Timelapse: from seed to 600kg pumpkin

December 9, 2021 2:41 PM

Apropos of absolutely nothing (slyt) Exactly what it says on the side of the box.
posted by dfm500 (18 comments total)

I was expecting it to pop at the end.
posted by synecdoche at 2:51 PM on December 9, 2021 [10 favorites]

First I was mesmerized by the color-changing pot which I'm sure was just an effect of the sun, neat! And then the plant taking over the room like some particularly aggressive Kudzu, wow! Was that all really from the same seed? And then I thought, why don't they turn the pumpkin so it doesn't get a flat side? Great video, 10/10.
posted by Glinn at 2:56 PM on December 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

I love plant time lapse so much, we tend to conceptualize of plants as static beings but they are constantly on the move even when rooted. Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to document plant movement. Imagine if the major political/religious lynchpin of the 19th/20th century was not evolution but plant dynamics.

I don't know anything about mega produce, I wonder if they could grow giant pumpkins in a hammock to encourage a round shape?
posted by muddgirl at 3:01 PM on December 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Anecdotally, I've heard they don't do shaping on the giant pumpkins because they'll collapse under their own weight when the support is removed.

Big 'ol gourd.
posted by jellywerker at 3:06 PM on December 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can seed.
posted by credulous at 3:16 PM on December 9, 2021 [11 favorites]

Absolute unit.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:22 PM on December 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.

I, for one, welcome our old vegetable overlord.
posted by chavenet at 3:29 PM on December 9, 2021 [7 favorites]

The thing I like best about growing squashes like pumpkins is, you go outside in the morning and putter around, there's a midafternoon cloudburst, and when you go back out in the evening, the plant is four feet longer and has two new gourds. Like, it started the day at the edge of its raised bed, and there's some rain and some hot sun, and it's sprawled all the way down your sunny path.

Corn also gives really good "holy crap, how fast are you growing?" value for money.

(Plus you can plant corn, squash, and beans together in a three sisters planting, traditional to pre-1492 North American agriculture, and if you live in an area with reasonable rain, grow yourself a rapid little food jungle for the summer, it all comes up so FAST and so BIG.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:00 PM on December 9, 2021 [6 favorites]

(An area with reasonable rain and heat, just to ward off disappointment in fellow damp cools. Some years we get some, but.)
posted by clew at 4:12 PM on December 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

...is how great pumpkin is formed?
posted by clavdivs at 4:30 PM on December 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

I liked the part when "Ride of the Valkyries" started. It seemed a really appropriate choice of music.
posted by dfm500 at 4:54 PM on December 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Gourd almighty!
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:02 PM on December 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

And then the plant taking over the room like some particularly aggressive Kudzu, wow! Was that all really from the same seed?

Based on what happened in my family garden in second grade when Mrs. Knox gave us all pumpkin seed to plant: yes, it checks out.

Bonus: at one point there were maybe a dozen nascent pumpkins on the vine, each maybe the size of a cherry tomato. Then my baby sister was in the back yard playing and ate a dozen pumpkins, like you do.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:37 PM on December 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

I had an apartment once with a little bamboo fence right outside my bedroom window on the second floor. I remember I'd note a specific little poke of bamboo and got to class and stuff for the day and come home and see it eye level with my window, taller than it the next day. I tried once to just watch it to see if I could see it grow in real-time, but with wind it's just wobbling around and you're so used to looking at it you can't perceive it happening.

What other plants besides pumpkins can the determined reliably grow Super Size?
posted by GoblinHoney at 5:41 PM on December 9, 2021

Pregnancy flashbacks
posted by stray at 5:53 PM on December 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

dfm500 beat me to it, but this one of a few examples of a video where unneeded music added to it makes it better. Of course, I didn't realize that until I sent the video to my wife and she listened to it with the sound on.
posted by mollweide at 6:16 PM on December 9, 2021

It’s like the pumpkin was being inflated!

I love Boxlapse for plant timelapses.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:06 AM on December 10, 2021

What other plants besides pumpkins can the determined reliably grow Super Size?

Giant Vegetable Marrows are sort of infamous. They’re close relatives of pumpkin, so not too surprising.

If you pick almost all the peaches or apples off a tree when tiny, the remaining few grow bigger, but they have a max size *much* closer to average size so it isn’t as surprising.
posted by clew at 2:36 PM on December 10, 2021