Oh dear gourd!
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Colorado giant pumpkin record falls and falls again in 2024
There are farmers, master gardeners, sustenance gardeners, and even gardening enthusiasts, but the growers who set their sights on breaking size and weight records for fruits and vegetables are a different genus altogether. With October 2024 on the calendar, it seemed only fitting the giant pumpkin record be “smashed” multiple times in the mile high state.
Parker, Colo., resident Chad New set the record several years ago with a 1,783-pound pumpkin, besting the previous record that had stood for six years. On Sept. 21 of 2024, Wellington, Colo., resident Brad Bledsoe showed up to take the record for himself with a whopping gourd of 1,955 pounds.
Just one week later, New clawed back the title at a weigh-off with his own 1,976.5-pound orange monster given the name Cowboy by his young son. But that wasn’t the end of the friendly rivalry between Chad and Brad. When Bledsoe’s competitive juices are stirred, there is no telling what happens next. It is how he got into growing giant pumpkins in the first place just three or four years ago.
“(A few years ago) I grew a 195-pound pumpkin that was the pride of the neighborhood,” said Bledsoe to the audience gathered at the Oct. 5, 2024 weigh-off held at Nick’s Garden Center in Aurora, Colo. “So I took it to a weigh-off competition and my daughter Violet asked me, ‘Dad, why is your pumpkin the smallest one here?’ That kicked my competitive nature into gear,” he said with a big smile.
PUMPKIN PRIDE
That nature showed up in, well… giant fashion… at Nick’s when his gargantuan entry tipped the scales for a new Colorado best of 2,083 pounds; the first time on record that a mile high state pumpkin climbed past the 2,000-pound barrier.
“(It feels) really good,” said Bledsoe immediately after setting the new record. “Really good. You can’t take away Colorado’s first 1-ton pumpkin from me.”
While the $2-per-pound first place prize money at Nick’s Garden Center was rewarding, every pumpkin entry on-site was a labor of love starting back in early April.
“Mostly you sprout them indoors in early April,” said Calvin Wohlert, a longtime member of the Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers club and its current treasurer. While Wohlert did not have a 2024 entry, he helped numerous members lift their pumpkins from their gardens and prep for competition. “You put them out later (and then) it is about 100 gallons of water a day. They are like 90% water,” he said with a smile. “But you have to get the watering right and the fertilizer right. You have to be consistent.”
Numerous RMGVG club members on site, including New and Bledsoe, concurred with the daily water figure required for giant pumpkins. Bledsoe relayed to the Oct. 5 crowd before his official weigh-in that his record-setting pumpkin gained an average of 55-pounds a day during peak growth. The massive orange-a-saurus displayed all that time spent throughout the summer.
“I would say typically two to three hours a day,” said Bledsoe about the minimum average time spent caring for the pumpkins. “Sometimes it is just watering, but when you are burying vines and doing all that other stuff, it takes a long time. You have to like it a lot.”
“The thing that I tell people the most is that it is just… more,” described New about time spent on the pumpkins. “More water, more attention, more fertilizer. (You start with) a special seed, the Atlantic Giant seed, and then again, just more. I am not a farmer, I am an electrician from Las Vegas,” he added. “I know nothing about farming. If I can learn how to do it and if I can do it, then anybody can do it.”
DOUBLE TAKES
The public’s response is also a big part of why participants love the hobby.
“What I like is the people’s reaction,” said Amy Corbin, a Wyoming school teacher who grows giant pumpkins with her husband, Andy. The Corbins set the current Wyoming state record of 2,062 pounds in 2023 and their entry at Nick’s on Oct. 5 was the runner-up at 1,678 pounds. “You start something with a seed and at the end of the summer you have something like this. It is just amazing.”
“It is really the smile it puts on people’s faces,” confirmed Andy. “Once we go back home, we will have it uncovered, and people are doing double takes and triple takes. That is why we put in all the work in the summertime. That is the payoff for us.”
“My favorite part, honestly, is when I get to load this on the trailer and I go home,” said Bledsoe. “And I see people’s faces where they just forget their problems for 2 or 3 minutes when they are driving by and they are like, ‘Hey is that a big pumpkin? That is a big pumpkin!’ And they will slow down and pull out their phones and take pictures as they drive by.”
“It is a lifetime memory,” agreed Joel Robinson Lambe, a giant pumpkin grower in Parker, Colo., who has had several 1,000-plus pound pumpkins admired at the entrance of a Murdochs store or eaten by elephants in front of visitors to the Denver Zoo. “It is bucket-list stuff.”
Maybe the best summary of the joy of giant pumpkins was stated by New as he stood near his greenhouse on a warm October day and talked about the hobby with a personable smile.
“If you are the type of person that looks at a giant pumpkin and puts a frown on your face, there is something wrong with you on the inside.”
If you are that type of person, gourd help you.
You can find more information about growing giant pumpkins at the RMGVG website – https://www.coloradopumpkins.com/ and facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoPumpkins.
