Growing Giant Pumpkins ‘A Tough Hobby’ for Illinois Enthusiasts

Hi, I'm Kevin Heap, and welcome to Heap's Giant Pumpkin Farm. We're having a giant pumpkin weigh-off. It's going to take place here in just a little bit. Our farm's probably right at 160 years old or so, and we started growing pumpkins, I bet, I don't know, 15 years ago or so, and we grow right at 26 and a half acres of pumpkins. Oh, it's really cool. What can't you not like about giant pumpkins? How cool is that? The time it takes to grow these things is incredible. We're weighing smallest to biggest based on just size measurements. Yeah, basically I founded this with a bunch of local growers about 15 years ago. So, in Illinois, there's probably maybe 10 to 15 serious competitive growers, and that varies year to year. It's a tough hobby, so a lot of people, they'll drop out after a couple years if there's not success. I mean, there's no guarantees when it comes to growing giant pumpkins. This is maybe half of what the world record would be. You know, this is half of a 2,000 pound pumpkin. Top price is $500, plus we have a traveling championship belt that goes to the champion. The heaviest weight on this belt is 1,861 in 2016 from Joe. I've always loved pumpkins ever since I was little. You go to the pumpkin patch, and even when I was a little kid, I had to get the biggest pumpkin that they would have out there. So, as you get older, you just realize you can't find those in the store. You got to grow them yourself, and it's just turned out to be this. You wouldn't really want to eat one of these type of pumpkins. Usually those little tiny sugar pie pumpkins are the ones that you eat with. The other thing is, too, some of the stuff that the growers put in there, I don't think I'd want to be eating it. I mean, I make pumpkin pies. I like the carving, so I hack up the face. I'll make about a dozen pies for Thanksgiving for family and friends. Yeah, no, they're good. They're good eating. We're down to the two last competitors, mine and Joe's, for the biggest. So, I got my pumpkin, and Joe's is strapped up. I was shooting for $1,300, but you can't get too greedy. Last pumpkin to be weighed is mine, and $1,258 is the weight to beat. So, we're going to see here in a minute what's going down. I lost by 50 pounds on a good day. That's one good day growing in July or August. Joe gets another year with the belt. That's it. That's it, baby. We live in Chicago. There's always next year.