Growing the Big One

Emma Silver is a radio personality who relocated from New York City to establish her career in Seattle. After hearing of her grandfather Walt's death, Emma returns to her childhood home in Valleyville, Washington. After meeting with the attorney Bobby Ellis, Emma discovers that she has inherited Walt's farm and pumpkin seeds. Bobby suggests that Walt wanted Emma to enter the local pumpkin growing contest to keep up a family tradition. In his last letter, Walt instructs his granddaughter to find someone to take care of the farm. Emma's new neighbor Seth Cullen contemplates asking Emma for Walt's seeds so that he can enter the contest and win its grand prize, which would allow him to open his own automobile repair shop. Emma and Seth first meet when he is repairing her front door and she mistakes him for a burglar. During Walt's funeral, Emma learns that Walt was in debt. Bobby tells her that the entire debt must be paid by the end of the year or the farm will be foreclosed. Mayor Kyle Finster informs Emma that he intends to develop the land following its foreclosure.

Emma is dismayed to learn that she has been replaced by a younger radio host and is reassigned to a gardening program she is tasked to video broadcast via webcams installed in Walt's farmhouse. Emma talks to Seth about his future business plans, and later learns that the grand prize for the pumpkin growing contest will be doubled if the entry weighs more than the world record. She decides to enter the contest. Her first broadcast is a disaster because of her lack of familiarity with the subject. A group of women from the town known as the "Pumpkin Widows" spend time with Emma and begin teaching her about growing pumpkins, and tell her of Walt's practice of singing "The Yankee Doodle Boy" to his seeds. They are called the Pumpkin Widows because their husbands focus all of their energy on growing pumpkins. A video of Emma and the women serenading the pumpkin seeds goes viral, leading Emma's new boss to coordinate a campaign for her program around the pumpkin growing contest.

Following the women's suggestion, Emma searches for and finds Walt's journal containing all of his pumpkin growing secrets. She discovers that Walt documented all of his strategies in code. After Seth helps to translate a portion of the journal, he tries to partner with her, but she refuses believing she must grow the pumpkins by herself. Emma is unable to spread manure as she falls down while attempting to use the tiller. During a poker game Seth wins a bet which forces Emma to collaborate with him for the contest. While they work together, Seth participates in Emma's radio program. Bobby informs Seth about her reasons for joining the contest.

The pair's pumpkins growth is slow, and Seth and Emma often clash during their collaboration. They grow closer while watching old films together and discussing their pasts. Seth talks about his degree in engineering from Stanford University and his decision to move out of the city in favor of the country, and Emma reveals her childhood dream of hosting her own talk show. When they are interviewed by Emma as part of her show, the Pumpkin Widows share stories of their husbands' obsessions with growing pumpkins. Emma and Seth sneak onto the mayor's farm to find out his pumpkin growing secrets. Emma asks Seth on a date while they appear at a promotional photo shoot in Seattle. Their date is interrupted by Emma accepting an offer from a television executive to be an anchor on a New York City morning news program. The pair's pumpkin starts growing larger; Emma finds the real pumpkin growing journal and learns that the other book was actually Walt's poems to his wife. Emma and Seth win the contest, and beat the record. Rejecting the New York job offer, Emma starts her own talk show in Valleyville along with Seth. Emma pays off Walt's debt with the prize money, and Seth opens his own car repair shop. The film ends with the couple becoming engaged.

A sneak peek and a behind-the-scenes video were released before the film's debut.[11] Growing the Big One was first broadcast on October 23, 2010, on the Hallmark Channel at 9 pm Eastern Standard Time in the United States.[12] It served as the start of the network's "Countdown to Halloween" programming block.[13] During the promotion of the television project, the network's executives said that it was "the first film to be harvested in the network's three-month countdown to the holidays".[14]

It received a Nielsen rating of 2.6 million viewers, which made it the second highest performing television movie on all ad-supported cable television networks for the night. It was also the third highest rated movie for October 23, 2010, for women between the ages of 25 and 54, and helped make the Hallmark Channel the fourth highest rated cable network for that day.[15] The movie was released for home viewing on DVD on October 26, 2010.[16][17][18] It was released with the tagline, "Love Grows In Funny Places",[18] and promoted as "family entertainment".[16]

Critical response was largely positive, with Angelique Flores of Home Media magazine calling it "wholesome, sweet and refreshing" and an appropriate alternative to the typical horror films shown during Halloween.[17] Entertainment Weekly's Mandi Bierly praised the film's title, writing: "This is one title we'll enjoy adding to the 'city girl needs to move to the country to find a man' genre".[19] Bierly compared the filming style and locations to those used in the American comedy-drama television series Gilmore Girls (2000–2007), and said that she was "obsessed" with the Hallmark television movie.[11] Echoing Bierly's sentiment, Michelle of the online news magazine TV Equals described Growing the Big One as "my absolute favorite kind of television holiday movie".[20] The Los Angeles Times' Ed Stockly included the film in his guide to Halloween on television.[21] Jessica Leigh Mattern wrote that Growing the Big One would appeal to fans of the television series When Calls the Heart.[22]

Laura Fries of Variety provided a more mixed review of Growing the Big One, calling it a "corny, or more adequately, 'seedy' original pic" reminiscent of the 1987 film Baby Boom. Fries praised Doherty's performance as "showing more warmth and charisma than seen in a good while" and the performances and relationships in the small-town community, but was critical of Smith's acting and the chemistry between the two lead actors.[2]

• Growing the Big One at IMDb
• Growing the Big One at AllMovie