The giant pumpkins at New Hampshire fairs may only be enormous rather than gargantuan this year.

“I’ve talked to numerous growers around the state. They’ve all said the same thing: worst season they’ve ever had,” said Bruce Whittier, who has been growing giant pumpkins since 1977 and is showing a 482-pounder at the Hopkinton State Fair rather than the thousand-pounders that are his norm.

“It’s tiny,” he said of his entry. “Small ain’t the word for it – it’s tiny.”

The problem is the same one that has bedeviled state tourism this year: lack of heat and excess of rain.

“It’s really been kind of a cool summer, hasn’t been quite hot enough,” he said. “And there’s too much water. In my patch you couldn’t even walk out there some days, you’d sink right into the mud. … Unless you had pretty sandy soil, it was a problem for everybody.”

Despite the setback, Whittier was upbeat.

“Every year is different! You do what you can,” he said. “That’s farming.”

The Hopkinton Fair runs through Monday. It opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 11 p.m., except on Monday when it shuts at 5 p.m.

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