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photo by Bob Pennell Jim Baehr's pumpkin, measuring 121 inches in circumference, was the winner in this year's Mail Tribune Great Pumpkin contest. Great Pumkin(s) rise again By Bill Kettler Caroline Odom isn't old enough to have a lot of gardening experience, so she turned to some barnyard friends for help when she wanted to grow a big pumpkin. Manure from the family chickens helped 10-year-old Caroline grow a pumpkin that nearly took top prize in this year's Mail Tribune Great Pumpkin contest. Her 106-inch squash finished just behind Jim Baehr's winning 121-inch monster. "Dad and I had wanted to grow a big pumpkin for a long time," said Caroline, a fifth-grade student at Oak Grove Elementary School. "I got a package of seeds. Dad (Medford landscaper Dave Odom) piled up the mound of chicken poop." Most of Caroline's seeds didn't sprout. One of the few that took off might have won first prize if she had pruned a second pumpkin off the vine. The plant spent a chunk of its energy growing that second squash, which measured 74 inches in circumference. Focusing a pumpkin vine's energy on a single fruit is the key to growing prodigious pumpkins, said Baehr, who also grew the winner in the 1996 contest. Good drainage helps, too. Baehr hauled seven pickup loads of sand into the back yard of his Medford garden and tilled in compost to provide the good drainage that pumpkins need. He also fed his pumpkin a steady diet of fish fertilizer and Miracle Gro. Baehr said this year's prize pumpkin nearly expired in midsummer when its sheer weight threatened to kink its stem. He and his twin brother, John, carefully shifted the pumpkin to keep its umbilical cord intact, and the big squash kept growing. Retired millworker Leonard Zastera of Central Point took third prize with a 96-inch pumpkin, narrowly edging the 95-inch squash grown by Medford letter carrier Buzz Widmer. Baehr earned a $50 gift certificate from the Grange Co-op for his work. Caroline will get $30 of mad money, and Zastera will have $20 to spend. Baehr's winning pumpkin came from seed thrown by last year's winner, a 12-foot, 9-inch, 727-pound behemoth grown by his brother. The Baehrs hand-pollinated that squash to maintain the seed strain's genetic purity. "You don't want to let the bees do it," said Jim Baehr. "They bring in pollen from watermelon and (other kinds of) squash." He said cool, damp spring weather shortened this year's growing season by nearly a month. When the hot weather finally set in, the pumpkin grew 73 pounds in just six days. John Baehr's pumpkins faltered this year. Several promising squash rotted during the cool weather of late spring and early summer. "A lot of this is luck," said his brother. Caroline already has her sights set on her 1999 pumpkin patch. "Next year," she said, "I'm going to grow one way bigger." Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA