A pumpkin festival is just a festival without the addition of a very large, very orange fruit.

For this year's Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta, there will be a whole lot of pumpkin.

During the annual weigh-in on Saturday, Oct. 4, at Pinkham's Plantation in Damariscotta, the unofficial start to Pumpkinfest tipped the scales at a record pace as a four-year-old Maine pumpkin record was crushed.

In the professional grower’s division, Readfield's Joe Gaboury set a Maine record, with a pumpkin that weighs 1,625 pounds – almost as much as a Smart Car.

The previous record, according to the Maine Pumpkin Growers Organization, was a Lincoln County pumpkin grown by Jefferson's Edwin Pierpont.

Pierpont (who also until recently held the seventh, eighth and ninth spots) occupied the top spot with a 1,471-pound pumpkin grown in 2010.

For comparison, a small draft horse typically weighs slightly less than that.

Gaboury, who has been growing the large Atlantic pumpkins since 2008, said there is quite a bit that goes into the giants: great soil, attention and up to 80 gallons of water per day.

“I knew I had something special around day 28,” he said. “By day 43, (the pumpkin) had been adding 38 pounds per day. It gained 583 pounds in a 15-day period.

“I’ve had some that grew at a high level, but they seemed to peak. This one just kept growing.”

The pumpkin was pollinated in July before coming off the vine in October. Gaboury’s previous best pumpkin was a 1,342 pounder; and like the record-holder, the secret was in the soil.

“I think to me, getting the soil right is the first thing,” he said. “I make sure there’s the right organic material, then you check the nitrogen levels and the calcium. When the soil is good, it supercharges the pumpkins.”

The soil in Jefferson again proved to be the uncommonly cooperative sort.

In the kid's division of volunteer pumpkin growers, Jefferson's Maia and Trevor Hall had the heaviest pumpkin as their monster tipped the scales at 500 pounds. Behind the Halls came Crystal Miller of Bristol, who grew a 285-pound pumpkin, and Krystal Curry of New Milford, Connecticut, whose 251-pound pumpkin put her in third place.

In the adult division, Walpole's Susan Bartlett Rice grew the heaviest pumpkin with a 647-pound specimen.

Those pumpkins don't just sit around, however. On Thursday, Oct. 9 the pumpkins are deployed around the Twin Villages and Boothbay region for painting and carving. Others are fashioned into boats for the regatta while others will be dropped from a crane and onto a clunker.

For more information, or to see Pumpkinfest photos and videos, visit www.wiscassetnewspaper.com. A full schedule of events is available online on both the Wiscasset Newspaper and Boothbay Register websites, as well as on the official Pumpkinfest website (www.damariscottapumpkinfest.com).

As for Gaboury’s monster’s fate?

“I think I’ll just take it home, carve it into a big jack-o-lantern and put it out on the lawn,” he said. “She may be big, but pretty she ain’t.”