Happy Friday, everyone! In the spirit (no pun intended) of Halloween, have some jack o’ lantern orange to mark the first weekend of 2012′s Haunted Pumpkin Garden.

Dahlia ‘David Howard’ — Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

Walking around the NYBG on this misty Wednesday afternoon, you can already make out hints of Halloween creeping into the Garden. The jack o’ lanterns peeking out from atop the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden archway are a dead giveaway. And this weekend, Annie Novak and the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden do them one better by welcoming an age-old tradition back to our vegetable plots. Leave the chicken wire at home, skip the raised beds, and grab a burlap sack: the scarecrows are slinking in!

As of Saturday and Sunday, the Family Garden’s vegetables see the silhouettes of autumn’s most iconic bird-shooing bodyguards, and we need your kids to help put them together. We’ll supply the poles, twine, floppy hats and straw, just so long as they bring their creativity. And that imagination easily carries over to our other activities for the weekend, like making corn husk dolls and exploring the nine restaurant kitchen gardens of Mario Batali’s Edible Garden.
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Ron Wallace and his heavyweight pumpkin (The Boston Globe, 2012)

It’s October 1, and that means exactly one thing: you can throw the unwritten embargo on Halloween decorations out the window! No more tamping down the urge to buy orange string lights. No more nibbling your nails as you scurry past the candy aisle. Free reign to stake your front yard with frightful scarecrows and tombstones, whether your neighbors scowl or not. And at the NYBG, we get to ramp up our coverage of the season’s holiday excitement! You may not think there’s much to celebrate in a simple gourd, but trust me, there’s nothing simple about a one-ton pumpkin.

Don’t bother with a double-take–that wasn’t a misread. Early predictions from farmers close to the Garden hinted that drought and heat would lead to a disappointing harvest, but pumpkin crops have pulled out a clutch win, with some gigantic gourds already smashing weight records in our neck of the woods. Included is the latest champion, a 2009-pound behemoth out of Rhode Island that took the title for grower Ron Wallace on Friday, September 28, at the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts; that’s nearly 200 pounds heavier than last year’s winner. But the challenge isn’t settled just yet! Rumor has it there are still a few contenders lurking in the wings, not only in the northeast, but on the west coast and the continent, as well. We could see the record snapped more than once before 2012 crowns its prince of pumpkins.
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I can say with sureness that this upcoming October will be a big month for The New York Botanical Garden. And I mean that in as literal a sense as possible. “But how big is it?” you most certainly ask. Well, if we need to get down to brass tacks, we’re talking about squash waaaay bigger and badder than anything you’ve seen in your neighborhood market–pumpkins trucked in from around the globe that weigh in at nearly a solid ton (that’s 2,000 pounds by U.S. standards). In other words, they make your porch jack o’ lanterns look like carved grapes in comparison.

Each of the growers that contributed mammoth pumpkins to 2011′s Halloween in the Garden–members of the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth hailing from California, Pennsylvania, and even Quebec–supplied a home-grown monster the likes of which most have only seen in The Nightmare Before Christmas or Cinderella. I’m talking record-breaking squash weighing 1,600, 1,700, and even as much as 1,800 pounds in some cases. After the weigh-ins and the awards, each found its final resting place in the Garden, where Ray Villafane took knife to squash in an artful if ghoulish manner.
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Bats in the trees, ghosts in the garden, and jack-o’-lanterns every which way you look–Halloween is soon to creep its way back into the NYBG. And even for someone like me, who’s usually too busy to realize what time of year it is until the spirit is sneaking up behind me (the best way to experience the holiday, I suppose), there’s too much incoming excitement for us to let it wait until later.

This year, the Garden’s madcap Halloween events are back and even bigger than 2011′s. That’s if you can imagine us topping a cadre of record-breaking pumpkins carved into the stuff of nightmares. But we absolutely plan to! Plans are in the works to again feature the gargantuan gourds of the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, which will once again go under the knife of master carver and ghoul-whittler extraordinaire, Ray Villafane. Together with his team of skilled pumpkin sculptors, he’s on track to top last year’s masterpieces a few times over.
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Breaking developments in the world of giant pumpkin spiders! — How often do you get to write a sentence like that in all seriousness?

Artist Michael Natiello will be here this weekend carving up one of the world’s largest pumpkins. (You might know him as the man behind the Great Jack ‘O Lantern Blaze as well as the Haunted Pumpkin Garden here in the Children’s Adventure Garden).

That’s not the breaking news, though.
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We’re still basking the freakish glow of superstar sculptor Ray Villafane’s (on the right in this photo) wild zombie sculpture he constructed at the Garden using two of the world’s largest pumpkins. But by no means are the creepy carvings over with! This weekend will feature the supremely talented artist Michael Natiello (under the zombie’s hand)–the brains behind the spectacular Great Jack ‘O Lantern Blaze as well as our Haunted Pumpkin Garden here in the Children’s Adventure Garden.

Weather permitting however, Villafane’s pumpkin creation will only be on display for as long at it stays presentable and also as long as we can keep the wily Bronx wildlife from having their own pumpkin feasts.

For those of you who couldn’t be here last weekend, we put together a short video of Ray in his own words describing his process. All the gory, gourdy goodness is below!

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Scott Cully, Sara Mussen & Michael Anthony Natiello contemplate pumpkins and Newton

Gravity, it seems, will always win. Whether it’s in the war against wrinkles, when you drop your buttered toast, or when you’re carving the world’s heaviest pumpkin. Here on earth, we’re all a slave to it.

And while Chris Stevens’ 1,810.5 pound world record-holder did succumb to Newton’s most famous force, the other two fabulous pumpkins are still on view here at The New York Botanical Garden, and should be around through Friday.

Carver Scott Cully

Micheal Natiello

Carver Sara Mussen

And here’s hoping Scott Cully‘s heroic effort will be considered great by another book: The Guinness Book.

Scott Cully was out at the reflecting pool in front of the Leon Levy Visitor Center bright and early this morning to begin carving Chris Stevens’ World Record-breaking giant pumpkin.

Here’s some shots (and a short video!) from our early morning rendezvous.

Head below the break for some exclusive shots from this morning’s seed harvesting and carving extravaganza!

Yep, that’s right ladies and gents. The giant pumpkins are so big, a man can fit inside. Matthew DeBacco from team-pumpkin.org climbed inside Steve Connolly’s 1,674.5 pounder this morning to harvest some seeds. He reported that it was nice and warm, and that if it were on the Lower East Side it would rent for about $1,500 a month!.

Check it out!