Lake Josephine gardeners raise Great Pumpkin

Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang had nothing to do with growing the Great Pumpkin at a community garden in the Lake Josephine RV Park south of Sebring.

This pumpkin patch is the "baby" of Marilyn Swift and Janine Biffigani, who grew it from a package of giant pumpkin seeds Swift bought in a Home Depot store in Georgia.

"Janine has worked her little heart out," said Swift. "We put the seed in during the first week of November last year. It survived the 11-day frost."

The pumpkin weighs between 125 and 150 pounds, said Marilyn's husband, Steve. Marilyn guessed it was closer to 100 pounds. It measured about 52 inches in girth.

"I couldn't budge it," said Steve Swift.

John Alleyne, county commercial horticulturalist, said pumpkins belong to the cucurbits family, along with cucumbers, squash and watermelons.

He found it unusual to that someone grew a pumpkin in this sandy soil.

"People here don't grow the regular type pumpkin," he said. "(Local growers) don't grow the pumpkin as a commercial crop. It is very interesting."

This veggie even has a name: "Peter," as in the nursery rhyme, "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater."

"If we're able to harvest it, we will collect the seeds and sell them for $5 each," she said. Whatever is collected will help pay for more seed and fertilizer.

"I have a friend who paid $25 for one seed, but that one came from a huge pumpkin."

When ready, Publix will allow them to carry or wheel it into the store to be weighed, said Marilyn Swift.

Their "Victory Garden" is more than just a pumpkin patch. They've grown green beans, lettuce, cucumbers, squash, green peppers, tomatoes and Swiss chard.

Many of those vegetables were distributed among the park residents. The green beans were passed out to those who helped with the garden.

It began in the early fall when they got permission from the park's owner to open up about 600 square feet of space for the garden. The grass was extremely long and needed to be cut. This area of the park was overgrown and unused.

The soil was poor.

They collected leaves from live oak trees and pine needles and started composting. Then they tilled that material in and made more. The only fertilizer used was a Miracle-Gro Liquafeed product they sprayed on.

"Every year it's going to get better and better," Swift said.

They will do their next planting in about two weeks, but the pumpkin will stay as long as the leaf and vine system remains.

"When we get ready to till this we'll use a triple-8 (fertilizer); that's a slow release," said Steve Swift, Marilyn's husband. "We till that in before we plant."

Marilyn said they started snipping off the blossoms from the pumpkin vines. It started out white and began getting color in the beginning of August.

There are a lot of Midwesterners living in the park who were more than happy to give advice and talk about the gardens they had on their farms while growing up.

"We're just amazed how many people have come down and expressed interest in (the garden)," said Steve Swift.

The park is managed by Dwayne and Jodi "Chili" Scott, who have supported the group's efforts since they took over management in the spring.

"It's good," said Chili Scott. "It is a lost art. We've lost our balance in what we teach."

She said American kids don't know a lot about gardening, other than the factory farming aspect of it. They can't grow. They can't can. They can't balance a checkbook, she said.

"Our senior citizens are kind of the last of the line," she said. "It's a shame we can't get our seniors citizens and match them up with our kids."

The Swifts gave credit to resident Tom Flosi, who created the garden's watering system.

"When they started the garden they took milk gallons, five gallons at a time over to the garden by hand," said Flosi, who is from Chicago. "I said, 'Girls that's too much work.' I always like gardening. I had a vegetable garden back home."

He created a drip system, and added Spritzer-type spray heads, then tapped into the park's waterline at the nearby horseshoe pits. It drips in five gallons an hour and sprays 10 gallons an hour.

For information on how to estimate the weight of a pumpkin without actually weighing it, go to http://www.backyardgardener.com/weight.html .