his pumpkin.

I should probably start calling him Pumpkin Man Jr. (apologies to his future wife).

Hadley and Bode won the children’s division and I was thrilled to see a kid from our neighborhood grinning ear-to-ear about his pumpkin. I’d talked to him a few weeks prior and encouraged him to enter and was so glad to see him there!

The children’s competition (neighbor on the left)

Despite the fact that “Lucille” stopping growing mid-August when he cut her off the vine, Jamie still won the adult division and is always awesome with giving advice, encouragement and seeds to aspiring pumpkin growers.

We had a great time at our hometown festival but I had to chuckle at the end. Hadley, Bode and Jamie had the three biggest pumpkins at the weigh-off, causing a disgruntled member of the Arvada Gardners to mutter that “they should have their own professional division.”

Please shoot me if they ever go “professional.”

See the write-up about the competition: Giant pumpkins rule in Olde Town Arvada.

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor, Jamie, pumpkins

It’s Pumpkin Season!

October 22, 2014 By

Despite the fact that Jamie didn’t “grow big” this year, we are still in the throes of pumpkin season. In case you missed that tragic announcement, Jamie lost both his plants to yellow vine disease in August.  He chopped up “Bo” but for some reason, he cut “Lucille” off the vine and let her sit there for a month and a half, hoping she’d last ’til the weigh-off.

And wonder of wonders, she did make it (despite the fact that she hasn’t grown and has been essentially rotting for a month and a half).

Lovely Lucille. Photo credit: Denver Post’s Seth McConnell

Because we didn’t have “large” pumpkins, we opted not to throw a pumpkin party but that posed a big problem: we usually have several people on-hand to help us move the pumpkins.

For the giants, we need a backhoe and lifting straps but for the “smaller” pumpkins like Lucille and the kids’ pumpkins, we have a lifting tarp but needed able-bodies.

Enter: our good friends and neighbors the Haymonds who, much to their misfortune, were home at the time we came knocking.

Hadley cutting her pumpkin off the vine

Sadie is smiling because she didn’t have to lift after Uncle Chris arrived


Pumpkin Man photobomb.

Despite the fact that Bode’s pumpkin got taken out by hail (twice) and didn’t pollinate until two weeks after Hadley’s, his pumpkin weighed a whopping 325 lbs while Hadley’s weighed 401 lbs, a personal best.

Don’t get me started how the lazy organizers at Jared’s Nursery in Littleton didn’t even bother to give them ribbons or any acknowledgment for all their hard work. Dear Jared’s Nursery: we will not be wasting out time at your weigh-off next year.

Despite their lack of prizes, I was so proud that they dominated the children’s division.

Of course, it helped they were the only two who entered.

Stay tuned for details on the Arvada Scarecrow Festival.

 

 

 

Filed Under: pumpkins

Big Media Day!

October 9, 2014 By

During an overwhelmingly stressful week (Hadley’s pneumonia is still going strong), Jamie and I were both featured in the media today!

I was hired by Johnsonville to do a segment on 9News about warm breakfasts for cold-weather days (HIGHLY recommend their new fully-cooked sausages; my kids are obsessed and I love they take only 30 seconds in the microwave).


I’ve done a variety of news segments–from fashions shows to travel tips–but never anything on food. Though I love cooking it, let’s just say styling it ain’t my forté

I’ll stick to eating from now on, thankyouverymuch.

Television newsrooms are never boring. In the past, I’ve shared the green room with the firefighters from the pinup calendar. Today, it was the Ringmaster from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.

The uproarious dude makes ME look and sound like a wallflower.

In other news, when I checked my email in the middle of the night (we won’t even get into how I’ve been waking up ravenous at 3-4 a.m. since I started Paleo), I found a note from Bill Orchard of our local gardener’s group:

Hi Community Gardeners,
Check out today’s  newspaper for an article on Arvada’s own giant pumpkin grower Jamie Johnson.
Look for him this weekend at the Festival of Scarecrows and the Giant Pumpkin Contest.
Yes, he will be available for interviews and autographs.
Enjoy,
Bill
“Signing autographs?” HELP ME.
The Denver Postrequested an interview with Jamie a couple of weeks ago. He was sheepish because this has been a crappy growing year but it was a bad season for most of Colorado’s growers. Between hail storms, a lot of rain and yellow vine disease, not very many plants made it to the scale.

Read the article and his video interview here.

 

And yes, I like that the reporter linked to one of my former columns in the newspaper about Jamie’s obsession and quoted me as saying “there was not full disclosure before the marriage.”

 

Give that dude a Pulitzer.

Filed Under: 9News, Humor, Jamie, pumpkins Tagged With:

Rise of the Giant (Pumpkins)

September 24, 2014 By

Giant pumpkin boat races

Over the last 24 hours, five people have sent me links to a new documentary that is coming out about raging lunatics giant pumpkin growers. So, to put a kibosh on any additional emails about it, YES I KNOW “RISE OF THE GIANTS” IS COMING OUT!

