Record-Breaking New York State Pumpkin Weighs As Much As A Car

I love a good jack-o-lantern. It’s one of my favorite thins about the Halloween season – to look up on people’s porches, steps, and stoops and see the glowing faces and designs. If you’ve ever carved one yourself, you know it takes the right shape and size pumpkin to be the perfect canvas.

Bigger is usually better for most jack-o-lanterns, but there is a size there it gets a bit too large to manage. Like, say, when your pumpkin weighs about the same as a Ford Fiesta. That provides a unique logistical challenge, but also makes for one heck of a record breaker.

Smashing Pumpkins Records

It would be expected of a place called the Great Pumpkin Farm to have all things pumpkin. This farm, just east of Buffalo in Clarence, New York, lives up to its name with Pumpkin Olympics, a pumpkin drop, and something called IndePumpkins Day which sounds ridiculous and amazing.

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They also hold the World Pumpkin Weigh-Off, where Scott Andrusz of Williamsville, New York brought his pride and joy: a 2,554 pound pumpkin! Not only did this grandiose gourd break the New York state record for heaviest pumpkin, but the North American record too. Andrusz’ pumpkin squeezed past the previous US champ from New Hampshire by 37 pounds.

One Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

The Great Pumpkin Farm has a tradition of record breaking pumpkins. They were the first farm in the world to host a 1,000 pound pumpkin and went into the Guinness Book of World Records. While enough to break the continental record, Italy still holds claim to the world’s heaviest pumpkin after a farmer grew a 2,702 pound gourd last year.

Andrusz won $5,000 for his plump pumpkin. Now, far be it from me to tell the winner how to spend their earnings, but with the economy the way it is maybe instead of sinking it in stocks or crypto they should invest in something far more intriguing – a giant pie crust to match.