What is it about British society that creates a whole tier of obsessive growers

Tag : beetroot.
Leapman is a former newspaper journalist who delivered a notablebiography of Inigo Jones a few years ago. Now he is dealing with adifferent kind of architecture. This kind is seeded by nature butnurtured by man.
Most gardeners I know see winter as an opportunity to put theirfeet up and read books about gardening - maybe including this one.But in October, growers of substantial vegetables are alreadythinking of next September's shows, already vying to outdo thisyear's best efforts.
Leapman followed five of them through 12 months of anxiousvegetable cosseting, as they lived, breathed, ate, drank and sleptvegetables. And in their few spare minutes, worried and frettedabout them too. In pictures: Britain's giant vegetables
Needless to say, this has all been going on a while. In 1836, atthe first horticultural show to be held at Sheffield's newlycreated botanic gardens, a Mr Bolton from Manchester 'showed onionsmeasuring between seven and eight inches across'.
The following year, Earl Spencer exhibited a pumpkin weighing 60?lbat the Bawtry and Retford show. Only towards the end of the centurydid judges begin to express a preference for quality and taste oversheer amplitude.
'Most growers went along with that purist approach,' says Leapman,'but a minority of enthusiasts remained hooked on giantvegetables.' Their descendants keep the flame alight.
The season begins in early September with the National GiantVegetables Championship in Shepton Mallet, moves on throughimportant autumn shows at Malvern and Harrogate and ends with majorpumpkin contests at Soham and Southampton.
There's no money in any of it, the upkeep costs them a fortune('this pastime is not for those who feel guilty about using theworld's scarce energy resources'), but it is as brutallycompetitive as any top-level sport.
At the 2006 Dewsbury Onion Fair, one of Leapman's growers, PeterGrazebrook, 'was beaten fair and square in the class for the singleheaviest onion. But there was also a class for the cumulativeweight of three onions and in this he beat the individual winner,Jack Newbould from Leeds, by less than two ounces..."Jack wasfurious," Peter chortled. "He asked for the onions to be reweighedthree times, but I still won."'
So this is fertile territory, and yet more proof that the Britishare world leaders in eccentricity, if not much else.
A more humorously inclined writer might have been tempted to goblatantly for the laughs, but I think Leapman is right to adopt amore deadpan approach, with the occasional dry aside. None theless, he doesn't do a great deal more than report what he sees: hedoesn't go much below the surface.
What makes these lunatics tick? What is it about British societythat creates a whole tier of obsessive growers of vast vegetables?We never really find out.
Dare I say it, Leapman appears more interested in the vegetables.
Consequently, this is a book more for gardeners than for studentsof human nature, who might find it a bit of a slog. But if you havebeen wondering recently how to grow a radish that weighs 68?lb9?oz, it might be the book for you.