458 pounds and smashed

Giant pumpkin ‘Junior’ vandalized in Fort Dick

Steve Preston and his giant pumpkin, ‘Junior,’ about a month before it was stolen and smashed. (Submitted)

Junior was kidnapped from his Fort Dick home last Friday night.

But the true horror began when students found him smashed to pieces behind Redwood School.

One question remains, said Steve Preston: “How were they able to get him up and take him?”

Weighing an estimated 458 pounds, Junior might have been on his way to becoming Del Norte’s biggest Jack-o-lantern, Preston said.

“Everybody was calling and saying, ‘I’m so sorry,’ like somebody died,” he said with a forced smile.

Asked if there were any suspects, Preston said, “I don’t see an adult coming onto my property, 50 yards from my home, just to take a pumpkin.”

“We were all kids once, but this was just messed up,” he added.

Growing pumpkins of mammoth proportions has been a hobby of his for the past two years, and Junior was the culmination of it.

“I do this with my daughters, it’s something we can do together out in the garden,” said Preston. “I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, and I’ve been farming all my life.”

The process is a long and tedious one, he said, which added to his lament when Junior was stolen and smashed.

Preston was able to able to gather up the remains and salvaged hundreds of seeds, so another grow is a possibility, but not without added security, he said.

“I paid $20 for the seeds,” he said.

Junior began as a seed in a cup, which was watered daily under a UV lamp.

When the first “true leaf” grew, Junior was transported to the garden.

After the seedling was put in the garden, Preston said the plant was tended to daily.

The pumpkin took six months to grow to the size it was when it was taken, said Preston.

Using calculations he learned from a pumpkin-growing Web site, Preston calculated the pumpkin’s mass at 458 pounds before it was smashed.

After the vines started growing pumpkins, Preston said the truly tedious work began. On a daily basis, he would stake out every vine, trim them and make sure they were not touching any of the pumpkins.

Toward the end of the grow, Preston said that he actually cut off some of the pumpkins, so all of the plant’s growing would be “directed” to Junior.

The thief or thieves left three other pumpkins, Preston said, so he was happy that at least his daughters got to keep theirs.

Asked if he would still grow gargantuan pumpkins, Preston said, “right now I don’t want to because I don’t want it to happen again, but maybe if I get a fence up.”

He also talked about what he would do if he found out who had taken and smashed Junior.

“I would tell their dads, then I would make them dig the post-holes for my new fence,” said Preston.

“I don’t want to ruin a kid’s life over smashing pumpkins, even though that would have been felony grand theft,” he said.