What it took Mark to get a 412kg pumpkin grown at Tumut to take out title

With help from his father Ian Peacock and friends, Tumut's Mark Peacock was able to successful get his pumpkin to the Sydney Royal Easter Show where it was awarded first prize in the big backyard pumpkin competition.

Mr Peacock has been working on growing the giant fruit since November last year, and it has been no easy work.

"It's pretty ridiculous how much time and energy it involves," he said.

"You try and grow a really large plant, a lot of leaves, and you remove all of the other flowers and pumpkins until you have a really big plant, so you think of it as like a solar panel and then when you're happy with how big it is you pollinate a pumpkin.

"You make sure all of the energy goes into that one fruit.

"It had a tent on it to keep the sun off it so it didn't get burnt or scared, it had a fan on it to keep it cool, and then yeah, heaps of water, heaps of fertiliser and plenty of good luck."

Mr Peacock said it also helps given the location as Tumut is a prime area for growing pumpkins.

"In growing pumpkins it's a balance of having good sunlight and good summer temperatures, but also because Tumut is a fair way south, in summer our days are longer, so it's almost perfect," he said.

"The plant was planted in November of last year but the pumpkin was only 71 days old when I harvested it.

"It's pretty crazy."

The pumpkin was successfully carted to Sydney on Thursday after Mr Peacock's father came up with the idea of a self-made contraption.

"We had to get a big tractor - the most difficult part of the process was lifting it six inches to put a pallet under it," he said.

"My dad has a boat so he's really good at knots and he actually made a series of slings and rope to go around the pumpkin so we could lift it.

"I think we brought all of the pool noodles in Tumut to try and pad it.

"Once we could actually lift it we then lifted onto the pallet. The pallet was almost not big enough.

"At one stage, I did try and give it a real shove, I'm 6'4 and pretty strong and I couldn't even get it to shake and that's when I knew it was decent."

Mr Peacock said he was excited to hear about the win at the show after the months of hard work he put in.

"I didn't really expect it so it's pretty cool to get that blue ribbon," he said.

"If anything, it probably spurs me on to try and do better next year.

"I'm pretty excited, all the hard work has paid off."

With a pumpkin that could provide meals to hundreds of people, Mr Peacock isn't sure what will eventually come of the fruit, but one thing he is sure about is that he wants it's seeds.

"The seed cost me $50 when I bought it and this fruit probably will have 400 to 500 seeds in it so there's potentially $20,000 to $25,000 worth of seeds in it," he said.

"I'm definitely going to get it back for the seeds.

"I'm going to try and bring it back to Tumut to put on displkay at the local nursery if it's still healthy and survives the show and then after that, I don't know, I'm open to suggestions."

It isn't Mr Peacock's first time growing a giant pumpkin, in fact, it's a bit of a hidden talent that he has.

"I have a history of growing crazy stuff," he said.

"I grew a pumpkin in the US during COVID-19 - we decided to just do a project and we grew a 340 kilogram pumpkin in our suburban backyard in the US and that was the biggest in North Carolina that year," he said.

"Before that I got a Guinness World Record for the world's hottest chilli in 2011.

"That was probably the crazy growing starting point.

"I'll try and crack the World Record for the biggest pumpkin in Australia over the next couple of years."