Our family has always enjoyed growing a garden every year and getting to enjoy seeing what all that hard work has produced in the end. Every year we tend to let a few things go for seed and also seeing how big they will get, we now have the room to start growing with true giant genetics and enjoy even bigger rewards. We are located in Southeastern Virginia in peanut country where sand is abundant and growing conditions can be challenging. Conditions can be heat, drought and humidity with various diseases and viruses, acidic soils, low organic matter and soil leaching problems with inability to hold nutrients, also various pests that will vector in the disease. The south isn’t a very forgiving place for pumpkins and squash along with other varieties, to be successful you need time to grow them big and time isn’t on your side and summer can seem like it starts in May and last through September, even into October with endless heat and humidity where disease thrives, but it can be done. Giant growers since 1979 have genetically selected for the bigger and bigger pumpkins. We forget where we gain in one place by selecting for that one trait we may start to lack in others, such as color, plant immunity with the ability to fight off diseases etc. The northern hemisphere of the United States has its issues but usually has always been a more favorable place to grow giant pumpkins and squash and less favorable to watermelon where the south would excel. Pumpkins and squash tend to like the shorter summer and cooler temp of the northern United States and watermelon loves more days of heat and warm nights of the south. As we continue to grow giants here we need to consider selecting from southern growers that has genetics that will be more tolerant of our climate, every year that we grow giants here and find those genetics that work, we will have more success. Although we will have some years that are pretty favorable to giants and allow us to do very well, but for the most part its not that favorable. I think selecting for other traits and not just a few should be thought about when we are pollinating. Sandy Field Giants is selecting from genetics that seem to do well here and trying to keep adding to that genetic pool, while pushing to the side the genetics that are very difficult to sustain here. Im hoping to eventually start helping people who are interested in giants and also get more folks involved in growing their own foods and learning about nutrients. Its not all about N-P-K, its a big rabbit hole to jump down and folks don’t have time to research, raise the garden and harvest, along with doing other things in their daily life. Folks would love to grow things, so if we can help them turn their brown thumb into a green thumb, thats an even bigger reward. We hear it all the time “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, everything dies that I touch”. If we can all use our strengths and contribute just one piece to the puzzle, we will be able to help each other and complete the puzzle and not be so frustrated trying to do it all by ourselves. Getting children involved is another thing we would love to see and get them started early, every year we lose children, teenagers, young adults to video games, a phone etc. They have no clue where their foods comes from or how it’s produced, we think the world of giants is a way to spark that interest. Eventually we hope to start a youtube channel to help people understand nutrients, how to build soils with similar conditions that we have here, and how we grow giants here. Thanks for taking a look!