Give ’em pumpkin to talk about: New England gourd growers vie for bragging rights

Topsfield, Mass. | Oct. 16, 2026, 1:09 p.m. ET | 5 min read They eat their caretakers out of house and home. They cost thousands of dollars to raise, draining paychecks. They require near constant babysitting, and sometimes prompt a rush home from work to contend with emergencies.“There’s a lot of stress involved,” says Henry Swenson. “Like, a lot of nights where you’re not sleeping, and where you’re thinking about it, you’re having dreams about it.”Mr. Swenson, if it isn’t clear, is talking about growing giant pumpkins. Nevertheless, Mr. Swenson and many other competitive pumpkin growers keep coming back year after year, vying for ever heavier weights. They pour their all into the hobby, driven, like competitive runners, to top their personal bests. Mr. Swenson’s heaviest pumpkin, at 1,349 pounds, weighed more than a concert grand piano. But the weightiest of these gargantuans approach 3,000 pounds – about the size of a sedan.This is the most competitive time of year for New England’s hobbyists, who describe their pumpkins almost like parents describe a newborn. (Some even get names.) Every fall, regional growers lug their pumpkins – often via some combination of truck, trailer, and forklift – to Topsfield, Massachusetts, where an eponymous fair acts as these growers’ Super Bowl. Melanie Stetson Freeman/StaffHenry Swenson (right) stands near his giant pumpkin and his mentor, Woody Lancaster, at the Topsfield Fair in Topsfield, Massachusetts. Mr. Swenson’s gourd weighed in at 1,246 pounds. At this year’s fair, about 20 pumpkins sit in a high-ceilinged arena pervaded by a scent not dissimilar to a barn. Their hues range from ivory to verdant green to classic sunset orange. (In competitive circles, green pumpkins typically get categorized as squash.) Most are bloblike, not quite resembling the more shapely kind found in grocery stores.Chatter about shattering records swirls on weigh-in night. Rumor has it even the world record, set at a whopping 2,819 pounds last year by twin brothers in England, could be up for grabs. Among the most respected and seasoned growers here is Woody Lancaster, who has cultivated giant pumpkins for over 30 years. His hard work has been fruitful: He has won the Topsfield Fair three times before, most recently in 2017, with a pumpkin weighing 2,003 pounds. He’s gunning for another win this year. Melanie Stetson Freeman/StaffWoody Lancaster, a master grower who has competed for 30 years, wins with a 2,598-pound giant pumpkin – a Topsfield Fair and Massachusetts state record. “I haven’t been real, real serious the last couple of years,” he says, standing in his backyard days before the fair, under a gray sky that occasionally spits out rain. “But this year, I’ve poured everything I have into it.”Mr. Lancaster has grown two pumpkins this year, though only one is competing in Topsfield. Together, they take up a patch of yard big enough to park several cars. The pumpkin, after all, is just the fruit, part of an extensive network of roots and vines. Mr. Lancaster likens the plot to a “1,000-square-foot pot.” Melanie Stetson Freeman/StaffOne of Mr. Lancaster’s two giant pumpkins sits outside his home in Topsfield. The pumpkin plants take up about 1,000 square feet of space. Mr. Lancaster has always been a gardener, going back to his days growing up on a farm in rural Ohio. But his appreciation for giant pumpkins began here in Topsfield. He lives around the corner from the fair, and his son fell in love with the giant gourds there during grade school. The pair began growing them, starting with a variety that hits about 150 pounds. The hobby stuck.“He got interested in other things, and I stuck with the pumpkins,” Mr. Lancaster says. “It’s just actually pretty amazing that you can plant a seed the size of your thumbnail, and then with a lot of work, you can turn it into a big pumpkin.”The practice reaches back to at least 1979, when a Canadian man named Howard Dill patented the seeds for the Atlantic Giant. Virtually every giant pumpkin, known scientifically as Cucurbita maxima, grown today descends from Mr. Dill’s seeds. These days, competitive growers crossbreed the biggest parents to grow even bigger children, trading some seeds for free and selling others at prices surpassing $1,000. