Good gourd! RI pumpkin tips scales at 1,661 lbs.

[October 10, 2011]  WARREN, R.I. (AP) -- A boulder-sized pumpkin weighing 1,661 pounds has taken top honors at a New England regional contest, though it fell short of the world record.

Joe Jutras of Scituate (siht-CHOO'-iht), R.I., sat on his prize-winning gourd Saturday and posed for photos after the annual Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers' Annual Weigh-off.

His pumpkin fell 150 pounds shy of the world record of 1,810.5 pounds, set last year in Wisconsin.

But that's an honor Jutras has held before. His 2007 gourd tipped the scales at 1,689 pounds, setting a record that held up for two years.

He tells the Providence Journal (http://bit.ly/palSwO) that this year's pumpkin started as a seed on May 1, and he tended it two or three hours nightly and 10 hours on weekends.

[Associated Press]

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