By Joe Whalen
A decade of stunted bids to grow pumpkins ended with a dramatic windfall last month for a Vietnam veteran and his family in Floral Park.
Jack Verrelli, a 61-year-old electrician, said he was shocked to find an 88-pound pumpkin on the ground in the backyard of 86-46 261st St., where he lives with his wife Anne. Verrelli, a self-described “amateur gardener,” had planted pumpkin seeds every August for the past 10 years — efforts that, until this September, had always produced dubious results.
“I was absolutely amazed. I’d never had any success with pumpkins,” said Verrelli, whose backyard features a wide bed of impatiens beneath the burgundy leaves of a Japanese maple. “They would grow to the size of golf balls and rot off, just fall off [the vine] and die.”
The exhilarating discovery took place on a somber first year anniversary.
“On Sept. 11, I noticed a huge pumpkin in the middle of a bush that must have been blown down by the wind,” said Verrelli, a Nassau Co. Chapter 82 Vietnam Veterans of American member who survived two months of perimeter fighting in Ben Cat with the 1st Division Artillery before contracting dengue fever. “If you remember that day, the wind was blowing like the tail end of a hurricane, like 40 miles an hour.”
The enormous fruition arose out of a potent dose of waste.
Unlike seasons past, Verrelli planted this year’s seeds with a handful of material taken from Anne’s compost bin — a large green cylinder that stands beside the flowerbed in the backyard. After one pumpkin grew to about five pounds, he placed it atop the 12-foot bush.
However, Verrelli said he did not witness the development, as the pumpkin grew hidden from view within the shrub’s leaves.
“It was a complete surprise. The organic and fertile composition of it must have been just right,” Verrelli said of his wife’s compost. “I’m not an expert when it comes to growing. It was just pot luck, I guess.”
The man with the green thumb lugged the pumpkin across the wooden deck of his pool and weighed it with a neighbor’s bathroom scale. He recently took pictures of his prize — shots he plans to send to family members and friends.
One of the Floral Park couple’s seven children thinks highly of the grass roots production.
“I’m impressed,” said Valentina Verrelli, 23, a biology major at LIU-Southhampton who plans to become a veterinarian. “My father is an impressive gardener — an impressive amateur.”
Verrelli said he may ask his wife to make pumpkin pie. First, however, he wants the neighbors to see his oversized creation.
“I’m going to try to save it as long as I can,” he said. “Maybe I’ll put it on the front stoop with a sign on it: Homegrown, 88 pounds.”
Reach reporter Joe Whalen by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
