Dick Kilburn knows how to grow gigantic pumpkins.

All you need are special seeds, good dirt — and some TLC, like sleeping bags, underground heating cables and individual greenhouses.

His hard work paid off this year. Literally.

Dick took home first prize — and $2,000 — for his 1,355-pound pumpkin in the Pacific Northwest Giant Pumpkin Growers’ Central Market contest earlier this month. It was one of four huge pumpkins Dick and wife Ria grew in their M Avenue backyard.

“We’d always grown pumpkins for the kids,” Dick Kilburn said. “I decided one day to get a little more serious about it.”

Last year, the couple grew an 816-pound pumpkin.

“That was our first year trying to grow a giant pumpkin,” Ria said. “We were very excited.”

This year Dick had a goal — grow a 1,000-pound giant.

He did it. And then some.

Besides the first-place winner, the couple has a 997.5-pound pumpkin that placed third in a Snohomish event, a 1,078.5-pound pumpkin that placed eighth in a Bauman’s contest in Gervais, Ore., and a 945-pound pumpkin that didn’t make it to competition because it ended up with several holes.

“We did pretty good this year,” Dick said.

It takes special seeds to grow huge pumpkins.

“There’s different genes than a regular pumpkin,” he said.

The seeds start in the house or greenhouse around the last week of April.

“They only spend about a week in there because they grow so fast,” Dick said.

Then it’s out to the garden around the first week of May. The soil is warmed with heating cables and they build tiny greenhouses around the starts to keep them warm.

By the end of June, little pumpkins have formed.

“The key is the soil,” Dick said. “I’ve learned a lot in the past couple years about dirt.”

This year they used a lot of horse manure donated by friends. In the past they’ve used chicken compost. Dick tests the soil to make sure the nutrients are right before putting in the pumpkins.

He uses organic fertilizer and only puts on pesticide or fungicide if the aphids or mildew aren’t taken care of by the organic stuff.

The pumpkins require constant watering.

“They take a lot of water and they grow real fast,” Dick said.

His have gained up to 20 pounds a day.

The Kilburns have a huge space in their backyard for growing the pumpkins. Each plant grows about 650 feet.

“They’ll grow 3,000 feet if you’ll let them,” Dick said.

He prunes the vines so the plant’s energy goes to the pumpkin.

The pumpkins get lots of TLC, but the Kilburns draw the line at talking to them.

“Some people have radios going all the time,” Dick said.

But they do get some special treatment. They’re covered with old sleeping bags overnight to keep them warm.

Though some growers name them, these giants are just pumpkins for the Kilburns.

“I try not to get too attached,” Dick said.

The congregation of the nearby New Hope Christian Church keeps an eye on the growing pumpkins.

“They watch over them,” he said.

One day, elders at the church offered to pray for the pumpkins.

“Whatever they were doing helped,” Dick said.

It takes a big scale to weigh the oversize pumpkins.

Dick, who works at Puget Sound Rope, used a borrowed excavator and a sling to get the pumpkins out of the patch this year.

“Before that I would bring the fork lift home from work,” he said. But it would inevitably get stuck and have to be towed out.

Last week, the couple hosted kindergarten classes from local elementary schools. The kids got to check out three of the pumpkins, hear pumpkin stories from Ria, who works at the library, and pick their own average-size pumpkin to take home.

The couple plan to carve the three monsters into jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween. The seeds will get saved and dried to be used for next year’s pumpkins. Some will also be given to pumpkin growing clubs they belong to and possibly auctioned off.

Dick already has plans for next year.

“To get one the same size would be good. Hopefully this wasn’t a fluke.”

Fun facts

• According to the Pumpkin Nook, the largest pumpkin weighed in at 1,725 pounds at the Ohio Valley Giant Pumpkin growers weigh-off on Oct. 3, 2009. The Washington record of 1,505 pounds is held by a Puyallup man.
• Eighty percent of the pumpkin supply in the United States is available in October.
• Pumpkins were once recommended as a cure for freckles and were used as a remedy for snake bites.
• Pumpkins are rich in vitamin A and potassium and are also high in fiber.
• The pumpkin is a member of the cucurbita family, which includes squash and cucumbers.