On my way home from work recently, I came across some unusually long carrots at a local vegetable shop. Carrots were not on my shopping list that day but I just had to buy a couple. I have long been a fan of weirdly shaped vegetables, but I had never seen such a carrot before. Living in Japan, we are of course used to seeing long vegetables – 50cm daikon are the norm, but the finest example has to be the gobo (burdock), easily 1m in length and can be up to 2m. To my mind, that shows how wonderful and deep the topsoil must be in some parts of Japan. Any layers of clay or rock under the topsoil will stop the root from growing straight down. But that is a subject for future study. In this story I want to take a brief look at the world of giant vegetables.
My long carrot measured about 60 cm, pretty impressive I thought. But then I checked what the world record is for the longest carrot and was shocked to see it coming in at 6.245m, grown by a Brit, Joe Atherton, from Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire. Joe is a legend in the world of growing long vegetables. He also holds the world records for the longest beetroot (7.956m) and radish (5.023m). My initial thought was that he must have the most incredible light and deep topsoil to grow veg to such lengths, but I was disappointed to find out in further research that he doesn’t even grow them in the ground, but rather makes 7m long plastic tubes which he fills with potting compost and plants the seeds. This allows the root of the carrot to continue growing to the end of the tube without interruption, which takes up to 14 months in his greenhouse.
As you can see, the carrot itself is not particularly impressive, but the total length to the tip of the root is what they measure, hence a world record of 6.245m. Hats off to Joe for his patience but personally I am more interested in genuinely large veg, grown in the soil in the grower’s garden. And there really is a thriving scene in the UK for keen gardeners who devote the summer months to growing and nurturing their prized veg to ultimately enter into a competition. There’s no limit on what people grow – gigantic pumpkins that weigh so much they need a tractor to lift them from the ground, cucumbers as long as a small child and onions as large as your head! Gardening has long been a passion with many Brits, but interest in gardening in the UK has really increased over the past 12 months. With lockdown after lockdown restricting people to their homes, having the chance to be outside in your garden or allotment, doing some physical exercise and producing fresh, tasty veg has helped many people deal with the Covid situation. In my experience, gardening is really quite simple, it just requires time and attention to your plants. They need nurturing. So lockdown has given people time to nurture their plants, time which in their normal hectic lives was not available. For Britain’s giant vegetable growers, 2020 was a vintage year. Three world records were set in September: the world’s heaviest red cabbage (31.6kg), the world’s longest salsify (5.6 metres) and the world’s longest beetroot (8.6 metres). And in October 2020, Ian and Stuart Paton, 59-year-old twins from Lymington in Hampshire, grew the UK’s heaviest-ever pumpkin, which weighed in at a monstrous 1,176.5kg!
WOW!!
To grow giant vegetables you need to choose the right seeds, the best varieties that have the potential to grow massive. Then it is all about timing and nurturing, simply giving your plant what it needs on a daily basis to keep growing and growing and growing. For serious giant vegetable growers, a two-week holiday in the South of France in July is not an option. Looking after the much-loved vegetables is the priority.
Competitions are held through late summer and into autumn at local village fairs, larger County agricultural shows, and culminating at the grand final, the Oscars of the giant vegetable world – the Malvern Autumn Show. Here the UK National Giant Vegetables Competition is held, sponsored by the plant nutrient company Canna. Vegetable competitions fall into 2 categories. The traditional “quality” version, where the judges are looking for specimens that are “perfect”, that exactly match the set of rules for that particular vegetable. Each competition has a rule handbook that clearly defines what the judges are looking for, and any deviation from those rules will result in failure. It’s all very serious, rigid and to be frank, to me, a bit snobby. Then there are the giant vegetable competitions. These are a less serious affair, a bit of fun, an opportunity to have a giggle at the sheer size and weirdness of the gigantic entrants. The rules are simple, the heaviest or longest wins!
Living in central Tokyo, there really isn’t any opportunity to enter this wonderful world of giant vegetable growing. So for now I will have to make do with a few herbs, a tomato plant and some strawberries on my balcony. But I do dream of a day when I have my own garden or allotment where I can have a go at growing some giant veg, and maybe entering a local competition. I think it will suit my nerdy side and my underlying competitive nature. There seems to be a fun camaraderie in this weird community of giant vegetable growers and I can see myself fitting in quite well!
Giant vegetables have featured on the big screen. My favourite animators, Aardman Animations from my hometown Bristol, chose a giant vegetable competition to be the central theme of their brilliantly funny, and at times quite dark Wallace & Gromit animated film “Curse of the Were-Rabbit”. The film won the 2006 Academy Award Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. When a huge vegetable-ravaging beast destroys the local gardens right before the Giant Vegetable Competition, Lady Tottington asks Anto Pesto, the humane pest control company run by Wallace and his dog, Gromit, to track the beast and rescue the village.
Gromit measuring his prized marrow.
Lady Tottington in her amazingly fabulous sweet corn dress.
If you haven’t watched the film, or want to watch it again, it is currently available on Amazon Prime.
And very recently, a grower of big vegetables has featured in high fashion. In the Garden With Gucci & Gerald the “Veg King”. Gerald Stratford loves gardening. The retired fisherman spends most of his waking hours planting, pruning and weeding his garden. At least, he did until last year, when he unexpectedly became a social media sensation after he posted photos of his big vegetables and his optimistic anecdotes.
Stratford, self-described in his Instagram bio as a “gardener heavy into big veg,” is the star of a collaborative video shoot with Highsnobiety for Gucci’s Off The Grid collection. Launched last year, Off The Grid is the Italian brand’s more environmentally focused collection and is made mostly of ECONYL, a type of Nylon regenerated from abandoned fishing nets, old carpets, and offcuts.
Check out the Gucci campaign here: https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/gucci-off-the-grid-gardening-with-gerald-stratford/
Some more links:
Malvern Autumn Show: https://www.malvernautumn.co.uk/whats-on/grow/giant-vegetables/
Giant Vegetable Community Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/groups/giantvegetablecommunity/
Giant Vegetable UK website: https://www.giantveg.co.uk/index.php/en/