BY DAVE CHOATE
Peter Carter had never won first place at a fair for his giant pumpkins before and had actually planned to take this year off from competitive growing. One really big pumpkin changed that.
Carter, of Goffstown, won the popular giant pumpkin contest at the Hills- borough County Fair with the same pumpkin which won him the grand prize at the Rochester Fair. The gargantuan gourd weighed in at 1,101 pounds at the Hillsborough Fair and 1,095 pounds at the Rochester Fair, easily winning the grand prize in both.
“It’s quite a story, really. We had nine guys lifting up a 886 pounder for me and then go for one that looked about the same size-wise. When the same nine guys went to lift (the 1,101 pounder) they had no such luck,” Carter said.
The winning pumpkin had to be fork lifted onto a palette and was then brought to the fair for its winning weighing.
It was the largest pumpkin Carter has grown in the 12 years he’s been trying.
“A pumpkin that size has to come from a special seed, and mine came from the world record holder last year, a 1,502 pounder in Connecticut. You also need a good soil and pesticides and fungicides to keep away the bugs and fungi that prey on pumpkins,” he said.
Another 800 pounder in Carter’s garden went to good use on Sept. 23 when his daughter was married with the enormous pumpkin as the backdrop. He also grew some much smaller gourds for his daughter.
Carter said growing the pumpkins is an ultimately rewarding experience.
“It’s sort of fascinating to see how they grow, because they grow by as much as 30 pounds a day. It’s also fun to see people stop and look because they’re always pointing, smiling and yelling about how big they are,” said Carter.
Right now the pumpkin is still at the Rochester Fair, and Carter said he is unsure what he will do with it. If it doesn’t rot before then, he said he might enter it in Goffstown’s Pumpkin Regatta.
Carter encouraged anyone who wants to try their hand at growing the behemoths to contact the Giant Pumpkin Grower’s Association of Goffstown or to visit their Web site at www.nhgpga.org.