Joe Adkins calls his home "The Pumpkin House."
His front door and shutters are painted orange. The dining room walls are adorned with ornate pumpkin paintings.
But the backyard garden behind his suburban Chicago home is where The Pumpkin House really earns its name. Towering over a blanket of vines are several massive orange gourds, as big as a small car.
"I grow the ones that are under a pound all the way up to hopefully a couple thousand pounds," he said.
Adkins is a member of a thriving global community of giant pumpkin growers.
These often-amateur horticulturists work in their patches for hours a day to grow the heaviest pumpkins possible. They do it for the love of growing, for the smile pumpkins put on people’s faces, and – for the elite – even a bit of money.
Adkins has won the Illinois Giant Pumpkin Growers Association's annual weigh-off – along with the $1,000 cash prize – multiple years in a row. Last year, he also cracked a personal milestone: his first 2,000-pound pumpkin.
He’s always loved pumpkins, but it was actually pumpkin carving that drew him into the world of giant pumpkin growing – he just wanted a bigger canvas.
“I wanted to carve these big pumpkins like this, and I couldn't find them anywhere to buy them, so I thought, well, let me give it a shot. I'll try to grow one, and then I can carve it that way,” he said. “And I couldn't believe how much I love growing those pumpkins.”
People don’t grow them to make giant pumpkin pie. These “Atlantic Giants” are a different variety than the field pumpkins used for pies and purees.
This year, three giants are growing in Adkins' backyard. They don’t look like typical jack-o-lantern pumpkins. The light-orange behemoths aren’t round, but oblong and flatter on the bottom as they try to withstand their own weight.
All three look to be at least one thousand pounds.
The world’s biggest pumpkin
Cultivating a giant pumpkin patch is a ton of work, year round. Adkins sprays fungicide, prunes and buries vines, and even sets up fans to stop moisture and rot.
During the summer growing season when pumpkins can pack on more than 50 pounds in a single day, caring for these behemoths is basically a full-time job.
“It's literally like four or five hours a day,” Adkins said. “I've got a schedule on Sundays and Tuesdays, I do about eight hours, and all the rest of the days, I have to do a minimum of two to four hours.”
Growers like Adkins hone their craft for years, hoping to someday hit the perfect combination of the best seed in the best soil in the best weather and land the white whale: a world record-setting pumpkin.
Minnesota horticulture teacher Travis Gienger has been chasing that dream since he was a teenager. At 15, he called his shot.
“I hope to set the world record for largest pumpkin some day,” a fresh-faced teenaged Gienger said, in a school presentation recorded on video decades ago that he posted to his YouTube channel. “It might not happen, but I hope it does.”
In 2023, he hitched a trailer, hauled his giant pumpkin to Half Moon Bay in California and set the world record with a jaw-dropping 2,749-pound pumpkin.
Gienger says, back when he was starting, the record was 700 or 800 pounds. It’s tripled since and is not slowing down.
“It's gotten kind of crazy,” Gienger said. ”Now a new grower can go grow a 2,000 pounder, no problem. It takes a lot of work, don't get me wrong, but the world of the internet has really pushed this thing quite a bit.”
People continue growing pumpkins larger and denser than ever. Gienger predicts growers will reach a new landmark in the next decade: a 4,000-pounder.
The science behind giant pumpkins
As the records shatter, giant pumpkin technology and techniques get more sophisticated.
Growers can spend hundreds of dollars for just one seed from a prize-winning champion. Some grow these pumpkins on scales inside climate-controlled greenhouses, hooked up to sensors.
Gienger teaches soil classes and has been growing giant pumpkins for decades. He has some special techniques, like mixing microbes into the soil to help his pumpkins absorb nutrients, but he doesn’t see himself as a highly technical grower.
“I'm probably the least scientific person you'll meet,” Gienger said. “I look at my plants and I say, ‘Hey, they need this, this or this,’ and then I go, and I'll figure out what I want to do. Then I'll rinse and repeat for the next year.”
His patch is outside; you won’t find any climate controls. But something’s clearly working — he did set the world record, after all.
It helps that Gienger’s in Minnesota, where the climate, sunshine and humidity are ideal for growing pumpkins.
But even with his experience and know-how, growing outside brings a host of unpredictable factors, particularly the weather. An unseasonably warm spell or early frost can spell disaster for pumpkins.
There are also bacterial diseases to worry about, not to mention rot. In fact, Gienger didn’t have a shot at defending his world championship this year, because he lost his main pumpkin to internal rot that started as just a tiny pinhole on the blossom-end of the plant.
