Those who saw it were astonished: He grew a 50-kilogram pumpkin in his garden.

A farmer in Ankara astonished onlookers with a 50-kilogram pumpkin he grew in his garden.

Hakan Kurnaz, the muhtar of Gümüşpala neighborhood in Elmadağ district of Ankara, is drawing attention with the 50-kilogram pumpkin he grew as a hobby in his garden. The pumpkin Kurnaz cultivated is attracting great interest around him.

Stating that he is engaged in agriculture on his own terms, Hakan Kurnaz said, “We have a garden we have been working on for hobby purposes for 5 years. We plant and try to do things during our free time. The pumpkins grew completely naturally on their own.”

Kurnaz added, “I saw that a 36-kilogram pumpkin broke a record in the news. I thought, why shouldn’t our pumpkin, which is 50 kilograms, be highlighted? Normally, we had 4 pumpkins of the same weight. However, we dropped and broke 2 of them while bringing them on the road. We brought these two pumpkins and are displaying them in front of our shop.”

“People are asking for the seeds of the pumpkin”

Kurnaz noted that there is intense interest from citizens in the pumpkins, saying, “People are asking for the seeds of the pumpkin, and we want to distribute the seeds to everyone to help it spread. Our goal is to distribute the seeds of this pumpkin to everyone so that we can hold a festival and a competition for this pumpkin in the coming years.”

“We aim to grow our pumpkin up to 80 kilograms”

Kurnaz expressed that they want to grow larger pumpkins, stating, “In the coming years, we aim to grow our pumpkin, which we cultivated at 50 kilograms, up to 80 kilograms. There have been people who wanted to buy this pumpkin. However, we prefer to slice and distribute this pumpkin. We want to reach everyone with our pumpkin. We did not produce this pumpkin for commercial purposes.”

“We did not expect the pumpkin to grow this big”

Muzaffer Doğruol, who saw the pumpkin on display, said, “We also went to the place where this pumpkin was grown together with Muhtar Hakan. When air, water, and sun came together, such a perfect thing emerged. We did not expect the pumpkin to grow this big. However, we expect much larger ones from now on.”

“We were astonished when we saw it”

Bayram Zekai Çalış, a neighbor of Hakan Kurnaz, said, “Our neighbor Hakan Kurnaz grew these pumpkins in his own garden. We were astonished when we saw it. I have never seen such a pumpkin before.”