Giant Colorado pumpkin weighs in at 1,410 pounds at Fort Collins Nursery contest

FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- To win the giant pumpkin contest at the Fort Collins Nursery last weekend, you needed a really big pumpkin.

The winning pumpkin, grown by Joe Scherber in northern Colorado, weighed in at 1,410 pounds.

Fort Collins Nursery owner Jesse Eastman told Denver7 that Scherber has been growing giant pumpkins for several years.

While Scherber's pumpkin was giant, it's not Colorado's largest. The record for a giant pumpkin in Colorado is 1,685 pounds.

Eastman said most growers in Colorado have to start their giant pumpkins indoors, because they don't want the shell to get too cold. If it gets too cold, it can get too hard and burst instead of continuing to expand.

He said some of these pumpkins expand by 20 pounds or more, per day, during the peak growing season.

There were ten entries in the Fort Collins Nursery’s 8th Annual Giant Pumpkin Contest. The second place pumpkin weighed in at 1,004 pounds, but due to a damaged hull, it was disqualified. The official 2nd place finisher weighed in at 941 pounds, according to Eastman.

This the second year the Fort Collins Nursery has held a Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth-sanctioned contest.

If you want to try growing a giant vegetable, Eastman said the Fort Collins Nursery's Facebook pagehas gardening tips and giant pumpkin growing tips.