WGME 13’s Charlie Lopresti Won for the Prettiest Pumpkin

That is a pretty pumpkin, but uh, it's kinda big too.

Charlie Lopresti isn't just the Chief Meteorologist at WGME CBS13, he's also a master pumpkin grower. He's been growing giant pumpkins for years and enters many fairs. This beauty was at the Cumberland Fair and picked up a prize for the prettiest pumpkin of 2022.

It weighs 1,116 pounds and came in third! Last year his pumpkin also didn't win and that sucker weighed 1465.5 pounds!

Charlie said last year that the winning pumpkin weighed over 2,000 pounds! Holy cow! In order to compete in the Cumberland Fair, your pumpkin must weigh at least 100 pounds and

...be grown, cared for from seed to harvest, and exhibited by the grower.

Have you ever wanted to grow your own giant pumpkin? Guess who loves helping people grow huge pumpkins? Yup, Charlie Lopresti. He's also into sharing and teaching you how to grow big gourds! If you want pumpkin seeds to grow, he's happy to share! Just shoot him a quick email at clopresti@sbgtv.com.

Growing giant pumpkins is an intense labor of love. Charlie prides himself on having ginormous pumpkins that look like pumpkins. I know you've seen massive gords that don't exactly look like pumpkins. Charlie grew this pumpkin a few years back. It 'only' weighed 664 pounds, but the color was so bright and it really looked like a giant pumpkin.

This time of year when you call Charlie, you will often find him in his pumpkin patch. He says that a lot of times he likes to donate his giant pumpkins to a business for decorations! That's gotta be a pretty big business to handle such a huge pumpkin! Remember, reach out to Charlie if this is a hobby you'd like to start!