Giant pumpkins go global
While many might think of pumpkins as an American pastime, Gienger says that technological innovation has come mainly from European growers.
“Right now, it's really the guys overseas who are kicking butts in the greenhouses,” he said.
Gienger knew it was just a matter of time until someone broke his record, and it happened on Oct. 4, when two English brothers grew a 2,819-pound giant.
Giant pumpkin growing is global – and it’s taken Gienger all over the world.
“I've been to Spain, Belgium, France, with a group of growers,” he said. “Cripes, today I'm sending seeds to Australia and South Africa.”
Most people don’t make money growing pumpkins. If you’re lucky, like Joe Adkins in Illinois, you might break even. But, for elite growers like Gienger, raising giant pumpkins can be lucrative.
He says he can make up to $10,000 a year in seed sales. That’s not including prize money from winning weigh-offs, like the $30,000 he earned for setting the world record in 2023. Even after the competition, Gienger says, you can sell your championship pumpkin for another $10,000.
The hobby itself is also growing. There are giant pumpkin weigh-offs and festivals all over the country.
Del Faust is the president of the Wisconsin Giant Pumpkin Growers. He says their group has doubled in size to 200 members since he joined in 2012. They send seeds to members, organize patch tours, and hold weigh-offs.
Wisconsin also recently hosted an international growers conference.
“We made a lot of friends throughout Wisconsin and the world,” Faust said. “The worldwide [conference] last year was up in Green Bay at Lambeau Field, so people from all over the world came to learn more about growing giant pumpkins.”
Giant pumpkins can float?
The Upper Midwest is great for pumpkin growing, but these giants grow all over the U.S. Steve Kueny is a grower from southern Missouri where he knows that, because of the climate, he’s not going to be breaking the weight world record.
“It is so hot. I mean, I put shade cloth over my pumpkins. Half the day, they're in the shade of trees, and I'll still have sun scorch and any number of problems,” Kueny said.
After he tried to grow a few pumpkins on his own, the internet connected him to the giant pumpkin community in 2020 where he got some good advice and, importantly, good seeds. In one year, he went from growing 100-pound pumpkins to 1,000-pounders.
He may not grow the biggest pumpkins in the world, but Kueny did set a giant pumpkin world record of a different kind.
A few years ago, he grew a more than 1,200-pound pumpkin, cut a hole at the top, hollowed it out, climbed inside, and dropped into the Missouri River. Kueny then set a Guiness World Record for the longest journey paddling in a pumpkin boat.
“We just set out about two years ago today, went up to Kansas City, put in at Cobb Point Park, and went 38 miles down the river,” he said. “Pumpkins are very, very buoyant.”
After the trip, Kueny thought the pumpkin would make excellent fish food. He tried to cut it up, but giant pumpkin flesh can be nearly a foot thick at some points, which proved tough to carve. So, instead, he says they rammed it twice with a pontoon boat and sank it to the bottom of the Missouri River.
The Illinois weigh-off
In mid-September, Joe Adkins hitched his giant pumpkin to the back of a trailer and drove it to Heap's Giant Pumpkin Farm in Minooka, Illinois, hoping to defend his title against a dozen other growers.
A few first-timers showed up with their pumpkins in tow, and were enthusiastically greeted by the other growers, quick to offer tips and encouragement.
“We're gonna get you some seeds! Once the season's over, we'll be communicating and get some seeds,” said Mark Mourlas to a new grower approaching the tent. The newbie is sporting a Batman-esque utility belt adorned with little pumpkins.
Mourlas is with Illinois’ association and the international governing body, the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth. He says this is often the only time of year when everyone’s together, so the growers catch up and trade tips. It’s friendly, but competitive.
The weigh-off is mostly a giant pumpkin showcase, but there are other categories. They hand out prizes for the biggest field pumpkins, squashes, long gourds, watermelons and more.
But the giants are the main attraction. Pumpkins up to 1,500 pounds tipped the scale through the afternoon, but it comes down to the last pumpkin, which belongs to Adkins. The weight to beat is 1,882.
As the crowd held their breath, a pumpkin lasso latched on to a forklift and gently hoisted the giant gourd into the sky before lowering it onto an oversized scale.
“Two thousand twenty-six pounds!” the announcer shouted as the crowd erupted in cheers. Adkins yelled and pumped his fist. His pumpkin not only won the weigh off, it also beat his own personal record by just five pounds.
After the competition, Adkins loaded his prize-winner onto the trailer to haul it home.
He plans to carve it for Halloween and hand out seeds to trick-or-treaters, hopefully to inspire the next generation of giant pumpkin growers.
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
