IanWorld's Biggest Fruit and Vegetables
March 10th 2010 23:37
For centuries people the world over have obsessed about growing the biggest and best of every fruit and vegetable variety possible. In these modern times, world records are held in higher regard than ever before with seeds from record specimens fetching thousands of dollars on Ebay.
Below are a few giant fruit and vegetable specimens that have broken records in recent times. These images and information sourced from this article by Raina Kelley on Newsweek.
Hope, Arkansas, is not only the town where Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee got their start but also home of the world’s largest watermelons. The town’s first world-record melon was grown in 1935, and it held the prize for decades. After a brief sojourn in Tennessee, the record once again returned to Hope when Lloyd Bright grew a 268.8-pound behemoth in 2005.
Hubacek broke his own world record this year when he displayed this monstrous head of cabbage he’d grown for the Alaska State Fair. Can you imagine the smell if you found a pot big enough to boil it in? And doesn’t it look a little like something from Invasion of the Body Snatchers? I’m no wimp when it comes to big food, but this cabbage scares me. Oh, and should you want to grow one (and I hope you don’t), you’re on your own. Hubacek keeps his choice of seed a secret.
I have no idea what one does with a normal-size rutabaga, never mind a world-record one. Wikipedia says it's a turnip and that before pumpkins were readily available, they were carved for Halloween. Either way, Robb knows his way around a giant vegetable. Not only did he also submit a 146.5-pound watermelon to this year’s Alaska State Fair, but his last world record was in 2007 for a 105.9-pound kale. That’s a lot of soup.
John Evans of Palmer, Alaska, is the king of giant food—the Tiger Woods of huge horticulture, the Michael Jordan of blue ribbons, the Williams sister of ... Okay, you get it. Evans and his wife have 180 first places in both quality and giant vegetable categories, with 18 state and 7 World Records. If you’re wondering, as I was, why all these big veggies are grown so far up north, it’s because Alaska’s summer may be short but the days are long with up to 20 hours of sunlight to nourish the plants.
This is not a zucchini. Yes, I know. It certainly looks like one. It is a summer squash, but it’s called marrow (yup, like the stuff in your bones). It’s mostly eaten in the U.K. where they don’t mind bland food. And they grow really, really big ones in England--really big ones. Ken Dade grew this one after a long wet spring and summer (is there any other kind in the U.K.?) and captured the World Record at 113 lbs. Dade’s response: “There is nothing else like it. It is like winning an Olympic gold medal.”
Below are a few giant fruit and vegetable specimens that have broken records in recent times. These images and information sourced from this article by Raina Kelley on Newsweek.
268.8-pound watermelon grown by Lloyd Bright
127-pound cabbage grown by Steve Hubacek
82.9-pound rutabaga grown by Scott Robb
John Evans Triptych: Broccoli, Carrot, Kohlrabi
Monster Marrow
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