A passion for giant pumpkins

By Emily Southwood Ormstown father and daughter growing team Jim and Kelsey Bryson are passionate about producing giant pumpkins. This fall, the duo brought home their fourth win (and a grand prize of $3,000) from Port Elgin Ontario’s Pumpkinfest for a mammoth pumpkin weighing 1760 lbs. This marks the second largest to date, coming in behind their 2011 world record pumpkin of a whopping 1818.5 lbs. Jim Bryson began growing giant pumpkins in 2008 when his cousin Harley Sproule introduced him to the hobby. Jim has farmed in the Chateauguay Valley all of his life and since retiring from cash crops, now runs a maple operation with his son. In the summer, he stays busy growing giant vegetables, with giant pumpkins as the main focus. In 2010, his daughter Kelsey joined him in his passion and they became a father daughter growing team. CVR graduate Kelsey is the youngest of five siblings, and thoroughly enjoys the hobby with her dad. Together they enter in several competitions each season, traveling inter-provincially together to attend events like Pumpkinfest. Kelsey elaborates on the hobby she enjoys pursuing alongside her dad, “A lot of growing giant pumpkins is more than winning, it’s about the people found within this community worldwide. We meet so many supportive and kind growers, from all walks of life, along the way.” When it comes to the growing side of things, one might question how they managed to produce such a weight with a notoriously grey and rainy Haut Saint Laurent spring and early summer. “The pumpkins are raised in greenhouses at the start of the season,” she explains, which compensated for any initial poor weather quite a bit, along with a superb end of growing season. Jim and Kelsey currently have a giant pumpkin and a tall sunflower at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. The inspiring father daughter duo and their mammoth produce will then set their sights on a 2018 successful growing season.