Enormous Pumpkin Disqualified From Winning $20K Prize

It’s a great pumpkin—the heaviest in the US, even. Its grower, Mike Schmit of Wisconsin, says “it weighs in at about 2,520 pounds,” ABC7 reports. But that great pumpkin will not win any prizes, thanks to a tiny, tiny crack. To win the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off—and the $9 per pound prize—the pumpkin has to be perfectly perfect. Unfortunately for Schmit, who must have been dreaming of that $20,000, his giant gourd developed a tiny defect thanks to a quirk in how it grew. “There’s no crying in pumpkin growing, Schmit said.

Instead of crying, Schmit is planning for the future. I know I can do it again, he told TMJ4. Schmit has been growing big gourd-geous pumpkins since 2016 and he’s learned a lot. He says he’s going to save the seeds from his near winner in hopes of growing another one. It will be hard work, too. He said he spent about 30 hours per week tending to his three enormous pumpkins. His would-be winner grew more than 50 pounds a day and needed 150 gallons worth of watering every day. He won’t get the money but he is having fun. “Pumpkins are like ice cream—everyone loves them,” he said. When he takes his pumpkins out of the patch and into town, kids stare and grownups take pictures. (More strange stuff stories.)