GIANT PUMPKINS
Thousands enjoy Saratoga Giant Pumpkinfest
Thousands of people came out to see some of the region’s biggest pumpkins on Sunday at the 2019 Saratoga Giant Pumpkinfest.
The fourth annual harvest time event, held at Saratoga Spa State Park, featured dozens of pumpkins, gourds, squash, watermelons, and tomatoes competing in a categorized weigh-off.
Growers from throughout Saratoga County, the Capital Region, and the entire Northeast brought their vegetables to the festival hoping to go home with a piece of the $8,500 in prizes at stake.
Returning competitor Travis Clemons, last year’s squash champion, came back this year with another big squash and a large pumpkin.
Clemons has been growing giant vegetables for about five years at his home garden in Caroga.
“They’re getting bigger every year, so I guess I’m doing something right,” he said Sunday afternoon while watching his 751-pound squash get weighed.
In the pumpkin category, some of the pumpkins are more than 1,000 pounds.
Last year’s winning pumpkin at Saratoga Giant Pumpkinfest was 1,815 pounds, and organizers were confident the record would be broken during this year’s weigh-off.
Contests aside, “This is a good kick
off to the fall season, particularly with a focus on agriculture, reminding people that we have local farms across Saratoga County and the Capital Region,” said Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, which hosts the event each year. “They don’t all grow giant pumpkins, but they also have created an attraction for themselves. So it’s a little agritourism promotion.”
In addition to the weighoff, the festival included the weekly Spa City Farmer’s Market, children’s activities, food vendors and special exhibits.
Among the crowd of attendees, first-time eventgoers Kim Bertrand and Larry Butler, of Saratoga Springs, were enjoying the festivities. “We love the fall, and we wanted to see some giant pumpkins,” Butler said on why they chose to check out the festival.
Bertrand and Butler both said they’d never seen pumpkins of that size. As they watched the weigh-off, the spectators were playing a game in which they tried to guess most closely each pumpkin’s weight.