The Great Pumpkin
Jamie Graham is part of a small but intensely committed community of growers pursuing a milestone no one has yet reached: the 3,000-pound pumpkin.
Graham lives in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, where each summer a portion of his yard becomes home to pumpkins so big that calling them “pumpkins” begins to feel inaccurate. Forklifts become a necessity when transporting these prize beauties to competitions across the country, and Graham knows what it feels like to arrive with a monster. In 2022, he brought a pumpkin weighing 2,480 pounds to the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts, setting a fair record that still stands. The pumpkin weighed more than many compact cars, and getting it to that point took an enormous amount of planning and care.
At the height of its growth, the pumpkin gained more than 40 pounds a day for weeks, Graham said. The vines themselves could grow six to eight inches in a day, while the plant consumed 30 to 50 gallons of water daily.
Graham began documenting that remarkable growth online, focusing cameras on his patch and letting everyone else watch along with him. His 2022 pumpkin, nicknamed "Bear Swipe," was captured in a time-lapse as it grew from earliest gestation to a 2,480-pound giant. One popular version even sets the whole transformation to Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca.
And people noticed. Today, Graham’s @NortheastGiantPumpkin accounts have gathered an admirable audience. His YouTube channel has passed one million subscribers, while the Northeast Giant Pumpkin Instagram account has drawn roughly half a million followers. Many of his individual videos have been viewed millions of times.
Part of the appeal is that Graham does more than just show people the finished product. He lets them see the suspense of the growing season: vines spreading across the patch, pumpkins being measured, blankets going on during cool nights, problems appearing unexpectedly, and the estimated weight creeping upward.
The audience gets to wonder along with him: How much did it gain today? Is it still healthy? Will it make it to the weigh-off? Could this be the one that reaches 3,000 pounds?
The current world record is 2,819 pounds, 4 ounces, set in October 2025 by British twin brothers Ian and Stuart Paton. Their pumpkin, nicknamed "Muggle," measured more than 21 feet around. A decade earlier, the world record had only recently crossed 2,000 pounds.
Almost all modern competition pumpkins descend from Dill’s Atlantic Giant, developed by Canadian grower Howard Dill in the 1970s. Growers carefully select seeds from proven pumpkins, prepare enormous growing spaces, hand-pollinate flowers, prune competing fruit, bury vines so they can produce additional roots, manage soil nutrients, monitor pests, protect pumpkins from direct sun, and give the plants remarkable quantities of water.
Ecclesiastes begins its famous meditation on time with a simple declaration: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
Interestingly, we often notice life at the weigh-in: The graduation. The anniversary. The finished project. The answered prayer. The accomplishment everyone else can finally see.
But most worthwhile things are built long before that moment, through days when little appears to be happening: Seeds are planted. Water is carried. Vines are tended. Small choices accumulate.
As you move through your week, keep in mind the lesson of this giant-pumpkin quest: Most of life does not happen at the weigh-in. It happens in all the ordinary days that make the weigh-in possible.