Dave Chan has won B.C.'s largest pumpkin contest two years in a row. He grows the giant pumpkins in his backyard in Richmond, B.C.Jackie Dives/The Globe and Mail
Dave Chan takes giant pumpkins very seriously.
In the spring he starts tending to the seeds from inside his home in Richmond, B.C., and spends the next six months on duty, ensuring the gourds have everything they need. When the pandemic hit, he devoted even more to his craft, building a greenhouse and keeping meticulous records of his creations.
His efforts have paid off. He smashed the provincial record last year with a 1,911-pound, or 867-kilogram behemoth and earlier this month, two of Mr. Chan’s giant pumpkins won contests in British Columbia and across the border in Oregon, clocking in at 1,676 pounds (760 kilograms) and the other at 1,728.5 pounds (784 kilograms).
He even received a coveted jacket from the internationally certified Great Pumpkin Commonwealth for the entry – he is only the second grower in Western Canada to do so.
The retired dentist grows them in his backyard. His success, the 77-year-old said, is owing to a little luck, hard work, and according to his wife, a bit of an obsession. When Mr. Chan noted he spends on average one to two hours every day in his pumpkin patch, his wife, Janet Love, interjected: “A little bit more than that,” she said. “Six hours.”
Mr. Chan started growing pumpkins 40 years ago, aiming to produce a jack-o’-lantern for his young child. He heard about giant pumpkins from an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and soon learned that the seeds for growing the really big ones, called Atlantic giant, came from a farmer in Nova Scotia named Howard Dill.
Mr. Chan smashed the provincial record last year with a 1,911-pound behemoth.Jackie Dives/The Globe and Mail
He wrote a letter to Mr. Dill, labelled only “Howard Dill, Nova Scotia,” and a week later, received a reply, as well as a bunch of seeds that eventually turned into his first giant vegetable – a pumpkin weighing at 278 pounds (126 kilograms), about half of the then world record.
The hobby got more serious when the family moved out of their townhouse. Mr. Chan said that “in the first five minutes” of visiting their current home on an agricultural land reserve, he found the patch of dirt where he could grow his pumpkin.
He and his wife agreed Mr. Chan would grow giant pumpkins every other year. In off years, the family would go on holidays.
But Mr. Chan has grown pumpkins every year since, he noted with a chuckle. All long family vacations have happened in the non-pumpkin growing season between November and April. “We’ve had lots of holidays. So it’s not that bad.”
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When COVID-19 disrupted travels and social gatherings, Mr. Chan pledged to take the growing cause to the next level: “I’ll do everything I possibly can to do it – every leaf was trained and organized to the best efficiency you could possibly do.”
He built a greenhouse with a misting system, fans, and heating wires buried in the soil. He created a spreadsheet, documenting information about water, fertilizer and temperature and he turned the information into graphs comparing his pumpkins.
“It’s quite scientific,” he said, mentioning he studies everything about cultivating these vegetables from YouTube, to articles on the Internet, to scientific journals.
“I have a science background. I love to study. So it’s not really about growing pumpkins,” he said. ”It’s about studying the soil.”
Dave Chan, left, and his wife Janet Love show off their most recently grown giant pumpkin.Jackie Dives/The Globe and Mail
Those efforts led him to document on the morning of July 31, 2021, that the pumpkin he dubbed Papa Bear had grown 71 pounds (32 kilograms) overnight.
Stefano Cutrupi, from Radda, Italy, holds the world record for the heaviest pumpkin. He grew the 2,702-pound (1,226-kilogram) monster in September, 2021, according to Guinness World Records.
Canada’s cold weather is disadvantageous when it comes to pumpkin growth, meaning farming giant gourds requires extra care. Mr. Chan starts the seeds in the middle of April in his kitchen. Weeks after, he transfers the plant to the greenhouse after heating up the soil.
When the competitions are done, his pumpkins are carved for Halloween: In one year, it was Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage; another year, the massive fruit was sculptured as Donald Trump’s face by an artist. The piece had a moniker – Trumpkin.
Then the gourds are chopped and recycled. But last year, Papa Bear fed 60 pigs for two days.
Mr. Chan said there’s many moments where he wanted to quit because he felt it was becoming a bit obsessive, but that seems unlikely.
Ms. Love declared 2023 is a travel year. Mr. Chan chimed in that he will “only grow one.”
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