For one glorious week in October, the heaviest pumpkin ever grown belonged to a nursery owner from Hampshire. Then a grower from Rhode Island turned up with something even bigger, and this Halloween that record-smashing giant ended up with a face carved into it.
It has been, as Guinness World Records put it, a pumpkin bonanza of a month, with the all-time weight record falling twice in seven days.
The British record that lasted a week
On 3 October, Ian Paton’s pumpkin, nicknamed Bagheera, tipped the scales at 1,295.8kg (2,856lb 12.8oz) at a weigh-off in Wargrave, Berkshire, according to Guinness World Records. The weight was confirmed by the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, the body that oversees competitive giant-vegetable growing.
It was a personal milestone for Paton, a veteran grower from Hampshire. He and his twin brother Stuart had grown giant pumpkins together for more than 50 years and took the record jointly in October 2025 with a 1,278.8kg pumpkin called Muggle. This year Ian grew alone, which he described to Guinness as a gruelling season, and credited his greenhouse with giving the plant a longer growing window. His stated next goal was a 3,000lb pumpkin.
Someone else got there first.
The 3,000lb barrier falls
On 10 October, at the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh Off at Frerichs Farm in Warren, Rhode Island, Ron Wallace’s pumpkin weighed in at 1,431.5kg (3,156lb). Guinness lists it as the current heaviest pumpkin and says it is the first valid pumpkin, indeed the first fruit of any kind, to pass 3,000lb.
That is about the weight of a typical family car, and almost 136kg heavier than Paton’s week-old record.
Wallace, a 60-year-old who runs an online gardening supplies business, is no newcomer. This is the third time he has held the title, having previously set records in 2006 (681.3kg) and 2012 (911.27kg), according to Guinness. Like Paton, he grew this year’s champion in a greenhouse, his first time doing so. Patch reported that it took 123 days to grow.
Paton does keep one crown. The twins’ 2025 pumpkin still holds the record for the largest circumference, 649.8cm, ahead of Wallace’s 640cm, Guinness said.
From vegetable patch to Halloween showpiece
Rather than going on display whole, Wallace’s giant was given a second career. Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves, a US restaurant boss who had spent seven years chasing the record, brought the pumpkin to Salem Common in Salem, Massachusetts, where it was carved by Eric Jones, Monique Hawk and William Wilson and unveiled on Tuesday, 27 October, according to Patch and Boston.com.
The carving, featuring skeletons, witches and the chain’s logo, earned the Guinness title of heaviest jack-o’-lantern, beating the previous mark of 2,749lb. A Guinness adjudicator confirmed the record on site, Patch reported. The record weight is the pumpkin’s certified weight before carving.
Salem, famous for its 1692 witch trials and now one of the world’s biggest Halloween destinations, is celebrating its 400th anniversary, and Mayor Dominick Pangallo declared 27 October “Great Pumpkin Day”, according to Boston.com. The pumpkin stayed on show through Halloween night.
What it means for Irish growers
Ireland has a strong claim to the jack-o’-lantern itself: the custom grew out of Samhain traditions here of carving faces into turnips, which Irish emigrants swapped for the more easily carved American pumpkin. Competitive giant-pumpkin growing is far smaller in Ireland, where a short, cool season works against growers. The Paton and Wallace records both point to the same lesson for anyone with ambitions: a greenhouse, and the longer season it brings, is now part of the winning formula.
What happens next
Next year’s weigh-off season runs from late September into October, and the race is now on to see whether anyone can top 3,156lb, or whether Ian Paton can win back the title. Records only count once confirmed by the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth and recognised by Guinness, so any claims in 2027 will need official weigh-off results behind them.
Sources
- Guinness World Records: Pumpkinpalooza, how the world’s biggest pumpkin record fell twice in one week (14 October 2026)
- Guinness World Records: All hail Pumpkin-g Paton, British grower beats his own record with giant gourd (7 October 2026)
- Guinness World Records: Heaviest pumpkin (accessed 1 November 2026)
- Boston.com: Chicken finger king debuts world-record jack-o-lantern in Salem (28 October 2026)
- Patch: Salem Halloween 2026, world-record jack-o’-lantern carved on Salem Common (October 2026)
- KLIF: Raising Cane’s founder breaks world record with 3,156-pound Halloween pumpkin (31 October 2026)
Featured image: Giant pumpkins linedup by Nick Ares, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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