The pumpkin was the second-heaviest ever weighed at the 40-year-old California event.
Travis Gienger, from Anoka, Minn., poses next to his pumpkin, which weighed in at 2350 pounds, to win the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Monday, Oct. 12, 2020.
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. -- Being cooped up at home due to the pandemic paid handsomely for a Minnesota horticulture teacher who used the extra time to constantly water and feed a massive pumpkin that won this year’s Half Moon Bay pumpkin contest. Gienger, 40, then drove his gargantuan gourd for 35 hours to see his hard work pay off at the 47th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, where his winner came in at 2,350 pounds .
Gienger, a landscape and horticulture teacher at Anoka Technical College, has been growing pumpkins since he was a teenager, inspired by his father who also grew them. It was his first time competing at the Half Moon Bay weigh-off but he's not sure he'll be back next year.The first-time pumpkin champ won $16,450, or $7 per pound, for the lumpy, orange pumpkin that will be showcased during a parade through Half Moon Bay later Monday.
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