The wife and I once made the serious mistake of leaving a huge pumpkin we’d bought at a patch for Halloween sitting outside way too long.
Naturally, it rotted, and the extremely heavy mess was no fun to clean up, I can tell you.
But there’s big, and then there’s really big, and a massive gourd named Rocky took the prize for the 53rd Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off Monday after weighing in at an astonishing 2,389 pounds.
The journey to California wasn't easy:
He [the Minnesota grower] said that transporting a gourd weighing well over a ton was a nerve-wracking drive through tough terrain and mountain passes across state lines.
“It was stressful, you know. You’re white-knuckling it and then going through Tahoe,” Gienger told CBS News. “You got all the trucker bumps, and yeah, it’s an incredible journey.”
But he brought enough to produce a whole lot of pumpkin pie.
A pumpkin named Rocky won a major annual pumpkin-weighing contest in Northern California, tipping the scale at 2,389 pounds (1,083 kilograms), but fell far short of a possible new world record set just days earlier in Rhode Island. https://t.co/VGx3OX70iF pic.twitter.com/iLeWze3CX4
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) October 12, 2026
The competition, held in Half Moon Bay, California, drew growers from all over the country. The “owner” of Rocky, Minnesotan teacher and growing enthusiast Travis Gienger — who has won the competition four times before — netted $21,501 ($9 per pound) for producing the event’s fattest fruit (yes, pumpkins are fruits and are technically not vegetables, but in cooking they’re often treated as such).
Okay, that’s pretty cool, and might I say, kind of amazing. I admit I didn’t know that the “winter squash” could grow to the size of an SUV.
But wait: That’s not the end of the story. In another competition just two days earlier in Rhode Island, a grower delivered what may be the heaviest pumpkin of all time:
NEW WORLD RECORD PUMPKIN AT 3156 POUNDS was just weighed at Frerichs Farm in Rhode Island! Ron Wallace of Greene, RI! @NBC10Boston @NBCNightlyNews @ABC @NBC10 @wbz @WCVB @weatherchannel @BBCBreaking @boston25 #rhodeisland #pumpkin #worldrecord #newengland #fall pic.twitter.com/mpNFnQnHam
— 🌞 Henry Swenson 🌱 (@HenrySwenson) October 10, 2026
The monster weighed in at over 3,000 pounds — the first big orange thingie that’s ever achieved that mark — and could end up in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Ron Wallace of Greene, Rhode Island, weighed his pumpkin Saturday at a contest in New England and is now waiting for the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm he smashed the record, set about a week earlier by a grower in England. Wallace said he's been in contact with Guinness officials who say his record is on track to be verified.
“It’s truly massive, it was a pleasure to grow,” Wallace said Monday by phone.
Personally, this thing looks to me like it’s of alien origin:
🚨🚨🚨NEW WORLD RECORD PUMPKIN RONNIE WALLACE 3,156 POUNDS🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/RswvAfkJ6X
— The Last Farm (@TheLastFarm) October 11, 2026
People sure do have some weird hobbies. I’m just glad I finally got my grocery store-bought basil to survive after multiple failures. I admit, I had to turn to AI for help, and what it told me was surprising: You have to water it from the bottom, not the top. Who knew?
Congratulations to these pumpkin fanatics, and Happy Halloween to all. The question I now have, however, is what the heck do you do now with those behemoths?
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