Thick end of the veg! The world of giant vegetable-growing revealed ...

Tag : vegetable

Two men preside over the judging: Alan Burridge - who effectivelyruns the show along with his brother Neil - and Ray Davey, whoalso judges at the annual British championships at Shepton Mallet.Alan notes down the weight of each entry in kilograms, althoughmost growers prefer pounds.

Giant vegetables are, for the most part, malformed.

Swedes, beetroot and parsnips are usually made up of tangles ofroots emerging from a misshapen central lump.

Pumpkins and marrows are often lopsided, while runner beans arecurly.

After the judging, it's good news for Peter, Mary, Joe and Carmel:Peter wins not only with his long bean but also with his marrow(81lb) and onion (11lb 6oz).

Joe's winners are his carrot, his new 14lb radish, a 6lb parsnip, a10lb 8oz leek, a 2lb 5oz tomato and a potato that weighs 4lb 4oz.Both have covered the cost of their petrol, if not of thebed-and-breakfast.

As the Welsh rugby team sinks to defeat, disheartened enthusiastsdrift upstairs to seek solace in the vegetables.

Shortly before 3.30pm, the official guests arrive - the Chair ofthe Rhymney Community Council, which helps sponsor the show, andthe Mayor of Caerphilly, a few miles south, who present the prizes.

The Mayor declares that he is more impressed every year by theshow. 'I wouldn't miss it for the world,' he says.
The Mayoress, equally enthusiastic, says she has only one question:'How big a saucepan do you need to put that lot into?' The growerslaugh politely. It's not the first time they have heard jokes likethat.

Dramatic scenes like those in Abertysswg are repeated elsewhereevery autumn.

Cadres of obsessive vegetable gardeners travel to halls aroundBritain, staggering under the weight of the distended produce of ayear's dedicated sowing, planting, feeding and pampering,customarily undertaken in near secrecy.

But why grow big? Apart from pure competitiveness, there are othertangible reasons why some gardeners prefer to grow for bulk ratherthan quality.

The first is that size is an absolute, not subject to the aestheticpreferences and individual tastes of judges: the scales and thetape measure are the only arbiters, ruling out any suspicion ofprejudice.

The second is the sheer scale of the challenge. The production ofswollen or extended vegetables is difficult and all-consuming,requiring high levels of expertise and ingenuity, a quantity ofspecialised equipment, plenty of growing space - much of it undercover - and lots of dedication. Indeed, to produce a carrot morethan 18ft long - the height of three grown men - and get it tothe show bench undamaged, requires military planning.

Nonetheless, most serious growers of quality vegetables regard thiskind of thing as a freak show, incidental to their principalobjectives.

Comparing the production of giant vegetables with the subtlerskills needed to grow their smaller but better groomed counterpartsis, they believe, like contrasting the brute force of sumowrestling with the elegant thrust and parry of classical fencing.Nor is there any profit.

Even if one supreme cultivator were to walk away with all the topprizes over a season, they could not make a living from theirprowess.

The seeds and seedlings need to be kept at a temperature of atleast 10c until the summer, and require hours of extra lighting.

The prize money - hardly ever more than three figures and oftenless - will scarcely pay the fuel bill for the heated greenhouse.

Then there are the costs of the special fertilisers and compostsand of transport to the shows. And don't forget the pots, barrels,piping, outhouses, cold frames and polytunnels.

Acquiring the seed is the initial seasonal outlay, and this too canprove expensive, as not any seed will do. World record measurementshave been rising because of selective breeding.

If you can acquire seed from a 1,500lb pumpkin, you stand a chanceof growing one as big, or even bigger.

Some experts also use drainpipes in which to cultivate crops suchas carrots, parsnips and beetroots - the depth encouragesextended root growth - while others try hydroponics, in which theroots of plants are suspended in water and absorb controlledamounts of nutrients.

Some growers experiment with carefully blended, home-made compost,or exotically named substances such as 'dinosaur fertiliser.'

'They found a big pile of something on top of a moor in Yorkshire,'says Ian Neale. 'When they analysed it they found a lot of nitrogenin it, and they called it "dinosaur" because they didn't know whatit was.'

But the compulsion to come out on top can lead to passionatedisputes. There have even been cases of potential prize-winningvegetables being vandalised before a show.

'My advice to anyone doing it is: enjoy yourself, and don't careabout anybody else,' says the legendary Bernard Lavery, chiefprogenitor of today's giant vegetable cult and author of the bookHow To Grow Giant Vegetables.

And what about vandals? Bernard replied that it had happened to himonly once, when he was in South Wales - someone broke into hisgreenhouse and snapped off all his cucumbers three days before abig show.

Despite this, only once has he allowed himself to become soobsessed with the risk of sabotage as to spend the night before ashow sleeping with his prize specimens.

He believes there is no definable limit to the size of pumpkins orany other vegetable that will be grown in the future.

Why, then, did he abandon growing giant vegetables competitivelywhen he was under 60 - an age when many people begin to getserious about gardening? His motivation, it seems, was borne out ofa spirit of altruism.

'When I started breeding giant seeds and had my own range of seedsin the shops, my ambition was to have sponsorship so I could exportthe seeds - or even give them away - to poor countries,' saysBernard, holder of the record for the largest cabbage in the world(124lb).

'My aim was to start these strains of seeds and produce them on amammoth scale for Third World countries.

'I approached nearly every seed company in the UK and America, butnobody followed it up, so I gave up. I was very disheartened, and Istill feel aggrieved about it. There are certain things people havemissed the boat on, and this was one of them.'

But then, in 1996, his life took an unconventional turn: SheikhZayed, the ruler of the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi, having seenBernard's name in Guinness World Records, invited him to redesignand look after the gardens of his palace.

His principal achievement was to create four giant glasshouses,replicating the four seasons of a temperate climate, transferringthe fruit, vegetables and flowers from one to the other at theappropriate time.

These days, however, he takes it easy. 'I relax,' he says. 'I'm avery lucky chap - I'm 69 and I've got a new family and I'm stillhere. OK, I'm not growing giant veg, but I've been there, I've hadthe T-shirt on and I enjoyed every minute of it.'
Extracted from The Biggest Beetroot In The World by MichaelLeapman, to be published by Aurum Press on Tuesday at