How did I get into this business?

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to grow not just a pumpkin, but a giant pumpkin! At the time I didn’t really
think it would be a hard thing to do. Afterall, I grew up on a dairy farm and owned and operated my
own dairy for over 20 years growing a variety of forages for our cows.
In 2009 we started planting pumpkins, not so easy. It was a cooler spring in our area,
and I ended up killing most everything I planted due to cold shock
Pumpkins are temperamental and like the warmth.
That year we ended up with two the size of softballs. We learned we had plenty of room for improvement.
The following year we came back with much better success and started learning how to manipulate the growth for
larger pumpkins. By 2013, I had figured out how to grow what I thought were giant pumpkins, like 100 t0 300
pounders that were some of the coolest things I had ever grown. By the spring of 2014 I learned of the
Utah Giant Pumpkin Growers Association, what? A group of people that grow giant pumpkins?
Yes, and they grow to compete for the biggest, they even met together at Sugar House Park, dressed up,
climbed into the pumpkins, and raced each other in the lake using the giant pumpkins as boats.
Naturally it intrigued me, and I had to be part of this. I showed up to my first weigh off that year with a
615 pound pumpkin and placed 15th out of 40 competitors that year. In Utah, many of the growers still
applauded you for your efforts but the goal amongst most that had been growing
for years was to break a 1k pumpkin.
In 2015 I hit it hard, built hoop houses, buried heating cables in the ground and started
off with a bang. Utah weather has its own unique way of kicking you down, but that didn’t stop me.
Every time I went to the dairy, I passed the pumpkin patch to feed or tweak things pertaining to better
growth of the pumpkin. On August 30th, I had a pumpkin estimated over 1k and noticed 4 holes in it, not
an easy thing to see. It had grown so fast it split open. Luckily, I had planted 15 plants and I had one that
pushed herself to a new personal record of 1,016 pounds,
which landed me in 5th place at the competition that year.
This is where the Cache Valley Giant Pumpkins started, I had grown 14 pumpkins over 400 pounds.