Santa Rosa pumpkin grower aims high with Half Moon Bay weigh-off entry
One North Bay grower competing in the Half Moon Bay for the 52nd Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off Monday has his sights set on the state record and pumpkin immortality.
Sunday was moving day for the giant pumpkin in Brandon Dawson's Santa Rosa backyard. And the first step was removing the huge network of roots that covered the expansive growing plot.
"The whole way that this works is we can make this whole 1,000-square-foot area one big root zone!" said Dawson, as he ripped up massive roots and nearly 2,000 feet of drip lines.
The pumpkin is named "Seymour" after the uptight character Principal Seymour Skinner on "The Simpsons." But the gigantic gourd wasn't just taking up the entire backyard. It had also taken up a lot of Brandon's life.
Since planting it as a seed in June, he'd averaged more than an hour a day tending to it. It was his fourth attempt at growing a pumpkin for the Half Moon Bay contest. His entire family was often called into service, as well.
"At first I thought, he'll do it one year and that'd be it," said his father, Varick. "But he's hooked now. And every year they're bigger and bigger and bigger."
"In the middle of the season it grew up to 58 pounds. I actually measured 58 pounds a day, which is really, really extreme," said Brandon. "And right now it's growing somewhere between 3 and 5 pounds per day, so it's come way down on the growth curve."
On Sunday, it was time for picking, which isn't easy. With Seymour weighing more than 2,000 pounds, Brandon had to rent an industrial forklift to gently hoist it off the ground. Hanging from its harness, Brandon checked for splits or soft spots that could disqualify it from competition.
"No soft spots. No big damage. That's the number one important thing," Dawson reported, with a sense of relief. "And the other thing is the bottom's nice and flat. A flat bottom usually means that there's more pumpkin meat, more weight."
"It's kind of scary," said his mother Pattie as they examined the underside of the pumpkin. "I mean, they're kind of looking underneath to check it out and everything and it weighs a couple thousand pounds. What if the thing fell, you know?"
Next, a shipping pallet was placed below and the pumpkin was lowered onto a layer of foam rubber pads.
"Seeing this big old thing in the air definitely makes me nervous," said Brandon. "I'm so happy to see it on the pallet. And now the next step is lifting it into the back of the truck."
But as it settled onto the flatbed, there was another reminder of the size of Seymour. A loud alarm began blaring, signaling that the rented 1½ ton truck was overloaded.
"It says 3,000 pound capacity, and I don't think the pumpkin weighs 3,000 pounds," said Brandon, laughing. "But it did just tell me that the truck was overloaded. Maybe that's a good omen!"
The truth is, they didn't actually know how much Seymour weighed. Brandon and veteran grower Andy Marden took measurements of its girth, applied a special pumpkin algorithm, and got an estimate of 2,348 pounds. The state record is 2,497, set last year at Half Moon Bay.
"Well, this might be a state record. It might be close to a state record," said Marden, sounding a bit envious. "My personal best is 1,592. This one might be close to a thousand pounds bigger than that. So it's crazy to think about."
"It's just an estimate, so it could be significantly less than that," said Brandon. "Or if we're lucky, it could be above that. And if it's above that, we're in that 'almost' neighborhood of the California state record."
On Monday, Dawson came close to victory, but his 2,465 pound pumpkin was bumped to second place after reigning champion Travis Gienger's weighed in at six pounds more.
The Minnesotan takes home $22,239 in prize money for his 2,471 pound pumpkin, while Dawson won $3,000 for second place plus an additional $1,000 for having the biggest pumpkin from California in the contest.