Plenty of kids would have tossed a bag of seeds in a drawer and forgotten all about it. Not 13-year-old Harold Harris.
Last December, his grandmother gave him a very special Christmas present: giant pumpkin seeds. “My grandma got me some giant pumpkin seeds,” Harold told WBZ-TV. “I think from a 2,000-pound pumpkin or something.”
Harold, who lives on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, started the seeds indoors in April before planting them outside a few weeks later. He rode his bike over every day to water them. At first, not much happened. Then he spotted his first pumpkin on the vine, and then another. By September, he says, they were growing 4 to 8 pounds a day.
Like a little scientist, he tracked their progress with daily measurements and growth curves. When it was time to weigh them, the larger pumpkin tipped the scales at 535 pounds, and its “little” sibling came in at 340 pounds.
The pumpkins are so big it takes a forklift to move them. So what do you do with a pair of giants in October? Harold grabbed a saw and a chisel and carved them, just in time for Halloween.
His secret? “Got good seeds, gave them a lot of water, gave them good soil,” he said. And he’s already dreaming bigger: next year, he says, he might shoot for 800 pounds and maybe even enter a competition. What a gift that little bag of seeds turned out to be, and what a sweet reminder that a grandmother’s thoughtful present, plus a lot of patience, can grow into something truly extraordinary.
Video credit: CBS Evening News on YouTube