By Will Tuell

Fifty-nine years after It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown first aired on American television, Jeff Bossie and Heidi Nelson of East Machias have brought a bit of Peanuts joy to life by growing what Charles Schulz himself might have called “The Great Pumpkin.” Though not the first to achieve such a feat, their massive melon tipped the moose scale at an impressive 422 pounds, Nelson said in an email on Oct. 16, setting off what’s sure to be a Downeast pumpkin-palooza.