California Crowns 2,389lb World Champion Pumpkin; Perthshire Allotment Holders Say Theirs Would Have Won ‘If It Had Ever Stopped Raining’
Local growers claim a Scottish pumpkin is 'just as big on the inside, emotionally'.
Giant pumpkins lined up for judging, none of them grown anywhere near Perth. Photo: Nick Ares, “Giant pumpkins linedup”, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
PERTH — The crowning of a 2,389lb pumpkin named Rocky as champion at the World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California, has been greeted with deep scepticism on Perth’s allotments, where growers insist local conditions are “the only thing holding us back.”
“Two thousand pounds? In California?” scoffed one North Inch plot-holder, gesturing at a pumpkin roughly the size of a bowling ball. “Give me that sunshine and I’d grow a pumpkin you could live in. Here we get eleven days of summer and a slug that knows my name.”
Perthshire growers say a Scottish giant pumpkin faces challenges unknown in California, including frost in June, deer, and neighbours who “just want to have a wee look” and then lean on it.
Local enthusiasts have proposed an alternative contest better suited to conditions: the Perthshire Championship Neep Weigh-Off, in which the heaviest turnip wins, and the runner-up is made into a lantern. “Proper Scottish Halloween,” said one. “None of your American pumpkins. A neep. Hollowed out with a spoon over three days, until your hands bleed. That’s tradition.”
Asked what he would name a 2,000lb pumpkin, should he ever grow one, the North Inch grower considered for a long time. “Broxden,” he said. “Because nobody’d ever get round it.”
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