Ewing couple grows great pumpkins

Larry and Tamra Ziems are crazy about growing pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.

The rural Ewing couple own CraZ Pumpkins, which has seasonal stands in Ewing and Clearwater, with pumpkins and gourds for sale.

"Larry's been growing a few pumpkins for several years," Tamra said. "Then when I moved up here after we were married in 2012, we had a couple really good years and we had a few extras. And I said, 'It was sad we couldn't share these with more people.'"

That led Larry and Tamra to put up a stand in 2017, for the first time in Ewing. They added the Clearwater location this year.

"It was fun and people enjoyed it," Tamra said. "They talked to us about it. It gave us something to talk about. They bought a few things and it gave us enough to justify buying more seeds the next year because pumpkin seeds can be expensive."

The couple's hobby of growing and selling pumpkins and gourds has helped finance another, more supersized interest of theirs.

Larry, a full-time farmer, mentioned to Tamra in December 2017 that he always wanted to grow giant pumpkins.

"I was interested in how big you can get something," Larry said. "If yo grow stuff, you like to know how big you can actually get it."

Tamra, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor and Extension plant pathologist, described growing giant pumpkins as a "form of extreme gardening."

"The giant pumpkins are probably the most popular just because they have the greatest potential to get large," she said.

Not long after Larry expressed his desire to grow giant pumpkins, Tamra dug for information online about them, purchased some seeds and presented them to him as a birthday gift.

"I found you could buy seed from a couple different places, so I got him some seed," Tamra said. "They're bred to be bigger.

"We just tried it. We planted them the same way we would normal ones and maybe fertilized them a little extra."

Larry and Tamra grew their first giant pumpkins in 2018 in their patch about 10 miles south of Ewing.

"We had four pumpkins that were growing, but we only harvested one," Larry said.

Tamra noted the other three giant pumpkins had died before they could be picked.

"We were ignorant to a lot of the challenges and the things that could go wrong," she said. "We didn't understand what we were doing and we lost two or three within a week's time."

Vine management was one issue the couple had to learn about. One of their first giant pumpkins that died had its stem torn in half and lost nutrients.

"There's a strategy to trying to grow a big one," Tamra said. "You want to remove all the other little pumpkins to prevent competition, so then all the resources from that whole plant go into the one pumpkin fruit."

Larry and Tamra also have had to deal with pest problems in their pumpkin patch.

"Wildlife is one of our biggest challenges – woodchucks, deer, mice – not to mention the crazy extreme weather we have in Nebraska," Tamra said.

Another of the couple's original giant pumpkins grew too fast and broke open.

"That can happen when they grow 20, 30 pounds a day – they can split," Larry said.

Tamra noted elite giant pumpkin growers have raised pumpkins that have weighed more than 2,000 pounds.

"They put on, at peak during the summer, over 50 pounds a day," she said. "That's what we're shooting for. We're not there yet.

It takes more experience and a heck of a lot of work."

Larry and Tamra took the heaviest giant pumpkin they grew this year to compete in the Great South Dakota Pumpkin Weigh-Off Saturday, Oct. 3, at the Riverview Christmas Tree Farm near Canton, South Dakota.

"We had a good weekend in Canton at the weigh-off and were awarded second place," Tamra said. "Our pumpkin weighed heavier than we expected at 822 pounds.

"We're very pleased and surprised, especially considering the difficulty that we experienced with the pumpkins during this year's growing season," she said.

That total did not squash the couple's personal best of a 996-pound giant pumpkin in 2019. That particular pumpkin placed fourth in the annual Downtown Pumpkin Festival in Rapid City, South Dakota.

However, the couple's 822-pound giant pumpkin did beat their first-year results – 807 pounds in 2018 – that won them second place at that year's Great South Dakota Pumpkin Weigh-Off.

The species Larry and Tamra grew for the competition is the Atlantic giant pumpkin, which is not the same as the usual orange orb that is used for carving and decorating during the fall season.

"It looked more impressive once we uncovered it and picked it up," Tamra said. "It was actually too wide to ride between the wheel wells of our pickup – a first for us – so we had to put it on top of two pallets to raise it above them."

On Sunday, Oct. 4, the day after the weigh-off, the couple took their prize-winning giant pumpkin to Martin's Hillside Orchard located north of Lincoln to be shown off to the public, just like they did last year with their 996-pound one.

"We greatly enjoyed the drive to and from Canton and Lincoln with so many surprised and happy people waving, taking photos and giving us the thumbs-up," Tamra said.

Another one of their giant pumpkins – estimated to weigh about 740 pounds – has been added to the "gourd-geous" display recently at Larry and Tamra's stand in Ewing.

"People can look at it and take a picture with it or even purchase it if they wish to," Tamra said.

The South Dakota competition was a sanctioned Great Pumpkin Commonwealth event.

"I hope more people get interested in it," Tamra said. "I don't see them as competitors as much as allies. These are people that will help grow the sport."

The organization sponsors weigh-offs for giant pumpkins and other produce across the United States and Canada.

"I would encourage anybody who's interested in this hobby – whether it's giant pumpkins or any other vegetable – that there is an organization called the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth," Tamra said.

"They should go see that website and read more about it," she said. "There's an incredible amount of information there and people willing to share how they achieved these results."