From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Simi valley, ca

I seen today at Lows Seed packs of alantic giant pumpkins, several in the pks for 2.98$ , They felt small from the outside of packs, On pk it said from 400- 500 lbs growen, howard dill was mentioned on label,

2/8/2007 1:32:20 AM

Central Pennsylvania [email protected]

Yep I saw them too. I wonder how true thier claims are about the weights they came from.

2/8/2007 7:50:44 AM

ExtremeVegetables.com

I've seen these on the Lowes shelves nearly a month ago around here. A few questions crossed my mind at the time.

Is this a result of the patent on the Atlantic Giant running out?

Are these seeds actually grown by the Dill family?

How many Lowes are there? I figure that if each pumpkin "between 4 - 600 lbs. had 500 seeds, it would take 2 to 3 pumpkins per Lowes store.
Lowes is a pretty big chain, that's a LOT of 500 pound Pumpkins!!

I've been trying real hard for about 4 years now to grow a Big one, with my personal best being just over 300 lbs. UOW

If there is a patch out there that has literally THOUSANDS of 500 pound pumpkins, I HAVE TO SEE THAT!!!!!!!

2/8/2007 7:58:57 AM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

Greenhousin...go west my friend to a place called Indiana...To Beachy's place

2/8/2007 8:50:40 AM

Georgia

Yeah I bet Beachys patches are full of big guys during the season hopefully hill post some more pics this year. As for those seeds Ive seen them too and I love how some of the packets say you can grow 300 pounders with almost no effort at all.

2/8/2007 10:20:21 AM

Boulder County Colorado USA planet Earth

the seed packets I saw at lowes said 7 seeds. Well question how low do the plant patients last? I thought 20 yrs.
Capt

2/8/2007 11:10:10 AM

Little-TON - Colorado

Captn, Email sent your way. Did you get it?

2/8/2007 12:02:58 PM

Omaha, NE (N41-15-42 )

I saw them as well. My sense from looking at the envelopes is that yes, they are from the Dill family, and I am happy they are making inroads into new marketing channels. it will be good for the sport.

2/8/2007 1:59:39 PM

Pinedale, WY

I grew one from those packets last year and it was about the size of a baseball, my pie pumpkins got way bigger.

2/8/2007 3:31:17 PM

Sioux Falls, SD [email protected]

I don't think Lowe's would misrepresent.
They're from real Atlantic Giants
And if that requires hundreds of pumpkins
Somebody here knows where they're getting them
Haven't there always been OTC AG's?
I'm guessing they're better than they used to be
Doesn't hurt the sport. . .they'll upgrade next year

2/8/2007 8:41:27 PM

Marshfield, Ma, USA

Seven years ago I grew my first AG from seed in a store bought packet with a pic of Howard Dill kneeling next to a pumpkin on it. Probably the same.

2/8/2007 9:20:22 PM

San Diego, Ca.

Fisssh, I saw them at the Lowes in my area too. They've been selling them for about a month or so.

2/8/2007 10:14:43 PM

Auburn Maine, USA

Maybe some will take theirs to some of the weigh offs. I think this is great

2/8/2007 10:36:20 PM

ExtremeVegetables.com

LOWES operates 1,375 stores in 49 states. Assuming that all of the LOWES stores carry the same seed product line that would take between 2650 - 4125 "500 pound pumpkins" not pumpkins, "an average of 3387, 500 POUND PUMPKINS".

Now granted there are many pumpkin farms which are growing more than that many pumpkins, but were talking about 500 pound pumpkins here.

I would imagine that the Dill's and Mr. Beachy do have extremely large patches with several hundred, possibly even thousands of pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and weights, but 3000+ of them 400 pounds and over?
The labor cost alone must be through the roof.

Often large seed producers will sub-contract grow their seeds.

Perhaps I am just overwhelmed with the idea of so many 400 - 600 pounders in one location.

