The Bryson family has made a name for themselves in the Valley and beyond with their massive, record-breaking pumpkins. This year was no exception, with their 2022.5-pound giant winning major awards – and being on display in Ormstown for Halloween.
Jim and Kelsey Bryson are a father/daughter duo who have been growing pumpkins together for years. This fall, one of their orange giants was weighed at the Prince Edward County Pumpkinfest in Wellington, Ontario on October 19; it came in first place and was the heaviest pumpkin to ever be officially weighed in Ontario. It’s also the fourth pumpkin they’ve grown this year that weighed over 2000 pounds or 907 kilograms.
Kelsey shares that they grow using Korean natural farming methods, make most of their own garden products, try to be organic, and make living microorganisms to feed their gardens. This pumpkin “was grown in a greenhouse, and as she grew, my dad noticed that she took on the shape of a turtle. Pumpkinfest features a parade the morning of the weigh off, so we wanted to make our pumpkin stand out a little bit. We named it Bowser [like the turtle boss in the Super Mario Bros. games].”
Another of their giants just won first place at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, where it too tipped the scales at over 2,000 pounds.
Massive carving
This year, Kelsey’s sister, Laura Bryson, was also involved – she carved the pumpkin that was displayed in Ormstown. She admits that carving a jack-o-lantern this size is “definitely intimidating when you’re standing next to it, and it comes up to your waist.” Nonetheless, she had pictures from different angles and was able to consider how to attack it. “One day my dad texted me before we were going to carve it and said ‘I want a big, witchy, warty face’,” she says. She was up for the challenge, and this became the final design.
Laura jokes that this is her way of contributing to the family legacy. “Dad has two greenhouses going now and he works closely with my little sister Kelsey, and they work their magic. I tried to help for one year and it died, so I stopped helping in that aspect.”
The carving process took about five hours to complete. Laura started at eight in the morning and worked steadily until 1 p.m. In preparation, she watched online videos and was surprised that common kitchen items like an ice cream scoop and kitchen knives are the most effective tools. She says that with a pumpkin this size, “There’s challenges for sure, because you don’t want to carve too much since it could collapse in on itself. The walls are like 10 inches deep, so there is a lot of room for error.” In the end, she was very happy with the final design, and already has some ideas for next year.