Growers from four states brought their biggest and best to the Vermont Giant Pumpkin Growers Association’s annual weigh-off at Sam Mazza’s Farm Market in Colchester on Saturday.
Seventeen giant pumpkins, in shades from light apricot to safety orange, were the marquee event. But there was prodigious produce of all kinds: carrots, long gourds, sunflowers, watermelon, tomatoes and even an onion, though there’s no official category for humongous alliums.
They took turns on the scale for several hours, each official measurement met with a photo op and applause from a crowd of several hundred. Heaviest overall was a 1,730.5-pound pumpkin grown by Wilbur Horton of Springfield, one of several volunteers who harnessed pumpkins for the forklift throughout the day.
Lisa Gates of Benson lost her larger pumpkin to rot. But she won a coveted prize for her smaller 888-pounder: the Howard Dill award for orangest, most symmetrical giant pumpkin.
For many of the VGPGA’s 60-plus members, copresident Jenna Baird said, each season is about beating a personal best.
“It’s really fun to watch them grow, whether it’s 200 pounds or 2,000 pounds,” Baird said. “What brings more joy than giant vegetables?”
Seven Days got the story behind three of the entrants: a first-timer’s misshapen giant, the world’s largest tomatoes and a new state-record sunflower.
Giant pumpkin, 627.5 pounds
David Petro is a first-time grower but not a first-time attendee: At last year’s event, his wife, Anne, won a contest for closest estimation of a pumpkin’s weight. (It was 238 pounds; she guessed 237.) The Morrisonville, N.Y., couple got to bring that pumpkin home, where they displayed it in the front yard. It was the talk of the cul-de-sac.
This year, Petro grew two pumpkins of his own. One died two weeks before the weigh-off, but the remaining pumpkin, dubbed Lumpy by Petro’s grower mentor, beat even his wife’s guess of 573 pounds.
“They say it’s really hard to get, start to finish, even one pumpkin,” Petro said. “To grow an over-500-pound pumpkin in my first year, I’m pretty pleased.”
Will he be back next year?
“Definitely,” Petro said. “I want that 1,000-pounder.”
Giant tomatoes, 8.75 pounds and 8.6 pounds
When Kerry and John Young started growing pumpkins in 1996, they didn’t produce giants. But their first variety was bigger than a typical jack-o’-lantern.
“You kind of catch a fever,” said Kerry, a retired teacher. (John spent the day on the mic as emcee, building suspense before giving growers their official weights.)
The Jericho couple grew a 1,765-pound pumpkin in 2025. This year’s entry — named Sybil Ludington for “the female Paul Revere” in honor of America’s 250th anniversary — was small by comparison at 1,317 pounds.
Meanwhile, on Saturday at least, their knobby red-and-green tomatoes were the second- and fourth-largest recorded in the world.
While the two crops are similar in the food they want, Kerry explained, listing North Atlantic kelp, Epsom salts and Miracle-Gro, the tomatoes are “a little less physical in their requirements.”
The Youngs fill their small backyard plot, but they don’t do it for the record books, Kerry said: “We really just love being out in the garden.”
Giant sunflower, 24 feet, 9.5 inches
Former VGPGA president Ethan Nelson set a new state record on Saturday, but it wasn’t for a pumpkin. His sunflower — with a stem thinner than the rebar that supported it — broke his own previous record of 21 feet.
Nelson got into growing giants after reading a 2018 newspaper article about Vermont legends Dan and Holly Boyce. Over the years, Nelson grew pumpkins that won a Howard Dill award and broke 1,000 pounds.
“But they’re divas,” he said.
Sunflowers are a different story. The first year he planted them, with “no love whatsoever,” a 16-footer shot up beside the pumpkin he was agonizing over. He’s been reaching for the sun ever since.
Whatever the species of the giant, growing it is always what Nelson calls “a nurturing contest.” “The competition is about how much you can take care of a little, vulnerable thing and help it reach its potential,” he said. “It’s a funny form of competitiveness.” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Weighing In | Growers of giant pumpkins — and other big plants — gather to check their work”
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