Well, don't believe everything you read on the internet. Big Pumpkin has produced a female blossom with only 25 leaves open. That's about 75-100 shy of the statements I found in my research. I went to my favorite big pumpkin info repository and found that once the vine is 8 feet long or so (and mine is) that it's fine and you don't have to pinch it off and that means that you could indeed, in fact, be looking at the very very very first picture of THE big pumpkin. I would also like to add that these new and uncurling leaves that are so furry in this picture are the sweetest and softest things in my entire backyard. Seriously, I believe that I may have been caught petting that pumpkin plant like a kitten last night but it's rather remarkable just how soft the new growth is.

There are other issues coming up that concern big pumpkin. Now, I'm a hardcore researcher and have graduated with honors from Google University but I didn't run across this new information until a few days ago. The big pumpkin vine will need to lay down roots. As in, in the ground. I don't know what I was thinking, just that the vines would lay on the top of the grass and apparently that's not out of the question but most growers recommend digging a TRENCH and letting the pumpkin vine lay in it and cover over the stem parts with dirt as it grows. The advantage to this is that the dreaded Squash Vine Borer won't mess with your plant as much which I like because I don't want to paint my big pumpkin plant with chemicals that I've heard don't work that well anyway. It's bad because it means I would have to dig a TRENCH in my back yard.

*shrug* I'm still undecided. I will say that big pumpkin is not interested in being shifted in one direction or the other. It has FIRMLY anchored itself to the grass with the little vines like you saw in my mafia pumpkin post.

I got a new picture of big pumpkin for you all, from the business end. Kind of like a freight train bearing down on you isn't it?