The Great Pumpkin Carnival was held on Sunday the 30th which has just been and if you know me then you will know that I am involved somewhat in helping out with this event.
My Pumpkin
One of the things I need to organise is my pumpkin I am taking to the event, this year I managed to drop generators off the day before, and I was determined to get the pumpkin in my car, which is very small. It is a Toyota Vitz which looks like this:
And it probably one of the worst choices for transporting giant vegetables ever, but I have to work with what I have got.
It turned out 3 of us couldn’t lift it which was an ambitious goal to begin with any ways as it was estimating at around the 165kg’s mark. I thought we would be able to lift it to the edge of the boot which is really low and roll it in.
.
So after some discussion and talking and asking the neighbour to help who said her husband and workmate would be home soon, we thought we would put it under the fence and get it up this old stock loading ramp, luckily they turned up and it wasn’t nessacery. Into the boot it went.
Early morning start
It was an early morning start to get everything up and ready for the day, one of the great things this year is that most people that have tents that we are borrowing all seem to have upgraded to the pop up type ones, which sure did make set up really quick for us.
The crowds came early, almost a bit too early as we have registration and weigh in open for 2 hours, so you might not see too much right at the start.
There seemed to be a lack of giant pumpkins over 200kg’s this year and I was expecting there to be more in the 300kg range making an appearance but it seems a lot of growers had a hard time this year.
Video from the event
Here is the video I shot of the day, including downhill rolling.
Here is some more of the downhill rolling from Gareth who was a great help on the day.
Photos from the event
Damaged Pumpkin
Tim turned up and it sure was exciting to see his pumpkins, although I wasn’t expecting to see one pouring out with water, the smaller of the two managed to crack open on the travel to the carnival and boy did it smell. I’m guessing it had been rotting on the inside for a little bit prior to the crack in it appearing.
Tim’s hands were shaking due to the excitement of finding out what his pumpkin was going to weigh, it sure does help having the Hi Ab there, so a big thanks to Mitre 10 Mega Hamilton for helping us out there.
The pumpkin weighed in at 690.5kg’s which was awesome and is a new record for us at the carnival, and it actually matched the estimation of weight almost exactly, unfortunately it didn’t go heavy like we had all hoped.
It was a super hot day, with great creations, lots of people and the downhill roll went really smoothly this year due to moving people back and only really rolling giant ones that could break.
I’m looking forward to next year and seeing how everything goes and what everyone can grow or make.
Results
All the results of the day can be found over at thegreatpumpkincarnival.co.nz
