BRANDON, Wis. — A local Wisconsin farmer is growing what he hopes will be the heaviest pumpkin in the state.

Tom Montsma’s pumpkin is already estimated to be over one ton, or more than 2,000 pounds.

Giant pumpkin growing is his passion, and few have a love bigger than Montsma. He hopes he’s grown his biggest yet at his pumpkin patch in Brandon. 

“Right now, this pumpkin is estimated at 2,260 pounds. Now that is only an estimate,” he said. “I’m hoping maybe with a little luck, I could go a little heavier to chart.”

Montsma said he’s been gardening since he was a kid. For the past seven years, he’s been growing competitive thousand-pound pumpkins.

His latest pumpkin is just over 100 days old and he said it takes a great deal of care to grow an enormous gourd.

He used chlorine water to disinfect the outer parts of his pumpkin to prevent soft spots. He also used mouse traps and red pepper flakes to keep pests away.

He inspects every nook and cranny of his pumpkin daily. Thanks to the relatively mild weather, Montsma’s pumpkin is getting bigger and remains intact.

“There’s some cracking here, but not cracking all the way through,” Montsma said. “It’s just surface cracks. So that’s a good sign that this thing is still nice, rock hard.”

A giant vine provides all the nutrients that help keep this pumpkin growing. Montsma said in its earlier stage, his pumpkin had a jaw-dropping growth spurt.

“From day 30 to day 50, this pumpkin, with his genetics, grew 1,001 pounds in 20 days,” he said. “So do the math: that’s 50 pounds a day and not just for a couple of days, for 20 days straight. So I kind of knew I had something special here.”

Pumpkins are 80% water and one this size needs a lot. The farmer said this year’s drought made that task challenging.

“I would water 300 to 400 gallons daily with trace amounts of fertilizers daily, but every day I would water unless we would get if we were blessed with a lot of rain, which that wasn’t a whole lot this year,” Montsma said.

If anyone can handle Wisconsin’s weather challenges, Sue VandeSlunt said it’s Montsma. Vandeslunt owns Tom Dooley’s Orchard.

“Every year Tom always succeeds in growing a big pumpkin,” she said.

Montsma regularly displays his big pumpkins at her store. This year there’s a 1,782-pound pumpkin perched in front of her store. That pumpkin is one of Montsma’s smaller yields. VandeSlunt said she expects Montsma will have a record-breaker this year. 

“It’s amazing that he can do it,” VandeSlunt said. “However, when I look at it, it’s just like, ‘yep, Tom grew another big pumpkin.’ He’s very good at what he does.”

Montsma hopes he’s finally grown the state record-breaker, but said his big reward is making people happy.

“When people see something this big, it kind of makes their jaw drop and their eyes and mouth drop,” he said. “They’re just like, ‘is it real?’”

Montsma’s pumpkin is headed to the giant pumpkin contest at the Stillwater Harvest Fest in Minnesota for an official weigh-in.

Wisconsin’s giant pumpkin record is currently 2,283 pounds.