UK giant pumpkin record beaten
1,520lb whopper wins £1,000 for Dorset farmer
Mark receiving his £1,000 cheque from T&M’s Sarah Curtis
Thompson & Morgan handed over a cheque for £1,000 to Dorset dairy farmer, Mark Baggs, at the annual Autumn Pumpkin Festival in Southampton last Saturday for his 1,520lb winning giant pumpkin.
Mark’s giant pumpkin beats by 16lbs the previous UK heaviest pumpkin record of 1,504lbs held by pumpkin-growing experts, Stuart and Ian Paton. Thompson & Morgan has sponsored the Autumn Pumpkin Festival since 2009, but this is the first time that a weight record has been broken.
Mark actually won the competition in 2011 with a pumpkin weighing a substantial 1,334lbs. He says that his interest in growing pumpkins began when he was at school, but it wasn’t until a visit to the UK National Giant Vegetables Championship in 2004 in Shepton Mallet that Mark became focused on the idea of growing a really large pumpkin.
The prize-winning 1520lb pumpkin grown by Mark Baggs of Wareham in Dorset.
The prize-winning specimen that Mark entered into this year’s festival in Southampton was grown from the seed of a German giant pumpkin weighing 1,391lbs. When asked the secret to transforming this seed into such an enormous pumpkin, Mark spoke about the help and support that he has had from the giant vegetable growing community.
‘I’ve had almost daily contact with growers in the US and elsewhere’, he says. ‘People were getting in touch via message boards and email with tips and advice. And since the weigh-in at the weekend, they’re sending congratulations’! Paul Hansord, Thompson & Morgan’s horticultural director said, ‘We’ve always enjoyed being involved in the Autumn Pumpkin Festival, so as you can imagine we’re absolutely thrilled to have found a record-breaker this year’.
Mark thanked Thompson & Morgan for its continued support of the event. Maybe he’ll be back next year with an even bigger pumpkin for his son, Jack, to sit on!
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- Jack, now 4½ sits on top of this year’s 1,520lb prize-winning pumpkin.
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- Mark’s son, Jack, then 2½ with Mark’s 2011 winning entry which weighed 1,334lbs.
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
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