The Alaska State Fair: Record-breaking pumpkins and cabbages

It’s State Fair time all over the country, and Alaska is no exception.

While the Alaska State Fair offers many of the same rides, cuisine and 4H projects you’ll find elsewhere in the US, there are a few exhibits and contests that carry a bit more weight. These involve Alaska’s giant produce, which grow to record size under our endless summer daylight. Sure, the growing season is short, but our months of midnight sun make up for that.

Bypass the deep-fried Twinkies and check out the healthy stuff: cabbages the size of bean bag chairs, zucchini as thick as baseball bats, pumpkins resting like large boulders.

This year, the winning cabbage in the Great Cabbage Weigh-Off came in at 105.6 pounds (the record is 127 pounds). Though it didn’t break any records, other produce broke the scales. A pumpkin came in at 1101 pounds (!), while the winning turnip weighs 21 pounds.