Big Green (or Orange)

I have a new beat, ya'all: Giant Vegetables. Last week it was the Giant Pumpkin Guy. No joke, that's what everyone calls him. He also goes by Sonny. He's older, with an old dog. A widower. The pumpkins are a way for him to keep himself distracted. Twenty of the giants grow in his garden. A week ago it was 450 pounds. I bet its near to 500 pounds by now. He's our local expert, the one all the newbies turn to for help. And when those newbies don't take his advice, they get his friendly ribbing.

The pumpkins grow under tarps to keep the skins from splitting. The vines are tied back to keep the pumpkins from growing onto them. Then there's the Bondo. When the skins get damaged, they have to be repaired with Bondo for pumpkins.

Sonny dreams about his pumpkins, and yet he claims not to be obsessed. The pumpkin growing inside a tire is the result of a dream.

Sonny's pumpkins turn heads. Helicopters and planes fly low overhead to check out his crop. Sonny waves to them. He's usually outside. He has twenty pumpkins to take care of. Do you know the kind of work involved in that? Half hour per pumpkin each day. That's 10 hours a day.
Not to mention the rest of the garden: corn, beets, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, hot peppers (so hot the Mexican workers from down the road stay away).

So the pumpkin guy made it into the paper. That's where the Tomato Plant Couple got the idea to call about their tomato plant. It reaches 12 feet tall and if the frost holds off, Ida will be able to pick tomatoes from her bedroom window. As it is the plant is just a foot below her window. The plant is thriving in a patch of earth 15 inches by 24 inches. Dominic kept adding tomato cages and there are now 7 of them. Adding more is out of the question. It takes a big ladder and lots of balance and Dominic lacks both.

Ask the couple what they use the tomatoes for and they answer in unison, "Pasta!"

"We're Italian," Ida explains. "We make our own ravioli and gnocchi. He makes a great sauce and I make the dough."

My mouth waters.

"We didn't really think much of it," Ida explains. "Then everyone kept saying, 'Its so big, why don't you tell the paper?' We didn't think anyone would want to know about our tomato plant, but then we saw the Giant Pumpkin Guy . . ."

So it looks like I have new beat. I can't wait for the next giant veggie. What will it be? A zucchini that needs a pallet? A green pepper the size of a basketball?

TARB