GREAT FALLS — At just 13 years old, Quigley Grosse is proving that patience and persistence can yield big results — literally. Earlier this year, Grosse planted a pumpkin seed at the Anaconda Hills Golf Course and spent months caring for it. By October, the pumpkin weighed in at 311 pounds.
His uncle had asked him to aim for growing a large pumpkin, and what started as a project turned into a season of science, teamwork and trial and error.
Madison Collier reports - watch the video here:
Grosse has been interested in growing pumpkins since he was about seven years old, inspired by a neighbor whose front yard was filled with vines and orange pumpkins.
“There was someone we’d walk past normally, and I just got sucked into that,” he said. “It was kind of cool. I was around 7 or 8, and his whole front yard was basically a pumpkin patch.”
Each week, Grosse visited the garden three times to water, fertilize and measure the pumpkin’s growth. He even created an algorithm to estimate its weight by taking measurements around the circumference and plugging them into a formula.
“He’d be out here with a tape measure, adding up all the numbers to figure out the weight,” said his brother, Oliver Grosse. “I mostly handled watering, but he did all the real work.”
The process wasn’t easy. The pumpkin split open more than once, and Grosse had to find ways to protect it from pests and disease.
“It split open a couple of times, so I cleaned it with rubbing alcohol to keep bacteria out,” he said. “I even mixed up a paste to stop critters from chewing on it.”
He also used potassium to strengthen weak spots and boost growth late in the season, something he said was a “lifesaver.”
By the end of the summer, the Grosse family had to use a truck scale to weigh the pumpkin. Quigley’s previous record was 81 pounds, and he initially hoped to reach 100 pounds this year.
“Probably when it gains the most weight; that’s just really cool,” he said. “Come up here Friday, estimate it, then over the weekend come back and it’s grown a ton.”
Now, as fall settles in, Grosse is already planning for next spring, aiming to grow a 500-pound pumpkin and beat his own record.
