Pumpkin Contest

So my mom and I decided we were going to have a pumpkin growing contest this year. Don't tell, but so far her plants are bigger than mine, erggg!!! I think I rushed the hardening off period and it stunted them. Haste makes waste, and all that jazz...Anyway, I was thinking, (I do that now and again) how many of you grow pumpkins?

I was thinking we could have some sort of a competition but I would need help figuring out how to set the judging. I'm fine with the honor system, I trust everyone. I could use the same blind answer document that the chicken contest is used, that way you would just enter your information without seeing everyone else's entries. But how would we determine it, size? weight? beauty? I was thinking circumference might be the easiest as it might get hard to weigh some of the larger varieties. My mom and I are growing "Dill's Atlantic Giant" which can get up to 500lbs!! We're also growing the heirloom "Connecticut Field Pumpkin". What varieties do you grow and what are your techniques? (or maybe you won't tell...? Huh? Huh?) I want to try to grow a milk fed pumpkin and see how that works. I first read about it in Farmer Boy from the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. Almanzo Wilder grows a milk fed pumpkin and wins first prize at the County Fair.

The entries would have to share a photo of their pumpkin and would receive a prize of one of our homemade items. Let me know what you think. The deadline could be Halloween Day?