Certainly nothing wrong with mass producing and advertising the Atlantic Giant variety as it could only increase awareness of the hobby. :tumbsup:

The only down side I can see is, it's another hit the Mom and Pop hardware stores and seed vendors that used to be the only readily available business that supplied them will take. Specialty seeds are what draws people in to these small business.

2/9/2007 8:15:54 AM

Oz

Are the seeds from the dills? Or just name and pics?

2/9/2007 9:55:42 AM

Nova Scotia

Glad to hear our Dill's Atlantic Giant seeds are starting to show up at Lowe's stores. This is a very exciting venture, and another huge means of promotion for the entire giant pumpkin community. The spin-offs could be enourmous; a whole new wave of growers, some who very well may become the next Ron Wallace; more members for all clubs, more bp members and who's to say, possibly a national sponsor?
We have worked with Lowe's since last Spring on this project, supplying seed, text, promo material, etc. They will also be developing a web-site dedicated to growing the Atlantic Giant. Lowe's customers will be able to see Howard Dill growing a pumpkin from seed to harvest, the course of the growing season. Mind you, it is not too detailed or complex, but a nice general overview.
Of course, the size of the seed will appear 'small' to most of you who now have a few years of experience, however, keep in mind, this is a large commercial reproduction where seed yields are the priority. The size of the seed should never, ever be a deterrent to any grower. I've seen some very small seed this year come out of pumpkins such as 1068 Wallace, 670 Daigle, 1016 Daletas, to name a few. Also, if I recall, have there not been a few 200-400 lb. pumpkins in recent years producing some big results?
Thank you for your time and please let us know what the display looks like. We have no idea as there are no Lowe's stores here in Canada(yet). Danny
PS Lowe's are Pumped!

2/9/2007 1:50:38 PM

[email protected]

Cool!

2/9/2007 2:44:24 PM

Central Pennsylvania [email protected]

Usually pumpkins are given a row in the seed rack, these ones have a whole rack to themselves! Maybe someone here can get a picture of them and post the link here. Thank you for calming our concerns Mr. Dill!

2/9/2007 4:45:35 PM

Pocatello ([email protected])

Yes, I went in to Lowe's the other day. Normally, if you're lucky, you might see one seed packet between "Parsley" and "Pumpkin, Sugar Pie".... But this was a whole rack!! It was about 4 feet tall and 2.5 feet wide. There had to be 200 seed packets on that display.

Now, on the other hand, consider that this is the Pocatello store. In the whole city of Pocatello and it's surroundings, there are only a half-dozen people who have ever tried this, and all of them (except me) did it because I twisted their arm to get them to try it.

I can only imagine if 10% of the people who buy the seed actually become interested and start doing this year after year...

In the meantime, I'm scheduled to teach a class at a local nursery on the subject, "How to grow giant pumpkins".

Is this hobby really on a growth curve? Probably.

2/12/2007 12:22:29 PM

Pocatello ([email protected])

I should mention, one packet costs $2.49. Now that I know that the Dills are behind this, I might even buy a packet (just for fun). If I get a chance in the next few days, I'll take a picture and post it.

If Lowe's is behind this with a website and these large displays... a lot of marketing thought goes into these things. A display like that takes up valuable space in the store. I can only think that they might try to work some images of this into their TV ads that would start running this spring.

2/12/2007 12:35:29 PM

Georgia

Ive seen that at home depot also. Actually I think Dills Atlantic Giant seeds have been around to the public for a bit. Not sure if they were actually Dills but ive seen them in gardening catologs over the last few years. At home depot they werent in there own rack or anything just next to the Big Macs and Prizewinners. Ive noticed that the packets for the Prize winners and Macs have more sold then the AGS. I think the average gardeners thinking that hes just gonna plant some and end up with a 500 pounder that he cant handle which we all know its not that easy. So they buy the prize winners instead.

2/13/2007 11:37:24 AM