red Ansems stands next to his record 3.5 metre gourd.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Annnapolis Valley Giant Vegetable Growers

It’s the crazy season for gourds, squash, and pumpkins

Every autumn there are competitions around North America for the biggest vegetables.

In recent years,competition pumpkins have been getting bigger and bigger. The 2012 record holder is 911 kg. ans was grown in Rhode Island USA.

Now comes word of the world’s longest gourd.

The Annapolis Valley Giant Vegetable Growers Association annual competition in Waterville, Nova Scotia has always featured some amazingly huge vegetables.

Although giant heavy pumpkins tend to get the most media coverage, now comes word of the world’s longest gourd.

Annapolis farmer Fred Ansems has apparently grown a world record gourd of more than 3.5 metres according to the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth.

The Guinness record is held by a Chinese gourd, but that was not registered with the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, and so doesn’t count in their books.

In addition to the record gourd, Ansems also won the local competition for the heaviest watermelon, and heaviest squash.

AVGV Association member Paul Ferguson says there are a few tricks to growing a super-sized gourd.

“The long gourd, it loves the heat. You have to have a long enough trellis so that it can grow up and then grow down,” he said. “It takes a lot of care, a lot of getting the right nutrients into the soil. And some of it is luck.”

Throughout the maritime provinces in eastern Canada the weather has been good for vegetables.  The owner of a farm in Stratford , Prince Edward Island, says rain in July followed by a hot August made for ideal  pumpkin conditions.

While the weather in central Canada this summer tended to be wetter and cooler than usual, in western Canada they are expecting record grain crops in wheat, canola, oats, barley,rye, and flax

Estimates are that these combined harvests could top 61 million tonnes, up from the 9 year average of under 48 million tonnes.

That’s mixed news for farmers though, as the glut means prices are down.

As for the giant pumpkins, farmers are waiting another week or two for that extra growth that may lead to a new record.

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