Weight gain

It took four years and a lot of hard work but Ben Johnson finally broke his personal record for the heaviest pumpkin.

Johnson, a local grower, won the heaviest pumpkin grown at the fourth annual Pumpkinfest at the Murillo fair grounds on Saturday. Judges weighed 36 pumpkins but Johnson took first place and $1,000 with a 1217 pound pumpkin, a new record for him and for northwestern Ontario.

"It’s my personal best and that’s what I strive for," Johnson said. "It feels real good to grow something that big."

Johnson also won last year with a pumpkin that weighed 786. A cold summer and a lot of rain in August caused the poor growing season however the warmer season this year helped to grow bigger and heavier pumpkins, he said.

To grow a pumpkin that big, Johnson said he uses mainly organic material such as fish fertilizer, liquid seaweed to help grow his pumpkins.

Johnson along with his wife, Lesley started the festival about five years ago. With more than a 100 people in attendance, he said it felt good to see so many people come to the event and glad it was catching on.

Lesley, co coordinator for the Pumpkinfest, said she was happy her husband was able to beat his original record of 1173 pounds.

"He’ll be happy for a year," Lesley said laughing. "People love growing big pumpkins. I don’t know exactly why. My husband starts in January picking seeds and planting the garden and it goes on all year until September. I don’t know why it is that people like it but they do."

Lesley said this year’s festival was a bigger success than last year because of the amount of people who attended and the number of pumpkins submitted into the contest.
While Johnson broke his personal best, he wasn’t the only contestant to do so.

Kallen Foresta, 10, won first prize in the junior category with 665 pounds. Kallen said it felt good to take first place but wasn’t too worried when he saw the other children’s pumpkins.

"I wanted to get involved in pumpkin growing because my dad has been doing it and I just like growing nice, big pumpkins," Kallen said. "This is my biggest one yet. My old record use to be 465 pounds and I’m quite happy that I beat it by 200 pounds."
He said he look forward to competing again next year.