California Travel Tips
Weighing In on Pumpkins
Published on: October 12, 2013
Last week Tim Mathison of Napa, Calif. won the Elk Grove pumpkin weigh-off with an 1,874.5 pounder, the heaviest in the world so far in 2013! But he’s not resting on his laurels–and with good reason. While his pumpkin is gigantic, it isn’t the all-time world record setter. In September 2012 Ron Wallace grew a 2,009-pound pumpkin that holds current tittle. There are about a dozen pumpkin weigh-offs yet to come in various states. One of the best known happens on Monday, October 14, 2013, 7-11 a.m. on Main Street in Half Moon Bay. It symbolically launches the start of the famous Half Moon Bay Pumpkin & Art Festival (miramarevents.com) which boasts several hundred thousand people attending.
- All pumpkins are winter squash native to North America.
- Pumpkins are used both in food and recreation.
- Canned pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie fillings are usually made from different kinds of winter squash than the pumpkins frequently carved as jack o’lanterns for decoration around Halloween.
- The oldest evidence, pumpkin-related seeds dating between 7000 and 5500 BC, were found in Mexico.
- The top pumpkin-producing states include Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California.
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