'Tis the season for pumpkins. And at the annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, held earlier this month in Half Moon Bay, California it was the season for big pumpkins—up to 1,969-pound big, in fact.

Gourd growers gathered at the prestigious competition to try to win a special $30,000 mega-prize for the world-record-breaking pumpkin. To receive the $30,000 mega-prize, the grower must break and hold the world record of 2,323 pounds set in 2014 by Swiss grower Beni Meier at a weigh-off in Ludwigsburg, Germany. 

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While the growers at the Half Moon Bay event this year failed to squash Meier's world record, Steve Daletas of Pleasant Hill, Oregon, won $12,000 for his plump 1,969-pound pumpkin, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

"It's been a good year," Daletas said after the contest, held on October 12, reported The Associated Press. "I've never grown an official 1,900-pound pumpkin before."

To measure the giant gourds, forklifts and special harnesses placed the massive pumpkins on an industrial-strength digital scale with a capacity of 5 tons as officials from the county agricultural commissioner's Office of Weights, Sealers, and Measures kept close watch, according to the AP.