Good gourd!
Eddy Shaw wins third consecutive pumpkin weigh off while setting P.E.I. record
Giant pumpkin grower Eddy Shaw is already setting his sights on next year’s harvest.
The Charlottetown man won the top prize at the Giant Pumpkin and Squash Weigh Off for the third year in a row with a 1,594.5-pound pumpkin at Vesey’s Seeds on Saturday.
“It feels pretty good, (especially) with all the work you do to it,” said Shaw, who earned a $500 prize with the first-place finish.
“I’ll put that back into (growing pumpkins), there’s fertilizer, lime and stuff like that. It takes up every bit of it and there’s a lot of money that goes into it.” Surprisingly, Saturday’s champion was not the biggest pumpkin Shaw grew this year. Shaw’s massive 1,624-pound pumpkin, which is a new record for a pumpkin grown on P.E.I., finished first in the 33rd annual Windsor-West Hants Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Nova Scotia last weekend.
However, because the pumpkin was entered in the N.S. competition, which is a global weigh-off site and member of the Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth, he was unable to enter it in the P.E.I. weigh-off. Even though it was about 30 pounds lighter, Shaw’s pumpkin on Saturday was still the largest ever entered in the P.E.I. competition.
“It’s all about breaking records,” said Gordon Aten, president of the P.E.I. Giant Pumpkin Growers Association. “That’s what we like to see and it’s happened three years in a row now.”
Aten also thanked the event’s sponsors and said the event saw great weather.
“It was good. People like to get out of the house for a few hours and this has good entertainment. Kids come here and they enjoy it too because there’s lots for them to do,” said Aten. The day saw a number of family activities, from wagon rides and pumpkin decorating to games and entertainment. However, the highlight for many was the weigh-off, with a crowd of people surrounding the scales once the large pumpkins came out.
Shaw noted that it takes a lot of patience and work to grow his pumpkins.
The biggest tricks are having a good seed, Shaw’s pumpkin on Saturday started with a seed from Connecticut, as well as providing it with enough water.
“A lot is in the genetics of the seed… and lots of water. Those are the big things,” said Shaw, noting that they also need plenty of hot days.
“I just kept watering them, I’d water them twice a day. A couple hours in the morning and three hours at night.”