Last year, Sunnyfields Farm in Southampton was awarded the Guinness World Record for the largest pumpkin mosaic with their Nightmare Before Christmas display, which measured a whopping 193.35 square metres.
Halloween celebrations
For 2024, NFU member Ian Nelson was determined to keep the world record and has assembled another classic display using over 10,000 pumpkins and squashes, featuring the character made famous by Michael Keaton.
It took Ian and his team of helpers more than 50 hours of planning and they carefully positioned £40,000 worth of pumpkins in just seven hours to recreate the supernatural superstar, with members of the public flocking to marvel at Beetlejuice as part of their Halloween celebrations.
Ian, who owns Sunnyfields Farm, said: “Our display this year is very much linked to the new Beetlejuice Beetlejuice film coming out – it’s another Tim Burton classic ‘halloweeny’ film and we always go for topical things, so we asked our customers what we should do this year and 70% said Beetlejuice.
“There are over 10,000 pumpkins and squashes in the mosaic, it took about 50 hours of planning on paper and then we built it in one day with 15 people starting at 9.30am and finishing at 4.30pm.
“All of the pumpkins in the mosaic are naturally coloured and they’re the same pumpkins we’ve got around the fields."
Farmer Ian Nelson
A lot of them are edible
“All of the pumpkins in the mosaic are naturally coloured, a lot of them are edible and they’re the same pumpkins we’ve got around the fields that visitors can pick up, put in their wheelbarrow and buy to take home.
“Obviously birds will go and have a bit of a peck at the mosaic, so we do replace a few, but it holds well when you see it from a distance.
“Around the field, our pumpkins are on wooden pallets, because without them, there would be hundreds rotting each day. We've gambled so much on this event, so we try to take all of the risk out by putting together an all-weather site.”
Originally the size of a golfball
A trip to Sunnyfields Farm also means that visitors can see the second largest pumpkin in the world, grown by neighbouring farmer Ian Paton.
The giant pumpkin, affectionately nicknamed Hagrid after the gentle giant in the Harry Potter franchise, was originally the size of a golf ball but when put on the scales, it came in at a mammoth 2,639 pounds, missing out on the title for world’s largest by just 100 pounds.
A giant pumpkin on display
Ian said: “This is a totally different strain to the pumpkins you would get in the shops.
“The ones you get in the shops are field pumpkins which have a hard stem, but these Atlantic giant strains have got a soft stem.
“We want the world record!”
“Hagrid is only about 130 days old and he’s grown from the size of a golf ball. We grew him inside and he required about 130 litres of water a day but hardly any feed at all, just the same as a lawn or a hanging basket would need.
“We spent about three hours a day, seven days a week for three months burying the vines. We cover the vines to encourage extra roots and that helps to develop giant pumpkins.
“We grow seeds from the biggest pumpkins and we cross pollinate them to get bigger and bigger pumpkins every year and at their very peak, these pumpkins will be growing by about 70 pounds per day, but we want the world record!”