SWAMPSCOTT — Tom Keenan of Swampscott has grown giant pumpkins for nine years and has entered them into different fairs across New England.
“My son said ‘why don’t we grow a giant pumpkin?’” Keenan said while surveying his pumpkin patch on Thursday afternoon.
His first pumpkin was 952 pounds.
“I thought if we could do that without even trying, what could we do with some effort?” said Keenan.
This year, Keenan is entering into the Topsfield Fair a pumpkin he estimates to be more than 1,700 pounds for weigh-in day on Thursday; he’s entering a second, smaller pumpkin into a fair in Rhode Island this weekend.
“I think I’m the only guy around Lynn, Swampscott, Marblehead, and Salem who does this,” Keenan said.
He added that he grew up going to the Topsfield Fair every year and is honored to have the ability to enter his pumpkin into the contest there. This is the seventh time he’s entered the pumpkin-weighing contest at the Topsfield Fair.
Keenan said that he isn’t hopeful that he will win the contest. He said that most pumpkins weigh in around 1,900 to 2,000 pounds at the fair; with it being a hard growing season in New England, and a new world record of 2,700-plus pounds set by Italian growers earlier this year, Keenan is hopeful to break that 1,900-pound mark someday.
“One of these days I’ll get my 1-ton pumpkin,” Keenan said.
