Edwin Pierpont, of Jefferson, still holds the state record for the heaviest pumpkin, despite a formidable challenge from competitors at the Oct. 2 weigh-off at Pinkham’s Plantation in Damariscotta.
Elroy Morgan, of Bradford, went home with the $2500 prize for this year’s heaviest pumpkin, a bright orange, 1375-pound monster.
The mammoth gourd fell 96 pounds short of Pierpont’s record.
The crowd, thanks to heavy rain, didn’t measure up to 2010 attendance, but dozens of hardy, umbrella-wielding growers and spectators braved the elements for what has become the state’s premier giant pumpkin competition.
Lloyd “Chip” Button, of Madison, and Joe Gaboury, of Readfield, rounded out the top three at 1293 pounds and 1201 pounds, respectively. Button and Gaboury finished second and fourth last year.
Pierpont did not enter a pumpkin this year. His uncle (Gaboury); brother, fourth-place finisher Steve Pierpont (1061.5 pounds); nephew, children’s division winner Daigen Pierpont (647 pounds); and children, Justice (sixth place, youth pumpkin) and Paris (third place, youth squash) represented the family in his absence.
The top entrant from Lincoln County was Richard Francis, of Round Pond, who finished 10th with a 707-pound pumpkin.
In other competition, Kayla Harris, 16, a sixth-year grower from Gorham, won the children’s squash division with a 407-pound squash.
Harris nearly completed a children’s division sweep, finishing second to 12-year-old Daigen Pierpont in the children’s pumpkin division with a 451-pound pumpkin.
The 451-pound fruit, despite its substantial size, didn’t measure up to Harris’ 512-pound 2010 entry.
“Our seeds didn’t pollinate as quick as they did last year,” Harris said, and 2011’s lower rainfall totals didn’t help.
Matt Holmes and Russ Holmes, Harris’ uncles, also grow giant pumpkins and inspired Harris to start.
“We’re in the garden all summer,” she said. “It’s just fun to see it start baseball-size and get… ginormous.”
Joe Post, of Billerica, Mass., won the adult squash division (900 pounds). Paul Anderson, of Pemaquid, won the adult volunteer division with a 586-pound pumpkin while Crystal Miller, of Bristol, topped youth volunteers (435 pounds) for the second year in a row.
The weigh-off is the first major event of the fifth annual Damariscotta Pumpkinfest.
For more information, including a complete list of winners and a festival schedule, visit damariscottapumpkinfest.com.
The president of the Maine Pumpkin Growers Association, Al Berard, of Sanford, says competitive giant pumpkin growing is “growing almost as fast as a giant pumpkin grows.”
Call it a hobby, a sport or an obsession – one “pumpkin widow,” the wife of an anonymous New Hampshire grower, called it a “sickness” – but it’s not going anywhere.
“It’s growing because so many people love doing it,” Berard, who finished fifth Sunday with a 1014-pound pumpkin, said.
The Pinkham’s Plantation weigh-off, in just its third year, has become a mecca for growers statewide.
The Damariscotta business, for one weekend each year, turns into one of only 97 Great Pumpkin Commonwealth-sanctioned weigh-off sites in the world.
The commonwealth tracks giant pumpkins across the world, and its stamp of approval grants validity to the results, Berard explained.
The organization Berard runs, the Maine Pumpkin Growers Association, provides members with, among other services, seeds from each year’s most impressive pumpkins.
Berard and other members contact growers at the end of every season to gather donations of seeds. They exchange the seeds with similar organizations in other states and, when they’re done, split the collection evenly among the membership.
For more information or to join, visit the Maine Pumpkin Growers Association at www.mainepumpkins.com.
“You meet a lot of new people, make a lot of new friends and look forward to who can grow the biggest pumpkin each year,” Berard said.