Jo Oates - Giant Pumpkins at the Red Hill Show

Jo Oates grows pumpkins. Big pumpkins. Pumpkins so big and heavy they take two men to lift. And that’s the point. Jo grows pumpkins to be the heaviest in show. For the past three years Jo has taken out blue ribbons for growing the heaviest pumpkin, with her great yellow-orange orbs weighing in at 29 kilograms, 51 kilograms and 42 kilograms over the years. This year she hopes to beat her own record and take out the blue ribbon once again.

 “The sun has been so harsh I have to grow it under a brolly,” says Jo. “The sun can cook the skin. Last year I used sunscreen and the pumpkin did not like that at all.”

Jo is an avid gardener, with five acres of sprawling lawn shaded by old manna gums and lined with hedges of lily pilly. She is a self-sufficient gardener, growing food for the kitchen table and preserving the bounty of the season. Jo has previously been an overall winner at the Red Hill Show with her preserves and jams. “I won a beautiful prize donated by the Merricks General Store,” says Jo. “I thought to myself, ‘been there, done that. Next’. So now it’s all about the heaviest pumpkin competition.”

On a sloping lawn of her Red Hill South garden she prepared a mound of compost that was rested for three months before she planted Atlantic Dill pumpkin seeds, a variety from the US traditionally grown to feed pigs. “There they can grow to 450 kilograms,” says Jo.

The pumpkin vines fruit in late spring and several pumpkins begin to grow. Eventually one will dominate in size and weight, and the other pumpkins are pruned and discarded. Jo feeds her pumpkin frequently with Seasol and waters it twice a day in summer, especially on hot days. “Then there’s the hard work of getting it to the show to be weighed and judged.”

 The weighing for the Heaviest Pumpkin will be at 2pm at the Mornington Peninsula Produce Stage and proudly sponsored by Windrest Cattery.