Entry · Sunday, April 26, 2026
Atlantic Giant Pumpkin
/at-LAN-tik JY-ant PUM-kin/ n.- 1. A cultivar of Cucurbita maxima bred specifically for competitive weight, achieving masses routinely exceeding 900 kg in championship specimens, characterized by a flattened, heavily ribbed silhouette that spreads laterally before it rises vertically, as though the gourd considered its options and chose width.
- 2. slang. Festival royalty. Arrives on a flatbed, gets weighed in front of a crowd, and still looks unbothered. The ribs alone could be a county line.
"The Atlantic Giant pumpkin at the Topsfield Fair weigh-in clocked 1,400 pounds and required a forklift, a tarp, and a brief moment of collective silence. The judges just wrote 'thiccc' and averaged the numbers later."
From Atlantic, denoting the northeastern North American growing tradition centered on the Eastern Seaboard, where Howard Dill of Windsor, Nova Scotia, developed the founding cultivar 'Dill's Atlantic Giant' and patented it in 1986. Giant from Old French geant, from Latin gigas, from Greek gigas, a being of mythological scale. The cultivar name is therefore, pound for pound, the most accurate plant name in horticulture.
Filed by
It has its own weather system. The barrier tape is doing its best.
Ruling ADMITTED
The curvature viewed from above is a documented condition, not a compliment. The trailer requirement earns this entry. Mother Nature having something to prove does not.
In the margin
The fact that the county fair had to clear a brand-new path for it means the pumpkin effectively redesigned the event around itself, which is incredible.
Also received REJECTED
Submitted: a drumstick, the musical kind. It has a round, bulbous tip and it really commits to its shape, like the pumpkin.
It is a thin stick. The catalogue has a width requirement.