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff Head judge Cindy Tobeck and judge George Hamilton check the bottom of Woody Lancaster’s giant pumpkin for holes or soft spots as he and his family wait for their thumbs-up that all is well. Melanie Stetson Freeman/StaffA family in the crowd watches the judging. The plants – “big babies,” as Mr. Lancaster calls them – require near-constant upkeep. They can grow up to 70 pounds per day and consume more than 100 gallons of water daily.Growers pollinate their plants by hand, replacing insect pollinators. (You want to breed your pumpkins with the biggest you can find, “not some small squash from the neighbor,” Mr. Lancaster says.) They prune relentlessly to manage growth, prevent rot, and direct as much energy as possible to the fruit, and they diligently repel rodents. One of Mr. Lancaster’s pumpkins sits covered by an umbrella and a tarp – protection from the sun and the cold, respectively. Melanie Stetson Freeman/StaffA forklift driven by Jerome Swindell is needed to move the huge pumpkins. He has been working the event since its inception and remembers carrying pumpkins by hand before they grew so big. Some, like Dave Aiello, even build their own greenhouses. That allows for luxuries such as scheduled waterings. Nevertheless, the hobby consumes time almost as quickly as the pumpkins consume water.“I don’t want to calculate it,” Mr. Aiello laughs, standing in front of his pumpkin in Topsfield, when asked how many hours he’s spent growing it. He became “enamored” with giant pumpkins after growing up next to a former world-record holder. “But honestly, it’s fun ... I could be doing worse things with my time.”There’s friendship and camaraderie to go around in the pumpkin-growing world, even across generations. Mr. Swenson, now 24, first got into growing more than a decade ago, when he got connected to Mr. Lancaster, now 80, becoming something of his protégé.Nonhobbyists, too, get joy from giant pumpkins. That’s part of what keeps Tom Keenan growing year after year.“It’s a happy thing. So, for example, when you drive it here on the back of a trailer, people are blowing their horns,” he says. “You stop at a rest area, [and] there are people all around taking pictures.” Melanie Stetson Freeman/StaffVolunteers struggle to lift a giant pumpkin off the straps that were used to hoist it up for weighing. After an eventful night at the fair – 11-year-old Alistair Lehto grew a giant that hit 1,815 pounds, earning him $500 and the title of Youth Grower of the Year – the fateful time finally arrives. Mr. Lancaster, who plans on retiring from pumpkin growing this year, is favored to win big. (His pumpkin broke the lifting equipment when he tried to move it from his yard.) It’s a boon for him, whose goal this year was to “go out with a big pumpkin.” And go out with a big pumpkin he does. Mr. Lancaster’s pumpkin weighs in at 2,598 pounds – short of the world record, but breaking the records for the Topsfield Fair and Massachusetts.The crowd erupts in almost deafening applause. After more than 30 years growing, Mr. Lancaster is something of a legend. Deepen your worldviewwith Monitor Highlights.Politics with respectGet political stories with respectful analysis.There‘s a world of new ideas in everyBooks newsletter.There‘s more to life, enrich yours withCulture & Learning weekly.Follow humanity‘s discoveries withScience & Nature stories in your inbox.Gain a spiritual perspectivefrom the stories in your inbox.Want to understand the deeper impact of critical events? Learn the Monitor‘s insight.Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. But the most poignant celebration comes from those closest to him. As he poses for pictures and chats with reporters, a gaggle of family members runs up to congratulate him.“I’m going to tell all my friends,” one young relative says. “I’ll be the most popular kid in school.” ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LoginReal news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 to lift the standard of journalism and uplift humanity. We aim to “speak the truth in love.” Our goal is not to tell you what to think, but to give you the essential knowledge and understanding to come to your own intelligent conclusions. Join us in this mission by subscribing.