Winning Pumpkin at Topsfield Weighs 1,900 Pounds
Farmington, N.H.’s Hiram Watson won bragging rights—and the $5,000 prize—at The Topsfield Fair’s All New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off Friday night.
His beast of an entry weighed 1,900 pounds on-the-dot. We know it’s decorative gourd season and all, but…that’s nearly a ton.
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And here’s Watson himself, with a tiaraed woman who I can only assume is Her Radiance The Great Pumpkin Queen:
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Why “Hiram Watson’’ isn’t trending on Twitter right now, I haven’t a clue. That thing is huge. I bet it’d make a whole lot of pumpkin spice lattes—that is, if those actually had pumpkin in them.
The contest, which first began in 1984, is now so popular that pumpkins that weigh below even the relatively puny 300-pound mark aren’t allowed to compete.
Back in 2009, the contest’s scales were tipped by its first one-ton pumpkin:
The 2012 Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off held at Topsfield fair was, without a doubt, the most exciting Weigh-Off to date. The world’s first one ton pumpkin, grown by New Englander Ron Wallace from Greene, RI, weighed in at a whopping 2009 pounds. Topsfield Fair is home to the first ONE TON pumpkin ever grown in the world. Imagine that!
Wait a minute, wait a minute — back in 2002, the winner weighed only 1337.6 pounds. In 1991, Howard Dill of Nova Scotia broke the Guinness Book Record with a mere 493.5 pounder.
They didn’t teach me much math in journalism school, but it sure seems like pumpkins are getting bigger and bigger. Take this Boston Globe article from October 30, 1976, where the (would-be) winner weighed a mere 197 pounds:
Depending on your takeaway, the article is either a heartbreaking tale of disqualification, or a historical relic for its early use of the pumpkin-portmanteau “squimpkin.’’ Whatever your take, it’s clear gargantuan gourds have come a long way in the last four decades.
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