With a colossus of more than a thousand kilos, Luc Van Heuckelom crowns himself the most impressive pumpkin grower in Belgium: “For us this is top sport” | Kasterlee

On Saturday afternoon, the equestrian hall at Boekweitbaan in Kasterlee was again well ahead of the Belgian Pumpkin Road Championships. About fifty pumpkins, from all over Flanders, were placed on the scales with the help of a crane. There was a battle for the heaviest pumpkin in the land. In the end, the last two champs were the ones who would decide among themselves who would become the best pumpkin grower in Belgium.

The audience looked anxiously at the screens set up in the hall. The penultimate ‘whopper’, one from grower Herman Boonen, touched the scales with a weight of 1032.5 kilograms. Impressive but just not enough as it turned out! It was the very last pumpkin, the one supplied by Luc Van Heuckelom who emerged as the winner with a weight of 1046 kilograms.

“I grew this pumpkin in my greenhouse with a seed from the pumpkin that won here last year,” the winner said. “Of course I had hoped to win here today, but wasn’t really expecting it as the size of the pumpkins suggested otherwise. The fact that it happens with a ‘Kastel’ seed only makes it more fun.”

For Luc it is his fourth Belgian title in about twenty years. “I remember the first time I won, it was with a pumpkin that weighed more than two hundred kilos. The pumpkins weighed here today weigh four to five times as much. We sometimes say that we participate in top sport by growing pumpkins. Why? Because I think we invest the same amount of time that top athletes do that with their sport.”

The pumpkin weighing kicks off an entire month of ‘pumpkin fun’ in Kasterlee. On Sunday the harvest festival of the Pompoenerie is on the agenda, next Sunday is the pumpkin shooting, a week later the village center turns orange for the Pumpkin Day and finally on Sunday 23 October, pumpkins will be sailed on the pond of the Ark of Noë during the pumpkin regatta . Pumpkins galore in Kasterlee.