Calling all pumpkin growers and enthusiasts

WORLAND – The final Washakie Farmers Market of the season is Saturday with the grand finale being the 'Great Pumpkin' weigh-off at 11 a.m. with last year's winner Ron Hoffman from Riverton bringing his pumpkin again this year and Rattlesnake Ridge playing starting at 9 a.m.

"This is our last market for the season. We started last year supporting the big pumpkin weigh-in. This will be the second year that we have made it a part of the farmers market. It's amazing the number of people that are involved in it. These types of things are the type of things that we want to bring to the community," Washakie Farmers Market Director Dee Murray said. Hopefully we will help get more people involved with growing giant pumpkins, she added.

Weigh-off organizer Jay Richard explained that there will be two classes, an experienced class and a novice class. He said that all pumpkins are eligible and that by having two classes he hopes that people will bring their pumpkins no matter the size and not feel intimidated by the giants. "You might have a pumpkin in your backyard that is the biggest that you have ever grown and it might weigh 90 pounds, but you won't bring it and be part of it [the weigh-off] because you feel that you can't beat some of the experienced growers. That's not the mentality; we want to get passed that. If you have one [pumpkin] bring it, let's weigh it and be part of the event. My first pumpkin was a whopping 55 pounds," he said.

Any and all pumpkins weighed will be weighed on a certified scale and the cost to weigh a pumpkin or any giant vegetable is $5. Richard stated that mainly the winner will receive bragging rights but that whatever money generated by the weighing fee will be given as a prize. "It's not about winning it's about growing the best you can and having a lot of fun doing it. Every time you go to the plate you don't hit a home run. This year we are down in size, June was terrible, cold and wet and we had a hard time getting started this year. Then we went from 50 -100 degrees overnight and the plants struggled with that," Richard said.

Richard's dream is to make the 'Great Pumpkin' weigh-off a yearly Worland event. "We don't have any sponsor type things and that's kind of where we are at with it, is I think that there is enough notoriety with it that if we could get a headliner for it, we could grow this thing. My vision for it is to have the Wyoming State Championship weigh-off right here. That's where I would like to see it go but it's going to take some sponsors to do that because without a reasonable prize fund, it won't get the growers from the south, like Cheyenne and that area. There are some good growers down there but they all go to other places because there is prize money involved. I would like it to grow and become an event that Worland can call their own. Next year I think will be the make or break year, we will either grow it into something where we have a prize fund, it is an official weigh-off because we have a certified scale and it's in a public place, so if we do have a record it counts, or we don't," Richard said. "We are kind of in a cross roads about what to do with it. Do we let it go away or do we grow it into a real event? People are getting to where they are growing some really nice pumpkins," he added.

Murray stated that everyone is welcome to come to listen to the music and see the giant pumpkins and that this year just like last year, the farmers market will have free cookbooks featuring pumpkin recipes to give away and that Ryan Green will again this year be giving pumpkin carving demonstrations.