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Citrus Heights giant pumpkin sets new state record

But it's only good enough for second place as Minnesota mega-gourd breaks world record at championship weigh-off

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED OCT 9, 2023

This pumpkin set a new world record, weighing 2,749 pounds, from Minnesota. Winner Travis Gienger and his family pose with the massive gourd at Monday's Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. Photos courtesy Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off

The biggest California-grown pumpkin to ever weigh in at an official giant pumpkin contest came from the greater Sacramento area. But in a season of king-size pumpkins, this mammoth squash – 2,497 pounds – was only a runner-up. It took a world-record effort to beat it.

Representing Central Valley pumpkin hopefuls, Ron Root and Nick Kennedy of Citrus Heights hauled their gargantuan gourd to Half Moon Bay for Monday’s Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-off.

They could have easily won Elk Grove’s Giant Pumpkin Contest, held Saturday and won by an Oregon-grown 1,941 pounder. (Russ Pugh took home to Eugene $7,000 from the Elk Grove contest.)

Instead, Root and Kennedy took their big boy to the Bay Area to see if maybe they had a record breaker.

They did. Shaped like a bean bag chair and the size of a couch, the striped Citrus Heights pumpkin set a California state record as the largest ever grown in the Golden State – quite a feat considering this was the 50th annual Half Moon Bay weigh-off to crown a pumpkin king.

For a while, the Citrus Heights pumpkin looked like an overall winner, but then officials hauled out the pumpkin that had traveled the farthest distance to the contest – an Atlantic Giant hybrid grown by Travis Gienger of Anoka, Minn.

A landscape business owner and instructor at Anoka Technical College, Gienger and his pumpkin team had driven almost non-stop from Minnesota to Half Moon Bay just in time for the weigh-off. He didn’t harvest his pumpkin until Saturday because these giants lose 5 pounds every day off the vine.

Ron Root and Nick Kennedy of Citrus Heights earned
a state record with their 2,497-pound pumpkin.

Gienger wasn’t a long shot; he was Half Moon Bay’s defending champion. Last year, he set a new America record with a 2,560-pound pumpkin that he also hauled cross country. But no one expected this result Monday (except for the folks tasked with lifting the pumpkin on the scale).

Gienger’s pumpkin weigh 2,749 pounds – a new world record and almost 200 pounds bigger than his 2022 American record setter. The old mark – 2,702 – was held by a pumpkin grown in Tuscany, Italy.

Watch Gienger’s reaction as his pumpkin is weighed, during live streaming of Monday’s weigh-off:

https://www.facebook.com/halfmoonbaypumpkinweighoff/videos/1978543425879509

For its official photo, the winning pumpkin was adorned with a teddy bear wearing a Michael Jordan jersey – as the “greatest of all time” in the pumpkin department.

For his efforts, Gienger won $30,000 including a bonus for a new world record. As runners-up, Root and Kennedy earned $4,000 including a $1,000 bonus for the largest California-grown pumpkin.

For more on the championship pumpkin weigh-off: https://weighoff.miramarevents.com/.

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Keywords:

Sacramento gardening October pumpkins fall contests Citrus Heights world records Elk Grove Half Moon Bay gourds vegetables

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Garden checklist for week of Feb. 8

Dodge those raindrops and get things done! Your garden needs you.

* Start your spring (and summer) garden. Transplant or direct-seed several flowers, including snapdragon, candytuft, lilies, astilbe, larkspur, Shasta and painted daisies, stocks, bleeding heart and coral bells.

* In the vegetable garden, plant Jerusalem artichoke tubers, and strawberry and rhubarb roots. Transplant cabbage and its close cousins – broccoli, kale and Brussels sprouts – as well as lettuce (both loose leaf and head).

* Indoors, start peppers, tomatoes and eggplant from seed.

* Plant artichokes, asparagus and horseradish from root divisions. Plant potatoes from tubers and onions from sets (small bulbs). The onions will sprout quickly and can be used as green onions in March.

* From seed, plant beets, chard, lettuce, mustard, peas, radishes and turnips.

* Annuals are showing up in nurseries, but wait until the weather warms up a bit before planting. Instead, set out flowering perennials such as columbine and delphinium.

* Plant summer-flowering bulbs including cannas, calla lilies and gladiolus.

* This is the last chance to spray fruit trees before they bloom. Treat peach and nectarine trees with copper-based fungicide. Spray apricot trees at bud swell to prevent brown rot. Apply horticultural oil to control scale, mites and aphids on fruit trees soon after a rain. But remember: Oils need at least 24 hours to dry to be effective. Don’t spray during foggy weather or when rain is forecast.

* Feed spring-blooming shrubs and fall-planted perennials with slow-release fertilizer. Feed mature trees and shrubs after spring growth starts.

* Remove aphids from blooming bulbs with a strong spray of water or insecticidal soap.

* Fertilize strawberries and asparagus.

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