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What does it take to grow a 2,000-pound pumpkin?
For giant pumpkin growers, months of meticulous work, gallons of water, and a little luck go into getting a gargantuan gourd to the Topsfield Fair weigh-off.
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How do you grow a giant pumpkin?
Start with a seed. Add months of painstaking work, gallons upon gallons of water, carefully managed soil, and a little luck. One wrong move — or one split in the wrong place — and months of hard work can be crushed in an instant.
It may happen in a backyard, but growing a giant pumpkin is no casual hobby.
For Henry Swenson, 24, it started when he was 13 and first laid eyes on a larger-than-life pumpkin at the Topsfield Fair. Now, he competes against growers like Alex Noel, who set a Topsfield Fair and New England record last year with his 2,507-pound pumpkin.
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Noel’s pumpkin was shy of the Guinness World Record of 2,819 pounds.
“It’s definitely a battle,” said Swenson, who has already had a taste of giant-squash glory. In 2021, he won a Guinness World Record for heaviest butternut squash, weighing 65 pounds.
Swenson said he doesn’t expect to win this year after battling debilitating soil disease. But for giant-pumpkin growers, simply getting to the weigh-off can be a remarkable accomplishment.
How to grow a giant pumpkin
The process starts in the spring – specifically between April 15 and April 20 – when growers germinate their seeds indoors. It’s too cold to start the plants outside, and these giants need the extra time to get to their full size.
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The seeds themselves come from a long line of selected genetics, all leading back to a variety called the Dill Atlantic Giant, the variety developed by Canadian giant-pumpkin pioneer Howard Dill. Good genetics are highly coveted — a winning pumpkin could have its seeds auctioned off so other growers can have a chance at what made the winner’s so strong.
Throughout April, there’s a careful process of adding nitrogen and other nutrients to the soil. Once the plant is moved outside, the flowers are hand-pollinated, and all but two or three flowers are removed from the vine to allow the plant to direct its energy toward the one pumpkin chosen to carry the grower’s efforts through to October.
By June and July, plants require daily attention. Growers bury and shape the vines to create the best root system that will harness the most energy all to be pushed into adding weight to the squash. Once the plant is large enough and the temperatures rise, it will require 50 to 150 gallons of water per day.
Woody Lancaster, Swenson’s former mentor and two-time fair winner, has been growing for 31 years after his 6-year-old son asked to start. His son eventually grew out of the hobby.
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“I never did,” Lancaster told Boston.com.
Now retired, Lancaster had more time to put into growing this year, which will also be his last.
“During the peak of the season, my two plants will keep me busy for maybe four hours,” said Lancaster. “It’s a labor of love. ”
In August and September, the work slows down but the stress amps up. As the pumpkins grow bigger and heavier, the more likely it could be crushed by its own weight.
“I’ve lost 2,000-pound pumpkins a month before the fair because it’s split,” Lancaster said, noting it can only be described as heartbreak.
“A lot of it is just competing with yourself,” said Swenson. “A lot of people think, ‘Oh, hopefully you win,’ which, you know, it’d be great to win. But even just getting a pumpkin to the end is a huge accomplishment.”
It’s not just the hours spent every day growing from April through September, but the months in the offseason spent researching and traveling to conventions of giant-pumpkin growers. It’s a competitive game, when Lancaster started it was a game of making friends to learn the secret tricks via word of mouth. Now there’s international coalitions, such as the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, where Lancaster serves as the regional representative.
How to transport a giant pumpkin
The final task: getting the pumpkin to the weigh-off. After a tense few months, the pumpkins without splits or bruises are lifted out of backyards with complex pulley systems, and placed on trucks and trailers bound for Topsfield.
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Making it to the arena is an accomplishment in itself. But once the pumpkins arrive, the growers are still tensely anticipating their weigh-ins. The winner of the Topsfield Fair weigh-off stands to take home more than $10,000, Lancaster told Boston.com.
The prize money is, of course, nowhere near the cost — financial, physical, or emotional — it took to grow the enormous gourd.
“I’ve probably spent twice over what I’ve made,” Lancaster said. “It’s a hobby, it’s not a money maker.”
But Lancaster is confident and hopeful that the glory, and the $10,000 prize, could be his this year.
He estimates his pumpkin, based on size calculations and records kept since the 1970s, is about 2,300 to 2,400 pounds.
“You just never know until it gets to the scale,” he said.
This year’s Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off takes place at Topsfield Fair on Friday, Oct. 2.
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