Unfortunately we don’t live in Utah to see it but I have no doubt we’ll have the opportunity.

If you’re not in the know (and don’t have friends bombarding you with the trailer), “Rise of the Giants” follows the growth of the largest pumpkin in the world, which weighed 2,032 pounds, the Utah Giant Pumpkin Growing club, and even inmates who are growing at the Spanish Fork jail.

According to the website:

“Rise of the Giants” delves into a unique hobby that attracts salts-of-the-earth committed to making people smile.  Every year growers around the country raise Atlantic Giant pumpkins that can grow over to 50 pounds a day (that is not a typo) – so big that once the contest is over, growers hollow them out and hold a boat race at Sugar House Park, which is captured in the film.


Normally this is our favorite week of the year with our blow-out pumpkin party and and big weigh-off. But alas, after Jamie’s pumpkins’ death we’re in a state of mourning.

Maybe this year’s theme should be “Demise of the Giants.”

Filed Under: pumpkins

The Death of a Giant Pumpkin

September 12, 2014 By

My life has been such a whirlwind. Returning from a month in Canada. Family in town. Starting school the next week. Getting sick. Crazy schedules. Seriously, last night we had the kids’ piano lessons, Hadley had Activity Days, Bode had Scouts, she had a volleyball game and a school disco dance that night while I had an event at the church.

How do families of more than two kids juggle it all?

I realized the other day that I neglected to give an update on Jamie’s pumpkin season. Sadly stated: it’s over.

On the day Bode got baptized in August, Jamie’s grower group did their annual patch tour where they caravan around the city looking at each other’s pumpkins. It’s a highly-anticipated event but this year brought some bad news Jamie had long suspected: his pumpkins “Bo” and “Lucille” had developed yellow vine disease. Though they both had a great start, they never really took off and then stopped growing altogether.

“Bo” in happier days. A gorgeous pumpkin!

Tissue tests came back stating that the plants had low nitrogen but then yellow leaves started popping up, which means doomsday for giant pumpkin growers.

So he pulled the plants and started soil prep for 2015.  There will be no pumpkin parties, though he is buoyed up by the fact that the kids’ pumpkins (which are grown in another area of the yard) remain unscathed.  We’ll call that Jamie’s silver lining.

Just don’t mention the color yellow.

Filed Under: Jamie, pumpkins

Why you cannot ever have a normal conversation with The Pumpkin Man

June 13, 2014 By

Me: “Have you ever heard of ‘Orange is the New Black’ that everyone is talking about?”

The Pumpkin Man: “Totally. I’ve been saying it for years.”

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie, pumpkins

The Second Grade Pumpkin Expert

April 19, 2014 By

The school year is winding down (or would that be up?) at a frenetic pace and these next weeks will be chock full of piano recitals, school plays, violin concerts, chaperoning Hadley’s three-day class camping trip and so much more.

On Thursday we had Bode’s final parent-teacher conference of second grade and he proudly escorted us around the classroom playing math games and showing off his Power-Point-knock-off slideshow presentation about cobras (the horror). Though we weren’t thrilled about his teacher at the beginning of the year, Bode liked her and thrived in her strict classroom. It’s called brown nosing and he’s really good at it. Case in point: when we walked in, a little girl was sitting there with her dad and raved, “That Bode, he’s the best boy in class!”

Guess he’s been sucking up to the ladies, too.

I was feeling pretty good about Bode’s year until he brought out his conference portfolio and showed us his first published book: “How to grow pumpkins.”

Jamie, of course, was thrilled.

I, on the other hand, want my (public school) money back.

 

Filed Under: Bode, Humor, pumpkins

Kicking off another pumpkin season

April 18, 2014 By

On Tuesday for our 10-year anniversary in our house, I was planning to make a fancy dinner to celebrate. But then I got the worst sinus infection ever and couldn’t get out of bed for a few days. So, Jamie took celebrations into his own hands and dedicated the evening to all-things-pumpkin.

Do you see what happens when I get sick? The whole world pretty much ends.

For normal people, planting would involve taking a seed and putting it in soil. Not us. The seeds needed to be filed, soaked in humic acid and liquid seaweed, followed by the paper towel method.  This year, they started with 11 seeds. Eventually they’ll find their way into Jamie’s makeshift growroom in our basement and then the strongest few will be transferred into the hoop houses outside. The kids will each grown their own giant pumpkin and Jamie will grow two of his own.

Usually Jamie is chomping at the bit to start pumpkin season but he has been more subdued about it.

“I don’t know what the deal is,” he confessed to me. “Maybe it’s because I reached my goal of growing a pumpkin over 1,000 pounds. Or maybe it’s because I’m just so busy that I’m not as into this pumpkin season.”

Or maybe his uber-obsession has been knocked down several notches and is now only a more reasonable hobby-level of commitment?

We can only hope.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Jamie, pumpkins
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