Bungay mum takes up son’s monster pumpkin challenge

A woman who took up her son’s pumpkin-growing challenge has grown a vast vegetable weighing in at an incredible 58 stone (368kg).

Johnny Crickmore, from Fen Farm Dairy, Bungay, Suffolk, raised three plants from specialist seeds and gave his mother Frances “the worst one”, she said.

Ms Crickmore said she “spoilt” her “flea-bitten” plant with masses of manure and plenty of water to produce the whopper.

Her son admitted he “knew quite early on I was beaten”. His pumpkin weighed a measly 2.9 stone (19kg).

Ms Crickmore called her winning vegetable Sirius, “because that’s the brightest star in the sky”.

Mr Crickmore said he had always been fascinated by pumpkins, but it had been years since he had last grown any.

So this year, having decided “there’s nothing worse than seeing pathetic little pumpkins”, the farmer bought three seeds from a professional grower specialising in giant plants based in the United States.

They were initially raised as seedlings in his mother’s greenhouse, before he “chose the two better looking specimens”, offering her the third one, he said.

Ms Crickmore told him: “You know I’ll win this competition.”

Her competitive streak comes from her own mother and she has passed it on to her sons, she said.

Her tactics included covering the plant up if the growing conditions were too hot, cold or wet.

She also sneaked into Mr Crickmore’s pumpkin patch at 06:00 one morning to steal pollen, admitting: “They caught me doing it.”

“It’s because I had the female pumpkin, but I didn’t have any male flower and I thought, ‘ahh I know where there is a male flower’ – I ripped the petals off and it worked.”

Pumpkins need to be pollinated to produce fruit.

Mr Crickmore said they planned to re-run the competition next year.

“I know what mother’s tactics are now – or maybe I’ll give her one of the not-so-good seeds,” he said.