"Two steps," advised John Muller, Monday, the day of the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off. "Step one: Drop pumpkin. Step two: Launch car."
The film crew appeared demoralized by the farmer's simple strategy. The crew just spent several weeks in an abandoned parking lot trying to grow a squash with dirt and a clutch of hydroponic lights. Then, and as the pumpkin began to enlarge, they planned to slip the vehicle above it, watching as the jalopy "began to levitate."
 Paul Rys makes an effort to keep his big pumpkins the traditional orange color. |
That plan failed.
Byron and her crew allow that they weren't the most vigilant of gardeners. But they're gearing up for a second round of growing, and were itching to rub green thumbs with the crème-de-la-crème of the pumpkin elite who turned out for Half Moon Bay's most publicized annual event. Among the weighty pumpkins, the seeds of a new plan were planted.
"The Squash Weightlifter," they say, will air one day.
For the 33rd time in as many years, growers, grocers and countless gawkers gathered again in Half Moon Bay for the annual weigh-off. Promoters of this year's event characterized the pumpkins as "monster." The description holds. Gravity has pulled the curvature out of many of the orange beasts, which sprawled all over the scales and almost seemed to growl, daring you to try to make a pie out of them.
Dwarfed by their fruit are the farmers themselves. Some come to town from as far north as Washington, even caravanning together to pool resources. And there are the locals: "Farmer John" Muller and his wife Eda, and Kevin Burns from Pescadero, to name a few. A woman from Redwood City knew she couldn't beat the Coastside farmers, but thought she'd give it a try.
"Mine is only 112 pounds, which I know is bound to lose," said Adelle Fortes. "But on my side of the hill, that's pretty darn big."
Sherry LaRue's pumpkin, some three-and-a-half feet high, lay on Main Street with a recently cut stem that was oozing a clear liquid that was sweet to the tongue.
"It just kills me to cut it," said the first-grade teacher from Tenino, Wash.
Growers are often careful not to prune their pumpkins until the last possible chance, she says. In the heat, a pumpkin can lose weight - tens of pounds is not unheard of on a sunny day - and in a competition where size is the only thing that counts, farmers will even bag their severed squash stems with pouches of dark liquids to stave off evaporation. On a nearby flatbed, there's one pumpkin covered in a thick blanket.
But sometimes there's just no avoiding a pumpkin disaster.
"There can be explosions," says LaRue.
She isn't kidding. During the course of a pumpkin's maturation, the center may begin to grow faster than the skin. It's not always obvious at first since the outer edges often stretch. Then, eventually, the inevitable occurs.
"Think of a very pregnant woman," says LaRue to a small crowd that gathered before her Monday. "I had 26 of these, only 12 made it."
The onlookers are left to balance out that unsettling pair of images. Another forklift passed by, weighed down by a squash from Paso Robles.
Across the street, proffering a portfolio of photos, stood Paul Rys.
Even before you hear him speak, it's obvious that Rys isn't just a farmer, but possesses the air of a man of science as well. Round orange spectacles bridged his nose and he pushed up the cuffs of his plaid shirt as though it were a lab coat.
"What you see here is the product of genetic manipulation," he began. "From the moment these plants begin to grow, I monitor and pollinate them."
Rys explained that in the farming world, the lust for the largest pumpkin has driven out the aesthetic pleasure, that is, the quest for the purest hybrid. While many of the competitors can be barely recognized as pumpkins, Rys' fruit maintain round bodies and even circumferences, sporting proportions that seem to obey classical geometric ratios. Their color is a vivid orange. A fuzzy glow stays on the inner eye even after you look away.
"I won first place for most beautiful in 2003," Rys says with a smile, adding that his altered seeds begat the co-winner of 2005. He began his experiments five years ago, and each fall he claims the pumpkins have become increasingly attractive.
"I hope that one day the biggest pumpkin will also be the most beautiful," says the farmer.
As a motorcade of forklifts delivered the final, most gargantuan of the pumpkins, there was a baited air on the fairgrounds. It was tense, like the moment just before the autumnal Indian raids of yore.
"I can't take it," someone says, possibly in jest, possibly not.
A pumpkin, grown by a 12-year-old girl from Los Altos Hills, stole the lead at an unbearable 1,191 pounds. Her father, Vince Zunino, stood proud in a baseball cap. His son Tony just took the beauty award which Rys had thought was his.
"But there's still Holland yet," Zunino allows.
Joel Holland, a retired firefighter from Puyallup, Wash., has taken the last two pumpkin championships. He's won five total in Half Moon Bay and was aching for a sixth. Rumor has it he won't even make the trip south unless his squash weighs over 1,200 pounds.
The weigh-off continued into its fourth hour and the crowd was bursting with tourists and old-timers, dignitaries and high school truants. There was hardly an inch of open ground, save for a small tract left vacant before a stately row of seniors in wheelchairs.
Silence.
Not even the mayor said a word when Holland's gourd was lifted.
A half dozen straps groaned under the weight as a crane maneuvered the thing toward the scales like a slow, orange wrecking ball.
The first reading was in the 1,150's range. There was a gasp.
But then the crane let loose more slack. The scale shimmied up.
The numbers held at 1,223 pounds.
On a picture-perfect morning, Holland took home $6,115, or $5 for every pound his pumpkin weighs.
Lumpy, formidable, and a star - like a prom queen no one would date - Holland's squash will be feted for two days while displayed at this weekend's Art and Pumpkin Festival.
The others will travel home, possibly making the world's biggest jack-o-lanterns.
"We tried it once," said LaRue. "Carved it out and everything. But a candle inside? Forget it - we had to install a floodlight."
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