Harvesting a plump pumpkin
<p>JEROME A. POLLOS/Press Sage Martin, 10, moves out of the way of her father, Ron Martin, as he carries a 73-pound pumpkin he cut from the fine in their Post Falls backyard Wednesday.</p>
POST FALLS - Rather than going to a farm or store for a pumpkin this year, 10-year-old Sage Martin wanted to give her green thumb a try.
"When we went to look for seeds, my dad (Ron) said we could try pumpkins and, if it works out well, maybe we can do it again next year," Sage said.
Next year is already a go.
Not only did the farming experience work out well for Sage, a 73-pound pumpkin cropped up in her first attempt at growing the gourds.
"I was pretty excited to see how big it got," said Sage, a student at CornerStone Christian Academy. "It's been fun watching it grow and measuring it. Every day it grows by about an inch.
"I'm going to carve it with the rest of my family and put a funny or scary face on it."
The secret to Sage's success?
"I just treated it like a normal plant and gave it some horse manure," she said. "I put the manure in water and let it sit a couple days. Then I put the water on it every once in awhile."
The seeds Sage planted weren't advertised as giant pumpkins.
"Just average everyday pumpkin seeds," said Sage's mother, Ronda.
This one just happened to dwarf the others. It's 4 feet, 11 inches around.
"My husband thought about putting it in the Spokane fair, but Sage didn't want to, to see how big it got," Ronda said.
The average pumpkin weighs between 30 and 40 pounds, depending on who you ask.
Sage said she generally picks her pumpkin out at a farm, but she now has farming fever.
"The farm and stores only have little ones," she said. "I was hoping I'd get a big one because the small ones are hard to carve and I want to make a bigger face."