The Complete Vegetable Grower

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My winning vegetables on the show bench, all had their home in Anglesey. Medwyn’s seeds are of a consistent high quality with a 100% germination rate.

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There are many diverse influences on the way that English is used across the world today. We look at some of the ways in which the language is changing. Read our series of blogs to find out more. Hello. I'm Medwyn Williams – Thirteen times Gold medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show, Past Chairman of the Royal Horticultural Society Fruit Vegetable and Herb Committee and President of the National Vegetable Society. Competitive giant vegetable growing is not as popular in Australia as it is in the UK and the US, Sansom said, which could explain why Australia’s records are slightly lower than those set overseas. And yet, despite this year’s award-winning crop of giant vegetables, celebrations and exposure have been limited. Many of the events at which growers would normally exhibit their supersize wares have been cancelled, which means fewer people have been able to wonder at the extraordinary bounty. This year’s Grow Show tour – run by Canna, a producer of nutrients to aid plant growth – was a socially distanced replacement for the national giant vegetables championship, held every September in Malvern, Worcestershire. The annual autumn pumpkin festival in Netley, Hampshire, was cancelled, although a weigh-in was held instead. The Harrogate autumn flower show – the pre-eminent giant-onion show in the country – was also cancelled.The appeal of growing these beasts is not hard to understand. Only the truly joyless would struggle to summon a smile at the sight of a marrow as big as a lawn mower or a cabbage as wide as a double bed. Giant-vegetable-growing is as life-affirmingly ridiculous as it is gloriously escapist. Plus, it is a technical challenge. “You can grow them bigger every year, so you’re always improving,” says Short. Fortey sees it more like a sport than a hobby. “We’re like athletes, absolutely,” he says. “We’re all aiming to get the world record. Usain Bolt runs the world’s fastest 100 metres and we’re aspiring to get the longest vegetables.” It weighed in at a whopping 867kg, beating the previous record for Australia’s heaviest pumpkin of 743kg, also held by Oliver. DGM are growers and innovators, our portfolio reflects our niche expertise and speciality vegetables, we look for the new and unique to offer a comprehensive basket of delicious produce. Alongside this we strive to do so in the most environmentally sound way, being proud to have achieved over 1.5 million meals to FareShare and investing in the latest growing technology and facilities to reduce both our food miles and carbon footprint.

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A giant pumpkin was included in the World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1893, though it only weighed a 165kg – paltry by today’s standards. The best giant-vegetable growers sublimate their egos to the will of the seasons. On a sunny August day, a giant pumpkin might put on 23kg a day in weight; if it is cold, this might be only 9kg. “You have to make do with the hand that you’re given,” Short says. “If the weather isn’t brilliant, you try to do something to offset that.” This summer was suboptimal for giant-vegetable-growing: it rained a lot in August, which can cause the vegetables to become waterlogged or even explode. “It’s been a tough, inclement year,” says Fortey.

Australian Kathy Ffoulkes, from Shoalwater in Western Australia, was also entered into the Guinness World Records in 2020 for growing the world’s longest snake melon, which measured 136cm. The new record was certified by the Australian Giant Pumpkins and Vegetables Supporters society, where Oliver also holds the record for Australia’s largest giant green squash, a 612kg specimen grown in 2015. Our vegetables are far bigger than his ever were,” Fortey says, wistfully. “Dad never achieved a world record. Sometimes I wish he was around to give me help with them.” Gardening was my physiotherapy’ ... Jenna Brown at home with her children, Effie, two, and William, four. She says growing pumpkins helped her recover after surgery. Photograph: Sam Frost/The Guardian These days pumpkin-growing competitions are dominated by Atlantic giants, a breed developed in Nova Scotia in the 1970s and reputed to taste horrible. “It was selected for its enormousness not its palatability,” Sansom said.

vegetable ‘We’re like athletes’: the secret lives of giant-vegetable

The Diggers Club chief executive Tim Sansom said growing giant vegetables was “a scientific challenge”. The soil must be well prepared and rich with nutrients, moisture kept up but not overdone, and the climate warm enough to encourage growth but not so warm as to split fruit and send things to seed. I know it’s a weird thing to get into,” says Tom Carre, 24, from Portsmouth. “I’ve had some funny comments from people on the allotment.” Carre started growing giant vegetables this year when we were all confined to our homes: his work as a sound technician dried up overnight in March when theatres and live music venues shut. “It has given me something to look forward to, as funny as that might sound,” Carre says. “It’s nice to have something to keep myself busy.” Carre has found quiet satisfaction in watching the fruits of his labour loom large from the earth – this year, he grew a 2-metre-tall leek and a swede twice the size of his head. “I feel very emotionally invested in them,” he says. “I did spend my entire summer looking after them.” Of course, the turnip in the room is that, well, this is all a bit phallic. “It’s a macho thing, isn’t it?” says Fortey. “Who can grow the biggest vegetable?” Fortey does his best to recruit female growers, often sending them seeds in the post. Jenna Brown, a 40-year-old landlord from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, is a rare woman in the scene. Every year, she grows giant pumpkins in her garden, carves them out with a chainsaw, puts her children inside and takes photos. “You see these older guys standing there holding a metre-long cucumber,” says Brown. “There are so many things you want to say, but they’re all inappropriate. They take it really seriously. It’s like: ‘Hey, look at the size of my turnip. Doesn’t this make me look manly?’” Williams judged this year’s roadshow, which passed without incident and in the spirit of sportsmanship. ( Every competitor this year, however, was male.) But the same cannot be said for previous years. Although cheating is unusual in the giant-vegetable community, it is not unheard-of: men can lose their morals when trying to grow the girthiest marrow in the room.Australian gardeners, who tend to grow pumpkins to eat, usually favour Australian developed varieties like Queensland Blue, Jarrahdale, and Ironbark. Home gardeners who wish to see how big those varieties can get are advised to follow the same basic formula as Oliver: prepare your soil with rich organic matter and keep the water up. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ The world of competitive giant vegetable growing has gone through something of a renaissance in 2020, particularly in the UK. Three world records were set in the UK in September: the world’s heaviest red cabbage (31.6kg); the word’s longest salsify (5.6 metres); and the world’s longest beetroot (8.6 metres); and the UK’s heaviest ever pumpkin weighed in at 1,176.5kg in October. I find Medwyns very helpful, and it’s nice to know that they remember you from year to year!! I have been buying my seeds from Medwyns since 1996

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Record-breaking hot and dry September weather, followed by an unusually warm beginning to October, has meant that top-fruit and grape harvesting could progress without wet weather issues.... Since its founding in 1908, American Vegetable Grower ® magazine has served as the voice for the fresh and processing vegetable industry in the U.S. Now with accompanying digital products and events that are unmatched in the commercial horticulture industry, American Vegetable Grower delivers insight on field, greenhouse, and organic production; marketing; and new varieties and new products to growers, shippers, and other influencers from coast to coast. A gardener from northern New South Wales has set a new record for the biggest pumpkin in the southern hemisphere, beating his previous record by more than 100kg.

I’m sure a lot of people would agree that we live in strange times. But do they have to be so strange that Area 51 is making headlines? And what’s this about fish the look like aliens. September’s Words in the News explain all.