Photo Provided Members of the Bill Neptune family pose with the 294.5-pound bushel gourd he grew with his granddaughter Jayden this year. Bill is at right, while Jayden is in the center, perched atop the gourd.

BARNESVILLE — Holding the king’s crown was great for Bill Neptune, but that wasn’t the end of his ventures in raising giant produce.

Neptune claimed the title of King Pumpkin grower during the 2023 Barnesville Pumpkin Festival with a 1,950-pound behemoth, but he returned this year with a gourd of a different color. He and his 10-year-old granddaughter partnered this year to grow a 294.5-pound bushel gourd this summer — and he said it was the heaviest in the world so far this year as of Wednesday evening.

According to several seed companies, a bushel gourd is mainly an ornamental gourd that typically weighs as much as 25-60 pounds.

Their name is derived from the fact that they can grow to the size of a bushel basket. In the Neptunes’ case, though, their gourd was far above average.

The elder Neptune, a resident of New Concord, Ohio, said they brought their deep green fruit to the festival for the official King Pumpkin Weigh-Off despite the fact that the festival does not host a bushel gourd competition.

By doing so, he said they were able to obtain an official weight for the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, an organization that promotes and records the growth of enormous fruits and vegetables. As of Wednesday, the GPC was reporting a world record bushel gourd weight of 281 pounds for this year — 13.5 pounds lighter than the Neptunes’ gourd.

Previously, Bill Neptune’s personal best bushel gourd weighed in at 238 pounds.

He decided to take the year off from growing pumpkins because Jayden had been dealing with some medical concerns, and he wanted to spend some quality time with her doing an activity that would help lift her spirits.But he said their growing season was not without challenges.

“The drought has been terrible,” he said during the weigh-off. “We have a spring on our property, and luckily it held out.”

He added that Jayden had been delighted with the gourd’s official weight and that many of their family members had been on hand to see it tip the scale.

In addition to giant pumpkins and bushel gourds, Neptune and his family also raise enormous watermelons — some of which weigh as much as 300 pounds. Despite the fact that they may look tempting a delicious, though, they do not eat the watermelons because of the chemicals they use to help them achieve their gigantic size.

“We raise them for their weight and for seeds,” he noted.

In addition to his 2023 reign with his King Pumpkin, Neptune has held the crown on three previous occasions — in 2009 with a weight of 1,503 pounds; in 2010 with a 1,479-pound pumpkin; and in 2019 with a 1,588-pounder.