Giant Pumpkin results in MA

This year's winner at the Topsfield Fair Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off is Wesley Dwelly of Oakham, MA who had a fruit weighing 1464 lbs. This makes him 4th overall Biggest so far is 1534 lbs from a guy in British Columbia.
The weights are down from last year.
Martha

Holy cow! I could live in a pumpkin that big LOL

or make a big pie

Oh Man! My back hurts just thinking of dragging that sucker out of the patch!!

here is a video of some pictures

http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/topsfield-fair-pumpkin-weigh-off/11798279

Those suckers are not attractive, decorative pumpkins. They're BIG!

That is enormous, they just had a news story here where a guy is paddling down the Mississippi in a pumpkin for a week.

Great video. I have been to several pumpkin weigh in days in previous years. My family thinks I am nuts to sit there with my program and watch them wrestle the big ones onto the scale. But they love me anyhow.
I have seen a tv show on the pumpkin paddling. too weird.
We have a contestant who enters every year from Saugus. He manages to get three giants. He has the largest, or contender pumpkin and then two back-up pumpkins. Once he enters, he donates the back-ups to the town. the one back-up goes to the front lawn of our Town Hall and the other goes to the front lawn of my friend Sean, carver extraordinaire. He has appeared on the Today Show carving pumpkins. Sean has already carved a design in the Town Hall pumpkin and will be doing a design on the one on his lawn soon. I will get a picture tomorrow and post it. Sean carves wood, sand, ice, snow and makes original jewelry. He has organized a sand sculpting festival here in Revere, MA for the past few years in the summer. His work is great!
Martha

The garden season is complete now that the pumpkin is weighed.
Very funny video

Here roll a pumpkin
www.itsga.com/fun/cat_new.swf

cute game

Love the game, but I stink at cat bowling just as badly as the regular kind!
Martha

One of these years I am going to try growing one. Any idea of what the prize money was? It's pretty good, as I recall. There wasn't a world record set this year b/c the rain split lot of them.

This year was the 1st year I noticed that they had a "pumpkin in a bottle" competition! You find the biggest bottle you can, and stick a vine w/ a newly formed pumpkin attached into the bottle, and let it grow. That sure would foil my thievin' critters. Except that I'll bet some groundhogs could chew through glass!

Hi Al! How nice to hear from you! We talked about missing you at the RU today! Are you sure you aren't that guy who will be using a pumpkin as a boat???? What have you been up to? You sure have been missed here!

Here are the two back up pumpkins from our local giant pumpkin contestant. The blank one is in front of my friends house and the other is on the lawn in front of town hall. I took the pictures this afternoon.
Martha

the town hall punkin
martha

Al, if I saw someone rowing down the Mississippi in a vegetable, I don't think I'd give it a second thought.

I think first prize is like 3000.00 dollars. Should just about cover the water bill for growing these.
I go just to see Wayne Hackney in his orange pumpkin suit and the little babies and dogs in their jack o'lantern costumes and punkin hats.

Today is the day in Maine when they do the 'Pumpkin Regatta'.

You can read about it here:
http://www.downeast.com/Down-East-Magazine/October-2008/Its-the-Great-Pumpkin-Race-Charlie-Brown/


(No, the clock has not struck midnight. And yes, those are giant pumpkins in the water. Welcome to Damariscotta’s Great Pumpkin Fest and Regatta, where giant pumpkins take to the shores of the Damariscotta River for a day of racing and inevitably wet fun.

The first year Pinkham and Clark didn’t know whether they could pull off their plan and certainly didn’t expect spectators. “We built a boat, and we snuck into town, and we were going to launch it to see if it would work,” explains Pinkham. “Well, riding through town with a pumpkin and a outboard motor attracts attention.” Almost one hundred people watched that first year. The second year, a couple of hundred more viewed the spectacle. Last year there were thousands of spectators lining the water’s edge and the town streets.

Both my DD's took their Grandmother there today to watch. Sh'e 75 and said she HAD to see this before she dies.LOL

I should of went. I should of went and did something. One of those days where I cant pull myself out of a pumpkin, let alone a wet paper bag. A fine nothing day.

Hey, I know that guy !!! I grew up in Oakham, and his cousin was a classmate of mine... Now that's a lotta pie...

PVP

The only difference between a man and a boy is the price of the toys. ]:o) This my first really big one was 710 pounds and cost about a dollar a pound to grow...........more or less. :)

This one took the shape of a wagon wheel or bean bag. The overhead mister rack seen in the pix kept it cool while the underground gravity fed water system satisfied its desire for fifty gallons of water a day for at least half of the season. It would have placed about fifteenth in Pennsylvania that year. The cows got to eat this one because it had a blemish and would not compete with the rules of a healthy fruit. So much for the first year. Har Har

oh my!

Here is another that did not measure up to the really big ones that a young lady carved. People came for miles around to see the Night Pumpkin. Carving time was two days strung out a bit because it was a commercial event for a local trading post. We raised significant charity money with this one for the Red Cross.

Much loved spooky Devel Pumpkin.

Great friend's carved pumpkin.

LOOK CLOSE............ at the last one. The pumpkin ate the carver. :)

Lot of work. Geeze cant even imagine doing that.

Go back a couple of years. From the West Coast of Oregon. One of the first really big ones.

2007 a new world record still standing as such 1689 Joe Jutras on the East Coast. The next goal 1700 lbs with 2000 lbs in sight perhaps in a few years.

This is Boris.....a West Coast carving.

The carving of all carvings. West Coast world book of records carver Cully for an East Coast Lawn and Garden Center. Three or four days of carving. Each large pumpkin over a thousand pounds carved on three sides. About four days of carving. Each pumpkin is down over a pole that supports platforms for the next one up the pole. This is perhaps the most elaborate carving executed. Done entirely with hand tools like saws and knives. No power tools on this one. I spent several days in training with this gentleman who is a high management person for the world mail order firm of Harry and David, West Coast.

Now not to be outdone by the pumpkin growers Garry Checkon shows off his tallest ever stalk of corn grown in Pennsylvania. We grow 'em big in Pennsylvania.

And finally.....presenting grower Gerry Checkon, Pennsylvania with his load of pumpkins headed for the weighoff that certified the largest one as a world record at 1469 lbs. three years ago. Now this is a load of pumpkin and one squash on a lowboy....loaded and ready to go.

Wow - those carvings are great!

I bet that trailer is overloaded weight wise. We have one registered for 300 lbs. Then a cop would never even think about weight!

From the peanut galley there comes a nitch one subject pumpkin activities cartoonest.

OOPS..........also on that trailer is a hundred and twenty pound watermellon which is very nice but not competitive to the Southern boys and girls who hold all watermellon records of merit. Yes we ate that watermellon.

oops 3000 lbs. It can haul a car - duhh