Howard Dill of Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada, thinks he may have raised this year’s world-champion pumpkin out in his garden.

Friday, October 22, 1999

Howard Dill of Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada, thinks he may have raised this year’s world-champion pumpkin out in his garden.

According to an article in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, this farmer planned to enter his giant pumpkin for the official weigh-off at the 15th annual Windsor Pumpkin Festival earlier this month. His huge produce product would then be competing for largest in the world honors with other oversized pumpkins from other weigh-offs elsewhere in Canada and the U.S.

Just how large is this particular pumpkin? It’s evidently big enough to serves as a jack-o-lantern for either Paul Bunyan or the Jolly Green Giant.

The news article said the preliminary estimate for this great big blob of orange-yellow fruit or vegetable was a weight of 450 kilograms.

And right here we have an interesting math problem. The Canadians are firmly committed to the metric system. Thus, for the Tribune’s fine readers, I’ll have to convert those kilograms to pounds.

A table in my dictionary says a kilogram equals 2.2 pounds. That means Dill’s prize pumpkin, then only 70 days old, weighs 990 pounds.

How does one move a pumpkin weighing nearly a half-ton from the farm garden to town for the big weigh-off? A logical answer is carefully. I also have a hunch a fork lift could be used for this particular task.

For those who may have doubts regarding pumpkins growing so large during just one growing season, I did some further research.

The 1997 &uot;Guiness Book of World Records&uot; lists the largest official weight for pumpkins, as of 1994, as being 990 pounds. Just by coincidence that’s the same weight as Mr. Dill’s oversized gem. The monster mentioned in the Guiness book was grown by H. Bax of Lyon, Ontario, Canada.

In reality, each growing season produces a new contender for the world -champion pumpkin. The Halifax newspaper said the 1998 champion pumpkin weighed 1,089 pounds and was grown by another Canadian, Gary Burke of Simcoe, Ontario.

If Mr. Dill wins this year at both Windsor and the other weigh-offs, it will be the fifth time he’s produced a world-champion pumpkin since 1976. He would also become the sixth grower in the world to produce a pumpkin weighing 990 pounds (450 kilograms) or more.

Just how large are these monster pumpkins? There’s another interesting statistic to consider. It’s the circumference, or distance around the outside of the widest part of the pumpkin.

Again, we’re dealing with the metric system. The Halifax newspaper reports that Mr. Dill’s enormous pumpkin this year is 957 centimeters in circumference. The dictionary table says a centimeters equals .4 of an inch. Thus, this particular pumpkin measures 383 inches, or 32 feet, or nearly 11 yards around the middle. Now that’s big by anyone’s measurement.

Come to think of it, maybe they had to use a flatbed trailer to transport that massive vine-grown pumpkin from the farm to Windsor’s Exhibition Park.

Windsor, Nova Scotia, is located 70 kilometers (or 43.4 miles) northwest of Halifax in one of the province’s best agricultural regions.

The Halifax newspaper explained that Howard Dill is a winner in another aspect of pumpkin raising. Their article commented, &uot;The five largest pumpkins in the world, more than 450 kilograms (990 pounds) each, were grown with his Atlantic Giant seed which he exports worldwide.&uot;

Incidentally, here’s a partial listing of the American localities which have pumpkin festivals as either harvest time events, or in conjunction with Halloween: Stamford, Neb., Bedford, Pa., Morton, Ill., Milton, W. Va., Circleville, Ohio, and Chadds Ford, Pa.

Here in Minnesota we have the Pumpkin Patch Festival in Litchfield, Pumpkin Festival in Lake Park, and the really odd Underwater Pumpkin Carving Contest in Detroit Lakes, which all took place last month. And just west of the city we have Larry Alvey’s popular Pumpkin Patch.

Now, to close off this timely topic, here’s a logical question. Just how many pies could be made with one of these giant pumpkins?