It's competitive gourd season, motherf**kers

October 17, 2018 8:20 PM

From Barnesville, Ohio, Topsfield and Marshfield, Massachusetts, to Half Moon Bay, California, contest and county fair records for "heaviest pumpkin" have been falling like autumn leaves. National records have also been crushed beneath the weight of some impressive specimens - a new Canadian record (1,959 lbs), a new UK record for the largest pumpkin grown indoors (2,433.9 lbs), and a new U.S. (and North American) record (2,528 lbs). The current world record of 2,624.6 lbs still stands for now. Have pumpkins maxed out?

Previously:

The Greatest Pumpkin

Pumpkins! Pumpkins! Pumpkins! Facts! Recipes! More!

posted by mandolin conspiracy (17 comments total)

Have pumpkins maxed out?

NEVER
posted by Chrysostom at 8:30 PM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

We choose to grow a 3,000 pound pumpkin in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:55 PM on October 17, 2018 [10 favorites]

Holy shit, Barnesville! I lived there for a while. The pumpkin festival was the big event for the town, bigger than any sort of homecoming, or Halloween activity. I was not around for the 4th, so I don't know about that one, but I did suspect it. I never went, but they had pictures up all over the place of the prize winning pumpkins. I on the other hand, thought they should be competing for tastiest pumpkin, but I was a minority of one.

Giant pumpkins, as you can see in the photos, tend lose their coloration and just look like of gross. I remember a few having kinda rotten bottoms from sitting on damp ground. I'm actually surprised at how orange the Marshfield ones are, that's more than I ever saw.
posted by Hactar at 9:15 PM on October 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

Wtf I don't understand, how can they grow 60lbs a day

don't say witchcraft
posted by Hermione Granger at 9:48 PM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Let me recommend the standard text in the field.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:11 PM on October 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere.

Pumpkin farmers who are optimizing for size are tragically misguided.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:22 AM on October 18, 2018 [10 favorites]

In other giant pumpkin news from New Hampshire, apparently Goffstown has a Pumpkin Regatta, in which you grow a giant pumpkin, carve it out, decorate it (and wear a matching costume) and then pilot it down a river. Harry Potter won this year.
posted by damayanti at 4:37 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

The (large, upscale) farmstand next town over had a biggie in the middle of it's large pumpkins ($75 each and up) display that was over 500 lbs with good color and symmetry. But yeah, what Hactar said, usually the giants look like stand ins for a creepy scifi horror monster and I for one do not get too close.
posted by sammyo at 5:33 AM on October 18, 2018

So pumpkins and gourds are the same things.
posted by PHINC at 6:03 AM on October 18, 2018

contest and county fair records for "heaviest pumpkin" have been falling like autumn leaves

FATTEST PUMPKIN BRACKET LETS DO IT
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:45 AM on October 18, 2018

The pumpkin I bought last weekend was 27lbs and was marked as "A1 EXTRA LARGE" so I'm happy with that, it's a record for the grumpy household.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:46 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Have pumpkins maxed out?
In nursery rhymes and tall tales people used to live in pumpkins, so no.


contest and county fair records for "heaviest pumpkin" have been falling like autumn leaves
Those leaves must be getting heavier too!
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:50 AM on October 18, 2018

Hermione Granger: Wtf I don't understand, how can they grow 60lbs a day

I KNOW! How is that not an amazing take-away?

Describing pumpkins as "awesome", he added: "The first pumpkin we grew was 54lb, now we watch them grow at 60lb a day."

At first I thought the stem was spliced, but it looks like that's just how the stem connects to the vine (hand-drawn illustration in an article on Stem Stress Control, from the How To archives at Big Pumpkins.com).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:59 AM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

There are time-lapse videos of pumpkins growing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZxzDp6xaU

posted by haunted by Leonard Cohen at 8:57 AM on October 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

There are time-lapse videos of pumpkins growing!

can something be body horror if no actual human body is involved bc oh my god

also i liked the transformer used for size comparison and the switch to a soda can was a let down.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:16 AM on October 18, 2018

The_Vegetables: "In nursery rhymes and tall tales people used to live in pumpkins, so no. "

People were only 18 inches tall in the olden tymes.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:46 AM on October 18, 2018

apparently Goffstown has a Pumpkin Regatta

I find myself in my dotage now becalmed in a place called Elk Grove, the southernmost developed region of Sacramento...only farmland, beyond the city limits. This town also has a Pumpkin Reggata, and I just missed it again -- here, they traverse a small lake. It's part of the annual Giant Pumpkin Festival, and you can see the race in this highlights video from last year's, between 0:23 and 0:41.
posted by Rash at 2:40 PM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]