In Mike Ritter’s backyard in Blossburg, a twenty-by-sixty-foot area is covered with pumpkin vine. Yes, just one vine, spread out from a thick, light brown main stem in the middle of the 1,200 square feet that is mostly verdant and leafy. The exceptions are the area immediately surrounding the central stem (September’s forty-degree nights caused the oldest leaves to dry out), and Misty, the huge, golden-orange, unblemished pumpkin lying on her side on foam squares.

“All pumpkins are female,” Mike smiles, “but not all females are pumpkins.” The reason, he says, is that pumpkins carry the seed inside them. Almost every year since 1997, he has nurtured a giant pumpkin that, in early October, he takes to be weighed and compete with other pumpkins. This year, for the first time, it is coming back to Tioga County. Usually, he sells it. However, due to his friend Charlie Messina, chair of the Wellsboro Area Chamber of Commerce’s tourism committee, he’s trucking Misty back to the county seat where she will be on display for locals and leaf peepers to take photos outside the chamber office.

Charlie came up with the photo op idea last fall, and Mike agreed to mentor him in growing his own giant pumpkin. But there’s a learning curve and lots of luck involved, and, well, rascally rabbits. “A lot of what I do is risk management,” Mike says. So early in the growing season—Mike plants his April 15 every year—when it was clear that Charlie would not be supplying more than some field pumpkins to the display, the plan shifted.

The annual weigh-off is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Giant Pumpkin Growers Association. It moves around every year, but Mike describes it as big fun with lots of anticipation. Folks watch from bleachers as the pumpkins, in order of smallest to largest, get weighed. There can be surprises. Last year, Mike’s contestant, Joy, was ranked in eighth place, but after the weight turned out to be lighter than expected, his pumpkin dropped to thirteenth. “She must have had thin walls,” he says, explaining pumpkins can have walls up to a foot thick. Joy—no slouch at 1,075 pounds—was purchased for a festival in Annapolis.

Mike’s biggest pumpkin so far weighed 1,254 pounds and earned him a ribbon for eighth place. The world record is over 2,600 pounds. “Each seed from a world record pumpkin can go for $300 to $500 each,” he says, “like an award-winning pedigree dog.” Each day unless it rains, Mike waters Misty with about 240 gallons, using a mix of fertilizer that includes blackstrap molasses. A giant pumpkin can grow fifty to sixty pounds a day. He’ll keep pushing until October 3 when Chad Roupp, from the Blossburg Borough, comes to carefully hoist a padded Misty into the box truck.

Lots can go wrong. Rabbits can eat your vines. A bear can claw or mouse gnaw. Any hole a square inch or larger disqualifies a pumpkin. One year a rope holding one of the largest pumpkins broke as it was being lifted to the scale. It dropped from eight feet, and the crowd gasped. It bounced but didn’t break. “Then it happened two more times but still didn’t bust,” Mike shakes his head. “Ended up weighing about 2,200 pounds.”

From October 5 through Halloween, Misty will be posing for photos on Wellsboro’s Main Street. After that her seeds will be dried and packaged to sell—five seeds for five dollars—to raise money for the Children’s Health Fair in June. With the packet will come a page of instructions for those who want to try their luck. Charlie is already making plans for next year.