The Inspiration Garden in Coquitlam's Town Centre Park is a veritable Eden these days, bursting with fulsome blooms, lush greenery and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables ripening in the seemingly never-ending summer sun.
Among those veggies are a squash and pumpkin that have been, well, busy to say the least.
The behemoths are weighing in at 319 and 156 lb. respectively, and put on about 15 lb. a day — the squash gained 80 lb. in one week alone.
"The squash has had its picture taken more times than a Kardashian," said parks program leader Roberta Ward.
The mighty gourds were Ward's idea, thanks to a friend who grows eye-poppers that can reach well over a thousand pounds. So, in late May, she gathered a bit of help, dug a pair of three-by-three-foot holes and filled them back up with some carefully mixed organic fertilizer and two seedlings.
Since then they've, been fed once a week with compost tea — the liquid produced in a compost pile — and carefully tended so that just two or three blooms actually grow into squash.
There's just one of each now and, although they're big, they're not likely to reach the record-breaking weight of more than 2,000 lb.
"They've really slowed down in the last week, I think because the nights have been colder," Ward said, noting the squash and pumpkins do all their growing at night. "The really big ones that get to over 1,000 lb., supposedly you can hear them growing."
Ward's "babies" have been too heavy to lift for some time now so, like a doting parent, she calculates the weight by taking several measurements and comparing them to a growth chart.
"It's amazing the amount of love and care Roberta has put into them," said Jennifer Urbaniak, the Park Spark program co-ordinator. "We're kind of hoping to make them a focal point during the Harvest Festival [in October]," possibly putting them on a trailer to transport them to various locations, carving up a "pumpkin boat" or just making an enormous pumpkin pie.
"There's a lot of fun ideas floating around," Urbaniak said.
Whatever happens, Ward added, "Luckily the city owns a crane truck."
• The Inspiration Garden (Guildford Way and Pipeline Road) will host a Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 24, part of Coquitlam's Harvest Week, running Oct. 19 to 24.
spayne@tricitynews.com
@spayneTC
