The biggest gourds in British Columbia were on display in Langley Saturday for the 2026 B.C. Giant Pumpkin Weigh Off.
Several tons of squash went head to head across eight categories, but in the end, just a single pound decided the day’s biggest prize.
Kelowna grower Jordan Abbate won the giant pumpkin category with his 1,485-pound gourd. The runner up, grown by Team Halliday, weighed 1,484 pounds.
Abbate told event emcee Jeff Pelletier he wasn’t feeling confident heading into the competition.
“I’m happy with it,” he told reporters after finding out he had taken top prize.
Asked what goes into growing a giant pumpkin, Abbate said he spent “a couple hours a day” over a six-month period tending to his gargantuan gourd.
“(It took) many months of watering, pruning, maintaining the plant and all that. Even in the winter, I was working on the soil,” he said.
Pelletier explained that the weigh off is governed by the rules of the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, which hosts about 800 competitions worldwide each year.
This is the 13th year of B.C.’s competition.
“Every year gets better and bigger and, I think, there will be several B.C. records either challenged or broken today,” Pelletier told CTV News ahead of the competition Saturday.
His prediction proved correct. While Abbate’s giant pumpkin did not eclipse the provincial record, a 1,149-pound squash set a new mark for that category at Saturday’s event.
There was also a 131.5-inch “long gourd,” also a new record for the province.
The eight categories Great Pumpkin Commonwealth keeps records for are giant pumpkin, giant squash, field pumpkin, long gourd, bushel gourd, tomato, watermelon and giant zucchini, Pelletier said.
The giant squash and giant pumpkin categories yield the heaviest competitors, requiring forklifts and slings to move them around.
“They put on so much weight when they’re in their maximum growth rate that you almost have to check on them every day,” Pelletier said, noting that a giant pumpkin can put on as much as 60 pounds a day during that peak time.
“And they’ll do that for two weeks,” he said. “It’s your pet for the six months that you’re growing it.”
While Abbate’s 1,485-pound pumpkin is massive, it’s barely half the size of the world record gourd.
Last year, British brothers Ian and Stuart Paton set the world record with a 2,819-pound pumpkin, and this year’s Great Pumpkin Commonwealth leaderboard shows Ian Paton with an even-bigger 2,856-pound gourd.
