2022-10-26

Mahone Bay area farmer gets award for good-looking gourd

MIDDLE NEW CORNWALL - Local cattle farmer and forester Jeremy Zwicker scored high marks for possessing the prettiest giant pumpkin and second heaviest squash among competitors in The Great Howard Dill Pumpkin Classic in Hants County.

The massive produce grown in Lunenburg County made its mark in Windsor earlier this month. The squash captured a "silver" ribbon, tipping the scales at just over 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms).

Zwicker's winning pumpkin entry was about complexion and shape, not heft. It came in at at about 300 kg but didn't place anywhere near the top three. He received a plaque and some prize money, about $50, for presenting a pumpkin with the best colour and shape.

"I didn't have the heaviest one but I had the best looking one," Zwicker said with a laugh during a phone interview. He also received $150 prize money and a ribbon for the runner-up squash.

Meanwhile, the good-looking gourd was one of two pumpkins he entered in the Valley contest.

He previously won the same honour about three years ago. Growing giant pumpkins, something he started doing a decade ago, is fun but involves "a lot of work and a lot of water," he said, noting changing environmental conditions can cause gourds to grow too fast and be ruined.

One pumpkin can grow dozens of pounds per day, Zwicker said. "They've got a mind of their own, the giant pumpkins," he said.

"I've never gotten a first-place pumpkin yet but I've gotten second a few times."

Zwicker did enter a winning weight for a squash in the contest in recent years. He regularly enters the Howard Dill event.

He wishes more people would get into the giant pumpkin and squash competitions. Zwicker said growers have to have the interest and motivation, not to mention having property to carry out the task.

"They take a big area to grow," he said.

He comes from a family of farmers who also grew pumpkins but on the same scale as him.

"Nothing crazy big," he pointed out. "I kind of have the big ones going."

Zwicker's successful entries remain at the Dill farm people to view, along with the other big winners of the contest.