Queensland man Geoff Frohloff has been in the giant produce game for 30 years and has inspired four generations of his family to get into the unusual hobby.
The 66-year-old grandfather holds the record for the biggest watermelon in the southern hemisphere and has taken out top prizes for his giant pumpkins for decades.
He has even inspired his own father, son and grandchildren to win their own titles.
But there's one record Mr Frohloff has not been able to break — his own.
'Extreme gardening'
"I started growing giant pumpkins and then my dad tried it. Now my son and my grandsons [are growing them] too, so it's four generations, which is good," Mr Frohloff said.
"It's about trying to step things up, always get them bigger."
"It's extreme gardening, it really is," Geoff's son Tony Frohloff said.
For the last five years, Mr Frohloff has been trying to beat his own Royal Brisbane Show record of a 261.5-kilogram giant Atlantic pumpkin.
This year, he finally broke it.
But it has been no Cinderella story: the fairytale ending the farmer was hoping for was crushed by coronavirus, which led to the cancellation of this year's Ekka and its competitions.
"I couldn't believe it when we put it on the scale. I didn't think it was going to be quite that heavy and it came up as 288 kilos," Mr Frohloff said.
"You put everything into it and then you come up with a beauty and everything is cancelled and you've got to feed it to the cows.
"I usually enter at least 10 shows but everything was cancelled — it's disappointing but we're not giving up."
The family plan to keep the seeds from the record-breaker to plant in the lead-up to next year's show season, when Mr Frohloff is hopeful of growing one in excess of 300 kilograms.
A thriving father-son rivalry
It doesn't take much prompting for Geoff's son Tony Frohloff to tell you he has beaten his dad twice before with his own giant pumpkins.
"Dad's the stalwart throughout Australia of growing these for the longest period," Tony said.
"He gets stuck in his own ways and I'm trying new things and he stays with the same old trusted growing conditions.
"That's the real fun part about it — once the pumpkins start taking off, they can grow up to 15 kilograms a day.
"So we go measure [them] and we have a bit of banter with each other like, 'mine is bigger than yours', that's what makes it fun.
"It's great growing against him and watching my kids grow a couple pumpkins as well."
A bit of TLC the secret ingredient
The father of three said the Frohloffs were keen for more people to take up competitive gardening during the pandemic to give them some more competition next year.
"That's the hope, is to keep building the competition year by year to have more entries and more competitors and getting to know those people," Tony said.
"We get along with everyone in the giant pumpkin community. We share seeds, stories — it's great.
"They're an unbelievable sight once you see them start to grow, they really are. It's hard to explain, there's nothing else like it."
Mr Frohloff said the secret to growing giant produce was patience.
"You've got to have good soil, fertiliser, look after the vines and spray them for diseases every week and they take a lot of water. You've got to have kind weather and lots of luck," he said.
But he said the real secret was in the love you show the squash vegetable.
"You have to be keen. You've got to be there every day, lots of tender loving care and attention — they're like a baby."
