Growing a giant pumpkin takes a giant time commitment. Why do growers put in so much effort for something that’s vulnerable to the elements and isn’t good for baking?

ENON VALLEY, Pa. — In the valley of giants, pumpkins heavier than grand pianos rest atop cushioned pallets waiting to be weighed, while the mad scientist who grew them from tiny seeds sized them up from afar. “No, not those ones,” farmer Dave Stelts says on this late September afternoon. “Those are just the babies.”

It’s a tradition not only in the great outdoors of Colorado but around the free world. Growing giant pumpkins. The question is, why?