ST. ANDREWS – It is the time of year when many families adorn their properties with fall decorations, including bright orange pumpkins. But it is safe to say few – if any – greet visitors and drivers with a more than 900-pound gourd, which the Stewart family from here will be doing for a second consecutive season.
“It would have outgrown the one from last year,” David Stewart told The Journal of this year’s pumpkin, which tipped the scale – including the pallet it rested on – at 936 pounds.
In 2025, he harvested one that weighed in at 935 pounds. It had a couple more weeks to grow before it had to be picked in mid-September.
“It was a whole different season,” Stewart offered of the weather conditions that influenced the early timeline.
There were drought conditions in 2025, but this year, he said, there was “not so much heat and more moisture.” He noted that he dealt with daily rain for more than two weeks from the end of August until early September.
Stewart explained that the increased moisture caused issues such as powdery mildew. As the water collected, and despite his nightly effort to remove it, the blossom “started to rot,” so he had to pick the pumpkin on Sept. 15.
“It would have usually been a couple of more weeks,” he noted of the traditional timeline that stretches into early October.
By that time in other years, Stewart explained – with some help from Jimmy Pero and his John Deere tractor, along with Darcy Van and Clifford Benson in 2026 – the giant pumpkin was loaded on the back of his truck for the more than two-hour drive to Millville, Cape Breton, for the Joe King Memorial Pumpkin Festival, an annual community celebration that includes prizes for growers. Last year, Stewart and his wife, Maddy, who was pregnant with Sadie, and their eldest daughter, Ellie-Mae, along with his parents, Karen and Ralph, made the trip.
Because of the earlier harvest time, there will be no contest across the Canso Causeway, with the Stewart family having to celebrate their success closer to home. They transported their gourd to the Holna Farm Services Ltd. location along Hwy. 337 for a celebration of the harvest, one that included a heaviest pumpkin contest.
“It was a lot of fun,” Stewart said, noting that the competition included “mostly field pumpkins.”
He noted how the event was a great team effort, including the Antigonish Farm and Garden Co-op on St. Andrews Street providing a scale that was large enough to weigh the more than 900-pound entry from the young family of four.
When Stewart moved to St. Andrews, he planned to plant a garden, but some neighbours warned that the soil wasn’t the best for growing. Despite the cautionary advice, he decided to test his green thumb, and the results have improved each year.
As for his foray into the pumpkin patch, he started growing the gourd most often associated with the fall season and Halloween – not to mention its insides serving as filling for Thanksgiving pies – the Lochaber native said it happened by chance. During a visit to Antigonish Farm & Garden Co-op, he came across a package of Dill’s Atlantic Giant Pumpkin Seeds and decided to try to grow a pumpkin.
The growing usually starts in early April, before the prospective plant is moved outdoors by the middle of May. Throughout the process, proper irrigation is a key, along with plenty of fertilizer. Protecting the pumpkin from the cucumber beetle, which wreaks havoc on a variety of crops, including squash and watermelon, is also a priority.
Although the family’s prize pumpkin didn’t make it to Millville this fall, it continued to have deep ties to the memorial contest. Stewart noted that the “really good” seeds he used to grow it came from Carl Graham’s winning pumpkin in 2025, which tipped the scale at more than 1,900 pounds.
Stewart said Holna Farm Services Ltd. plans to grow the pumpkin festival. He is providing advice on the types of fertilizers they could stock for prospective growers. He is also providing free seeds to people from this season’s plump pumpkin.
“It would be great to have something closer to home,” he said.
