On Sunday we went along to the 2012 Great Pumpkin Carnival at Hamilton Gardens.
Our friend Sam is one of the organisers – and a grower of giant pumpkins – and Ken and the kids had been before. I had been told it would be a lot of fun. Plus it was a beautiful day in Hamilton so why not spend it outside?!
Sam - The Giant Pumpkin Man
There will be a few images in this post but I’ll try and only post the ones I like the most. There is a link to the Flickr album and a Youtube video at the end.
Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes and weights – the heaviest pumpkin weighed 290kgs (which was apparently quite a bit less than previous years).
Carved pumpkins, pumpkins that had been painted on … and three non pumpkins.
3 of these things are not like the others
A record size pumpkin was grown (well weighed) in March – around 720kg.
For this weekend, this is Tim’s 290kg winning effort. Sam tells me it was probably planted around the end of October 2011 … that’s a lot of growing in a short space of time!
Isn't she a beauty?
Complete with smaller pumpkin and trailer for size context
But the most fun on the day had to be rolling all these pumpkins down the hill.
The aim was to hit the marker, the bullseye on a tree, about 300m away. There were only one or two that got close – but all the fun was in the carnage … pumpkin carnage.
Here’s the video Sam made on the day, starting with rising early and setting up ..
And the rest of the photographs I took are here on Flickr – The Great Pumpkin Carnival 2012
