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Randy Warren has a huge problem and he knows it. His wife, Susan, has watched him struggle with his addiction for more than 10 years, yet she is powerless to help him overcome the demons that plague him.
It started out simply as a recreational pursuit, and Randy thought he
could handle it. But slowly, irrevocably, he lost control and his
craving became an all-powerful obsession. This time of year, it is the
same compulsive routine: every morning before he goes to work and
every evening when he returns home, Randy heads up the hill behind his
home on Millertown Road. It’s no secret about what he’s doing up
there . . . Randy’s growing giant pumpkins, and someday he’d like to
break the 1,000 pound barrier.
The Warren Ranch is a four-acre plat that slopes up from the North
Ravine, a year-round creek that rumbles by two houses at the base of
the hill. I live in a tiny ranch home that is mostly RV garage; the
Warrens live across the driveway in the main house with their two
children, Audrey and Archie. Along with his brother, Terry, Randy
helped his parents (both of whom have passed away) erect the buildings
back in 1988 and 1995, the last of roughly a dozen homes the Warrens
constructed on this roadway. That kind of impact on the neighborhood
makes me think the name should be changed from Millertown to Warrentown
Road.
Although it is not visible from the tree-shrouded country lane, a 9,000
square-foot pumpkin patch is just over the rise, and this is where
Randy works his magic. Contrary to the uninformed, cultivating
world-class pumpkins demands much more than finding the right seeds and
carefully tending hills. As Randy says, “It takes 1,000 hours and
1,000 beers to grow giant pumpkins.” Observing the process for the
last two growing seasons, I’d say he’s about right.
My conclusion is it also takes a person with unique skills, incredible
patience, a love for the outdoors and a huge, inexplicable obsession
that drives the process all year round. Randy is all of that, though
because he is a country boy who thinks carefully before he speaks, the
depth of his pumpkin passion seems to reside just below the surface.
By trade, Randy is a carpenter who has been employed for the last four
years as a building inspector/plans examiner for Placer County. This
short résumé belies the broad interests of a true Renaissance man,
someone with an insatiable curiosity that has lead to serious
self-study of earth sciences and more.
Randy is a skilled geneticist who not only has a keen sense of
selecting the right seeds, but carefully traces lineage and maintains
an archive of more than 1,000 significant examples. His seven-day
process for germinating seeds is remarkable and painstaking; it
involves filing the seed edges, incubation in a temperature-controlled
environment and then placing them under special grow lights until the
seedlings are ready to be planted in the garden.
Randy is an accomplished botanist, hand pollinating flowers from
selected plants to take the chance out letting the bees do the work.
He manages plant growth that enables a solitary vine to consume as much
as 1,000 square feet, with a single plant feeding no more than four
pumpkins and sometimes just one. All of that massive photosynthesis
power is focused on growing fleshy orbs of mind-boggling girth and
weight.
A talented agronomist, Randy takes great pains to monitor soil
conditions and has experimented with dozens of solutions to overcome
perceived problems in the pumpkin growing material. At this moment, he
is on the brink of moving the entire patch to another location because
the present site is simply not producing the behemoths that he dreams
about.
That will be a monumental task because he has installed an irrigation
system with 70 sprinkler heads controlled in seven zones. The garden
is surrounded by fencing secure enough to repel any second-story man,
much less the deer and other nocturnal creatures that prowl the
property. And then the thought of attempting to get the soil just
right is enough to make any grown horticulturist weep.
There are so many things that can go wrong in the perfect world Randy
has sought to create. I’ve seen him trod slowly down the hill with a
pained grimace that makes me think someone just sucker-punched him in
the gut. It could be that one of his prized pumpkins has gone soft,
has developed a massive crack or has been gnawed on by a gopher.
Anything can invade, from a swarm of aphids to stump rot to an
invisible watermelon mosaic virus.
Through it all, Randy remains stoic, even after the recent loss of a
promising vine. “I was really stoked about this plant,” he said. “I
spent two months on my hands and knees up there, and I couldn’t save
the plant from its disease.”
This year, it is unlikely there will be any prize winners grown on the
Warren Ranch. In 1997, Randy’s first pumpkins were tiny . . . in the
100-pound range. It took five years of experimentation for him to hit
the big time with an 810-pound giant that in 2002 was list as the 410th
all-time largest in the world. Seeds from this plant went to his
cousin Steve Fry, whose daughter, Amber, grew a 948-pound pumpkin, the
largest ever grown in the county.
For this year’s annual pumpkin competition at the Auburn Community
Festival (October 20th at Auburn Recreation District’s Recreation Park
on Auburn-Folsom Road), Randy is hoping to have an entry in the
550–to-650-pound range. “A pumpkin that size is just annoying,” Randy
complained. “It’s big, but it won’t do well in a weigh-off.”
During the peak growing time this year, Randy’s big boys ballooned as
much as four inches overnight, adding 12 pounds in weight for every
inch. The pumpkins are approaching peak size, but the competition is
still a month away. “We have to keep them happy for as long as we can,
and that’s part of the sickness,” Randy said.
However you rationalize it, I find it amazing to encounter someone with
the drive and passion Randy brings to this all-encompassing pursuit. Perhaps he is a better judge, though: “This is way too much time and
money for an adult to put into a hobby.”
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Gary Moffat is a journalist and co-owner of Carpe Vino in Old Town
Auburn. Read his other work at www.onlyinauburn.com and
www.carpevinoauburn.com .
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