Behold: the world's longest gourd

A Nova Scotia man has grown what is believed to be the longest gourd in the world. The excitement comes amid a bumper year that has P.E.I. farmers bringing in gigantic pumpkins.

At the Annapolis Valley Giant Vegetable Growers Association’s annual competition in Waterville, N.S., this weekend, Fred Ansems won three prizes. The Annapolis Valley man produced:

• The longest gourd
• The heaviest watermelon
• The heaviest squash

Ansems’s lengthy gourd was judged by Great Pumpkin Commonwealth officials to be the largest ever recorded. A Chinese gourd claims to be longer, but that has not been registered with the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth. The Chinese gourd is the Guinness World Record holder. 

Ansems’s was measured at more than 3.5 metres.  

Association member Paul Ferguson says there are a few tricks to growing a super-sized gourd.               

“The long gourd, it loves the heat. You have to have a long enough trellis so that it can grow up and then grow down,” he said. “It takes a lot of care, a lot of getting the right nutrients into the soil. And some of it is luck.”

P.E.I.'s great pumpkin patch

Meanwhile, P.E.I. farmers are reporting big crops too.

Tania MacKenzie owns a vegetable farm in Stratford.

"Some of them are probably, I'm going to take a guess, up to 40 pounds. They're pretty heavy,” she said. “I can get my hands under them — just barely — and I'm almost hugging them just to try and pick them up.”

MacKenzie said a bit of rain in July followed by a dry August made for perfect pumpkin conditions.