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Pick of the Patch 2012 – And the Winners Are . . .
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Photos by Carol and Darrel Kinney
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• Mon, Oct 01, 2012
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Taking third place was a 353-pound pumpkin grown by Ronald Serabia and his young grandson Thomas Huston. Adjacent to a garden filled with sweet corn, beans, peppers and zucchini, his giant pumpkins rested on six feet of topsoil and were quenched by well water.
"Everything grows well on the property, and we don’t have to worry about a water bill,” said Serabia, explaining the semi-drip system he uses in conjunction with soaker hoses and five feet of rope.
He tells how each time his grandson visited, he would dig in the dirt. Then he read about the Ramona Home Journal pumpkin contest and planted a few seeds a couple years ago.
"The biggest pumpkin we grew our first year was 140 pounds,” he said. He saved seeds from that batch, and this year when Thomas asked, "Papa, we gonna plant big pumpkins again?” Serabia couldn’t resist.
He looked online, went to the library and studied how to grow the mammoth pumpkins. "It was only by chance it got that big and didn’t rot,” he said, adding that the recent rains and hot weather gave them a run for their money.
Serabia plans on sharing his winnings with Thomas, and says besides the luck of the draw, he didn’t use any artificial stuff. He got caterpillars, praying mantises and ladybugs to help manage the bugs.
"Growing pumpkins has been a great blessing to our family,” he added. "Just like our little grandson Thomas.”
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