That's a lot of pumpkin! (9 photos)

It was everything gourds Saturday afternoon at the Roberta Bondar Pavilion as the Sault celebrated the 4th annual Pumpkin Festival.

The day’s feature, the popular weigh-off event, tipped the scales with a total of 2,702.5 lbs worth of pumpkin participating in the competition.

Just 5 lbs separated first and second place in the heavyweight category, with Keiran O’Neill’s 597.5 lb giant narrowly beating the Ermatinger-Clergue Junior Gardeners’ 592 lb beast.

“An early start and lots of love” is O’Neill’s secret to growing the award-winning pumpkin.

Although this was his first time entering the weigh-off, he told SooToday he’s been growing pumpkins for four seasons.

“I really enjoy it, watching the growth and development,” he said. “This one grew 300 lbs in the first two weeks in August. It was pretty impressive to watch.”

While O’Neill said he and his family will eat some of the winning pumpkin, he’s looking forward to “just going at it with a knife” to carve it into a jack-o-lantern.

The full pumpkin weigh-off results were as follows:

Heavyweight category

Keiran O’Neill - 597.5 lbs
Ermatinger-Clergue Junior Gardeners - 592 lbs
John Forta - 244.5 lbs
Evanna - 235 lbs
Ian McKenzie - 219 lbs
Alanna Storr - 134.5 lbs

Junior category

Aurora McKenzie - 183.5 lbs
Gabe Rector - 117.5 lbs
Tiia and Ava Keranen - 107 lbs
Hailey Trudeau - 75 lbs
Jorla Rector - 62.5 lbs
William McGrath - 44.5 lbs

Also included in Saturday’s festivities was the taste-off featuring pumpkin delicacies from Shabby Motley, Dish Espresso Bar, Cafe Natura, and the Pastry Shoppe.

When the tasting ended, it was the scrumptious pumpkin monkey bread with pumpkin caramel drizzle from Dish that took the prize.