A massive marrow thundered its way into the world record books at the National Amateur Gardening Show.
The mighty vegetable weighed in at 62kg (just over 136 lbs) – shattering the previous record of John Handley from Chesterfield by just 0.77kg.
The marrow was the handiwork of 22 year old Mark Baggs, and his father Frank, farmers from Wareham, Dorset, who were first time exhibitors at the Show at the Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet.
They visited the gardening show last year and were so gob-smacked at the size of the entries in the National UK Giant Vegetable Championships at the Show that they decided to give it a go themselves this year.
Keen grower Clive Bevan, who is a steward at the competition, helped them out with plenty of advice and even supplied them with marrow and pumpkin seeds. “I rather wish I’d held onto it now!” joked Clive. “Seriously though, I am pleased they asked for advice and some seeds – and if I can help anyone out I always try to.”
Mr Baggs senior said: “We have never grown one before and we didn’t know anything about it until we came to the Show last year. We are absolute novices but we have had lots of help from people, especially Clive. I didn’t realise there was quite so much to it all!”
At one point the Baggs’ colossal pumpkin looked set to be another record-breaker – but it tipped the scales at 260.4kg – a fraction short of the existing record.
Meanwhile long-time grower Ian Neale from Newport, S Wales, surpassed his own British record with a water melon weighing in at 75kg. “The secret is good seed, good ground, good weather and good luck!” he said. “It is still about 90 lbs short of a world record – though I am sure one day someone will do that here with the right seed.”
“We have had the heaviest marrows we have ever had and the cucumbers were exceptionally big too!” said vegetable co-ordinator Ray Davey. “Despite the difficult growing conditions everything is of very high standard.”
A new website, totally dedicated to giant vegetable enthusiasts, was launched at the show. www.giantveg.co.uk is the brainchild of brothers Gareth and Kevin Fortey and their neighbour Kyle Phillips from Cwmbran in South Wales.
They set up the website in memory of the brothers’ father, Mike Fortey who died in 1996. Mike started the whole giant veg ball rolling in this country when he held a pumpkin competition in his local pub in the 1980’s – it grew from strength to strength, expanding to take in other vegetables and so the National UK Giant Vegetable Championship was born.
The boys appeared on BBC Gardeners World last month and, since it launched, the website has attracted a lot of hits and plenty of praise.
Said Kevin (27):”This is all about the giant vegetable community – anything you need to know about giant vegetables is on it and we hope it will attract a lot of interest. There has never been a giant vegetable growers’ Society – but we hope our website will help fill the gap.”
The competition attracted 46 growers from all over the country and is one of the major attractions at the National Amateur Gardening Show, which is supported by Renault, and which this year attracted nearly 36,000 visitors.