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"Farmer Mike" Valladao has been carving giant pumpkins for nearly 40 years, starting in 1984 when he saw the world's largest pumpkin at a festival in Half Moon Bay, Calif.

He started growing his own giant Atlantic Giant pumpkins and discovered they required special carving techniques due to their thick shells

Valladao has a background in high-tech engineering but views pumpkin carving as a fun "alter ego" that balances his professional life

Back in 1986, Mike Valladao was just a 20-something young man with a field of gigantic Atlantic pumpkins and no idea of what he was going to do with the Lurch-like gourds.

It all started two years earlier, when the San Francisco Bay Area tech engineer spied his first “world’s largest pumpkin” at his local Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin

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