I joked with Jamie that despite the fact I’ve long worked in the media, he has been interviewed way more times than I. Never mind that he’s never actually won a pumpkin competition (besides his first one); the media swarms to him like honey. That Pumpkin Man is newsworthy, no matter the size of his pumpkin.
Last week, he posted a picture of the pumpkin in our valley’s private Facebook group and asked to borrow a chain for lifting. The comments and “likes” were over-the-top. He had the Wasatch Wave (our valley’s newspaper) reach out and ask him to send a picture. They made him the front page feature story. 
Then yesterday, Fox News called him late in the day and requested an interview. It was such a last-minute decision that Jamie asked if they were having a slow news day. Reporter Jeff McAdam responded, “Actually, it’s a really busy day for news. We had a plane crash in Ogden today and we’ve had non-stop hurricane, flood and wildfire coverage. We needed a ‘soft’ news story that wasn’t depressing.”
If there’s anything that brings joy, it’s a giant pumpkins. Watch the news story on Fox 13 or see below.
The Fox news story:
Jamie and Amber Johnson have a handful of terms of endearment for one another, but there’s one that’s off limits.
“Definitely not pumpkin,” Amber Johnson snaps. “One time I went to bed and there was a seed where I normally lay and I thought, ‘Have I been replaced?’”
You see, Amber’s husband has another love. She says he keeps it in the backyard, and waters it twenty minutes a day. It’s a 1,000 pound pumpkin.
“If you were to ask my wife, she’d call this an obsession, I call it a passion,” Jamie Johnson responded.
It’s a passion that started for Johnson a decade ago after he grew a few “small” pumpkins in his backyard in Colorado.
“I had a couple pumpkins that were decent size, and I took the bigger one to a local weigh off and ended up winning first prize of 141 pounds. I was hooked.”
The state weigh-in takes place on September 23rd at Thanksgiving Point. The current record was set by Matt McConkie in 2014 with a pumpkin weighing 1817 lbs.
“This one’s still growing,” Johnson said as he pointed out the biggest pumpkin in his backyard, which he estimates weighs around a thousand pounds.
He feeds his pumpkin about twenty minutes of water, and about 12 different kinds of fertilizer, including sea weed and fish parts.
He says the best dirt for growing pumpkins sits on a geographical line between Rhode Island and Oregon, known as the “Orange Belt,” but, he says, the biggest key is the seed.
“The seeds that I’m growing, I can tell you who mama and papa are 25 generations back,” Johnson said. “The mama seed was 1985 pounds.”
Johnson has lots of pumpkin growing tips and advice, and even writes his own blog. His advice can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/giantpumpkins/?pnref=lhc
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 