Smashing pumpkins

It was August and hot. A little early to be thinking about Halloween. But the pumpkins in one Costa Mesa neighborhood were growing bigger by the day.

Sean Loftus was inspired by a colleague at work to organize a pumpkin-growing contest for Halloween, and he supplied all of his interested neighbors with the sprouts and instructions they needed to get started.

The contest entry fee was $20, with the pot going to the owner of the biggest pumpkin.

Some, like Loftus, sectioned off a little area in their backyard, others covered the pumpkins with burlap so they wouldn’t ripen and stop growing, and one family planted their pumpkins in a little plot of soil near the curb in front of their house.

Loftus researched the pumpkin-growing process on the Internet, got help from his co-worker, and armed with the latest research available, felt he had a really good shot at growing one monster pumpkin in the fenced-in section he secured in his yard.

When his pumpkin began to look more like a giant zucchini, Loftus chalked it up to some heavy-duty cross-pollination and knew he was out of the running.

He had to quarter the thing just to weigh it, and while it looked like a zucchini on the outside, Loftus said the inside was full of pumpkin seeds.

Maybe his 155-pound, zucchini-pumpkin could win him the consolation prize.

Aimee Elliott lives across the street from Loftus, and relied on his e-mails and instructions to care for her sprouts.

Fortunately, whatever didn’t work for Loftus wasn’t passed along to Elliott. When her family returned from their Hawaiian vacation in June, she and her husband, Kent, a gardener, estimated their two pure-bred pumpkins to be at least 100 pounds each.

Mike Palmer knew he was tempting fate when he planted his sprouts and planned to grow his pumpkins unprotected near the street, but he and his family crossed their fingers and hoped for the best.

Palmer owns a gardening business and recently began marketing his environmentally friendly invention, the “Garden I.V. SMART Feeder,” which is designed to stimulate plants to grow stronger with deeper roots, while using less water.

Stronger and bigger?

With his pumpkins receiving intravenous feedings daily, they quickly became the biggest ones in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, the location proved too tempting for some pumpkin thieves, who tried to steal the larger one and ended up breaking it and leaving it in the street.

Palmer estimated its weight at 250 pounds.

The vine on the smaller one had also been damaged, which meant it wouldn’t grow any more, so Palmer moved it closer to the house and hoped it had grown big enough.

Weigh-in was Friday, and Palmer’s surviving pumpkin tipped the scale at 226 pounds, giving him the win and the $220 pot.

The Elliotts’ pumpkin weighed in at 125, and the runt of the litter at 12 pounds, belonged to the Cox family.

Eleven families participated in the contest, and some had sprouts that never amounted to anything.

Maybe next year they could have a zucchini-growing contest.

Somebody might just end up with a pumpkin.

Turning a trick into a treat

The Palmer girls checked on their two pumpkins every day.

Sydney, 7, and Carly, 4, were sure their pumpkins would grow to be the biggest and that their family would win the contest.

In the middle of a Friday night in September, the Palmers suspect someone tried to steal the larger of the two.

When the size and weight of the pumpkin proved too much for the thief, Mike Palmer said it was probably dropped, then rolled around down the gutter, where it came to rest at the curb.

Broken and battered. All 250 pounds of it.

Palmer weighed the pieces, and that’s what the sum of the parts added up to.

“Neighbors came by to offer their condolences,” Palmer said, but at the breakfast table that morning, Sydney had a plan.

“It was my idea,” she said of selling the seeds.

They wanted everyone in the neighborhood to have a chance to grow a pumpkin next year.

The girls scooped out the inside of the broken pumpkin with their hands and filled up the more than “75,000” cups she said her dad had lying around.

They set up a glass table on the corner and sold bags of seeds for a nickel.

Lucky customers got brownies and lemonade for free.

Carly said people should take their seeds and grow them, but first they have to be dried out.

Once they’re dry, you put them in a plastic bag and store them in a cool place until the next spring.

Carly and Sydney plan to grow three pumpkins themselves next year.

Just not by the street.

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at sue.thoensen@latimes.com.