If you’ve ever been to a state fair, admired a prize-winning vegetable, and wondered, “Who grew that thing?,” then you’ll be excited—as we were—to meet Paul Jarosh. An engineer at a tech company who lives in Culpeper, Jarosh moonlights as a hobbyist farmer, cultivating massive produce on his three and a half acres of land. He’s found the most competitive success with his squash, winning the top prize at the Virginia State Fair a few years ago. He’ll be competing again this year at the event, held in Doswell in late September and early October.
Jarosh is relatively new to competitive farming, though he’s been into gardening since his dad taught him when he was growing up in Pennsylvania. In 2020, he went to the Virginia fair and was struck by the huge veggies on display. He decided to give it a try, and two years later he entered the contest with a gigantic butternut squash. “I did a bunch of stuff wrong,” he says of that early effort. “It was just pure luck.” Jarosh turned out to be a natural: The 103-pound vegetable didn’t just win that year’s prize—it broke the all-time state record.
That victory catapulted him into the world of state-fair vegetable competitions and also turned him into something of a local celebrity. This year, Jarosh and his wife, MaryEllen, are running the Virginia State Fair weigh-off. They’re now part of a thriving community of growers, both locally and across the country, who share tips and tricks with one another. When he got into the sport, Jarosh says it was common for older growers to be fairly guarded—hoping to protect any secret techniques that could give them an edge on a few extra pounds. In the six years since, Jarosh has built a network of friends who share his interest. On his social media, he posts updates on his crops and advice for other gardeners. He just wants more people to have fun experimenting with giant flora, he says.
Competitive growing isn’t easy—you might do everything correctly and still lose a fruit to rot, splitting, or wildlife. “You can only do so much to help Mother Nature along,” he says. “Quite a bit of it is still in her hands.”
This year has apparently been a bit of a mess for a lot of growers due to late-season storms. The excess water wiped out all of Jarosh’s giant pumpkins, for example, and he had a split in the 73-pound marrow squash that he’d hoped would set a state record. But he still has a Laguna squash that he believes to be on track for a world record, at more than 200 pounds. “I get enjoyment out of watching everything grow,” he says. “I like seeing the smile that giant fruit puts on everyone’s face.”
