For Brandon, on growing pumpkins

My little nephew was looking at our pumpkin pictures and wants to know Mark's secrets for growing big ones.

Well Brandon, the secret must be in a bunch of things, but first it is in the seeds. Some kinds of pumpkins just grow bigger than others. So you have to look at the seed packets and decide which one you want to grow. We bought our seeds in the spring when there was a good selection in the stores. But we didn't plant them until July, so they would be ready in October. We had a hilly backyard so they were planted on a slope and had good drainage. But we built up little mounds of dirt to put the seeds in. (Be sure to keep the empty seed packets after you plant the seeds - you might want to look at the directions again!)

The seeds have to be planted in good soil.

And they have to be watered.

First you'll get a few little leaves, and then the leaves will get bigger and start to grow into vines with big orange flowers.

And when little pumpkins start to come out (you'll see them on the back end of some of the flowers) they have to be thinned so that only a few try to grow on a vine at one time. (That's another secret to growing BIG pumpkins.) Too many pumpkins on one vine, and none of them will grow big. We thought that was the hardest part - picking some off so that others could grow better!

Mark gave them some fertilizer and watered them often - it seemed like their very big leaves got very droopy and limp when they needed water.

When the pumpkins got bigger we were supposed to lift them up a little and put a flat piece of wood under them to protect them from the soil. But we didn't have any wood so we didn't do that part. Oh well. Ours turned out OK anyway. Once they start to get big, you want to protect them so they don't rot away before they grow to their full size - so try to find some flat wood!

And then we just took a lot of pictures. I don't really think the pictures helped them grow, but it sure helped us have fun growing them! I hope you have fun growing them too.