Smart Talk

Dave and Carol Stelts, Owners of Valley of Giants, a pumpkin farm in Enon Valley, recently produced three pumpkins that weighed a total of 7,729 pounds. Dave won the “Grower of the Year” award at the 29th annual Ohio Valley Giant Pumpkin Growers weigh-off. Dave says it takes about 120 days for the pumpkins to grow. “We take the seeds in the fall, then we bring it back in the spring and sometime in early April we go, and we'll start those insides. We'll get them in our germination chambers, and we'll start to see if we get the seedlings out shortly thereafter, usually by mid late April, some events May, but that's the competitive end of that. But for a lot of people, production-wise or, you know, late May or early June, they get those. But they your question on that it's roughly on the cycle for a pumpkin is 120 days the match for the they get the actual pollination they still harvest today, and we like to be in 100% range.” Now that the weigh-off is over, and Dave and Carol won the contest, people will now ha