And you thought YOU were putting on weight–

Okay, all you pumpkin growers, with your little gourds weighing in at ten, twenty, even thirty pounds, that's nothing. Get a load of this–but be careful, because it'll crush you if you're not. Apparently these babies can put on forty (that's 40) pounds per day (that's every day).

Pumpkin200 

Image from NPR.

That, folks, is a pumpkin, grown by one Steve Connolly of Warren, R.I., briefly the record-holder world's heaviest pumpkin, at  1568 pounds, until a previously undiscovered crack disqualified him. As a member of the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers, it sounds like he's found his niche, but is it big enough for him and that pumpkin?

Go to the NPR page, and you can see a whole row of monster pumpkins awaiting the weigh-off, and listen to clips including information about exploding pumpkins. I greet this "information" with some skepticism, having been taken in by NPR's story about exploding maple-sugar trees a couple of years ago. Of course, that story did run on April 1st…. And yeah, I do know that "gullible" isn't in the dictionary.

15 Responses to And you thought YOU were putting on weight–

  1. Until now I thought growing giant veg was a solely British eccentricity.
    Thanks for putting me right on that one Kate ;)

  2. Oh wow, Kate—the title of your post and then seeing the pumpkin, has offered me a great deal of consolation….

  3. Get me a pumpkin that size and I will be gaining weight from all the pies!

  4. Oh, my, Kate! Exploding pumpkins! What a thought. I can see them now, sending seeds and pulp into the Hallowe’en night sky, much like fireworks on the Fourth of July. A new tradition is born!

  5. so THAT is what Charlie Brown was looking for!

  6. Exploding sugar maples. Ack! They are surrounding me here in North eastern canada! That’s a big pumpkin and I hope my children never ever want to grow one. So far I have them convinced that baby boo is really cute.

  7. Well, VP, I didn’t know it was a British thing. Ain’t the blog world great?
    Check out Charles Wilbur and his book How to Grow World Record Tomatoes: A Guinness Champion Reveals His All-Organic Secrets. His tomato vines would grow fifteen or so feet up, then start back down. And there were a few MAJOR individual vegies as well. I think he lived in Georgia.
    Kanak, glad to hear it. That pumpkin made me believe in pumpkin coaches.
    Laurel–There is that. I wonder how they taste?
    Ellen, I’ve long lived–or driven–in fear, worrying as I pass semi-trucks that one of their tires will explode when I’m right there beside it. Now I will be filled with fear as I walk the fields. No more a quiet bucolic stroll–
    nawlins dawlin–Yes! That must be it! Someone find him at once.
    Ottowa Gardener, may you long be preserved from exploding maples AND pumpkins. But–who or what is baby boo? What have I missed?
    –Kate

  8. wow, thats a huge punkin, would love to see someone build a cannon to laucnh one that big

  9. 40lbs a day? My word! Who could afford the fertilizer bill. Talk about using up all the nutrients eh? You would have to have a 100 cows crap on that piece of garden for the next yr to put all the goodies back in the soil.
    I’m thinking it’s not worth it. I mean…It might get loose and squash my neighbor’s dog that lives down hill from me. My insurance would go up if that was sitting outside my house. I’ve decided not to out do the winner next year. I’ve got to feed my family something else besides pumpkin. Can you imagine how much tenderizer that would need?

  10. Yes, Organicgimp, it’s a big one. And don’t even talk about cannons. As Anna points out, all the thing has to is roll downhill to cause major damage. Extra insurance indeed.
    –Kate

  11. Apparently there’s some east european lore that squashes turns into vampires if they are left to many days after they’re ready to be harvest. I wonder if this applies to pumpkins as well – in that case we’re looking at an fat Dracula to be…

  12. Cripes, Rosengeranium, this gets worse and worse. Cannons, squashed dogs, and now vampires. If I was ever tempted to grow a pumpkin, I’m over it now.
    –Kate

  13. “A previously undiscovered crack disqualified him…” snort! I hope I get a chance to use that line someday, somehow…

  14. Anne–I think it could catch on, like a cult film does–so people would sort of recognize each other by that line. Maybe T-shirts, with “A previously undiscovered crack” on the front and “disqualified him” on the back. I’ll see if NPR is interested, and will give me a cut of their cut of which (my cut) you’ll get a cut, for starting the pumpkin rolling–er–I mean, for starting the process that led to the idea.
    –Kate

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