Last Friday evening, my family honored a four-year tradition and visited the Spokane Interstate Fair. Although there were many highlights (perhaps I will share some of those anecdotes in this upcoming week’s Thursday Rundown), there was something I learned that really stood out.

At one point during the night, we entered the agricultural pavilion. After looking at the award winning vegetables, fruits, and pies we ventured over to the corner of the building that showcased the giant pumpkins that farmers proudly grew.

Beat takes a long look at the giant pumpkins at the Spokane Interstate Fair.

Many of the pumpkins tipped the scale at over 900 pounds. However, the blue ribbon pumpkin did not have a weight assigned to it. Why? Because that was for fair-goers like us to determine. Yep, there was a contest to guess how much the “best in show” pumpkin weighed.

The four of us all submitted our guesses on pieces of white paper, folded them up, and placed them in a box. The box was situated on a long rectangle table with a man sitting at one end. This gentleman was overseeing the pumpkins and the contest. As someone who doesn’t mind talking to strangers, especially at community events, I approached him with a question.

Now, before I reveal the question, just a little bit of background: My inquiry was asked in the same vein that caused me to once wonder aloud what happens to horses and other large, non-butchered livestock when they die? How do people manage such a large mass when it is no longer alive or needed? Do you see where I am going with this?…

“What will happen to these pumpkins after the fair?” I asked the man.

Beau thinking about how many pounds he was going to guess for the weight of the pumpkin.

I mean, a 1,000 pound pumpkin takes up a lot of space and is extremely heavy. If I was the owner of these large pumpkins and I didn’t plan to make a lot of pumpkin pie, I think I would ask the fair if they could find some way to dispose of them.

Oh Brent, how naïve you are.

The man at the table told me the truth: the owners make money off them!

Once the fair is over, the owners come back and retrieve their gourds. They then cut them up and sell the seeds. But they aren’t putting a handful in a pack and selling them for a couple dollars like what you find at any gardening store. These people are selling them PER seed. And let me tell you, the going rate is not $2 per seed.

They are selling them for $50 EACH.

Of course the numbers started to swirl in my head. When we carve regular-sized pumpkins at Halloween, there are seemingly hundreds of seeds inside. How many seeds must be inside a pumpkin that is 300X bigger than the ones we buy at Safeway. Now take that large amount of seeds and multiply it by 50. Is anyone else seeing dollar signs?

If only all those seeds my dad removed from that pumpkin were worth $50 each!

I am always on the lookout for a revenue-generating side hustle and giant pumpkin seed harvesting sounds extremely lucrative. In fact, the ROI seems incredible considering it only takes one seed to plant a mammoth pumpkin that would produce hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of new seeds. Sounds like I could turn $50 into $50,000 over the course of a summer. But alas, I don’t really have the space in my neighborhood to grow a pumpkin that would likely nudge into my neighbor’s yard.

Despite the disappointment that growing a giant pumpkin probably won’t work out for me, I am still glad I found out the very interesting story about what happens to overgrown gourds after the fair. Happy pumpkin spice season, everyone. Don’t Blink.