Editor’s Note: On October 9, 2023, Travis Gienger achieved his dream. His pumpkin, Michael Jordan (shown here) broke the world record for heaviest pumpkin—with a whopping weight of 2,749 pounds—at the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California. When we spoke with him in early August, this was something he coveted: He knew Michael Jordan was special, but it still had a long way to go. Read on to learn about the journey to the top.
Travis Gienger’s Anoka backyard houses a small, unremarkable garden—that is, if he were a giant. That’s because, instead of tidy rows of zucchini and tomatoes, Gienger’s “garden” contains gargantuan pumpkins with leaves several feet wide and sunflowers with stems as thick as a Coke can. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“My dad was a gardener, and my summer job when I was little was taking care of the garden,” he says. “One year, I decided I just wanted to grow some big pumpkins. And when I was 14, I grew a 447-pounder.”
Another early gourd even won the State Fair’s 1994 youth division, which came with a $100 check, a ribbon, and the start of a nearly three-decade obsession. Now, Gienger enters his more-than-a-ton pumpkins in weigh-off competitions across the country, and he took home the North American record in 2022. But that heaviest-ever world record? He’s still gunning for it.
2
Number of giant pumpkins mega-pumpkin grower Travis Gienger attempts to grow each year, which gives him a fail-safe if one doesn’t grow as large as he thinks it will or if one somehow cracks or gets a soft, rotten spot that could disqualify it from competitions.
2,700–2,800
Projected October weigh-in weight, in pounds, of this year’s star, named Michael Jordan. “I always name my pumpkins with current event references,” Gienger says. “This one started out perfectly basketball-round, and it’s the year ’23, which is his number. Little did we know it would turn into the most misshapen pumpkin ever.”
4/10
Approximate date when Gienger plants his carefully chosen pumpkin seeds (indoors, of course, before he transplants them outside when it’s warmer) every year. “I have heating cables, heaters, grow lights, and humidifiers,” he says. “It’s a little crazy.” Eventually, he pinches other potential pumpkins off the vines to harness the plant’s energy into just one or two candidates.
$30,000
The purse of Gienger’s favorite pumpkin weigh-off competition, in Half Moon Bay, California, on October 9—that is, if the winning pumpkin sets a world record. (If not, first prize still takes home $9/pound, which would still be $22,500 for a 2,500-pound pumpkin.) “It’s like the Super Bowl of pumpkins out there,” Gienger says. Growers from all over the world tote their entries to different weigh-off sites, where judges will compare notes to see if the current 2,702-plus-pound world record gets slashed this fall. Invested? Follow along at @travispumpkins on Instagram.
40 × 50
Size, in feet, of each giant pumpkin plant.
50+
Pounds a pumpkin can gain every day for the first couple of months after pollination, if weather conditions are warm. “This year, we had 10 nights in July under 50 degrees,” Gienger says. “That hurts. That was bad. But they’re still holding it together.”
3
Number of Guinness World Records Gienger has set—all for the largest or heaviest jack-o’-lanterns ever carved. He carved Maverick, his 2,560-pound 2022 pumpkin, into a bald eagle; another became a tiger. Twin Citians can sometimes see the giant jack-o’-lanterns at different events around town, like the Minnesota Zoo’s Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular. “They live a good life after competition,” he says.