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Notably Large / Largest Fruits & Vegetables (Guinness Records, Etc.)

ramonmercado said:
Prize pumpkin.

A horticulture teacher has set a new US record for the heaviest pumpkin after raising a giant gourd weighing 2,560lbs.

Travis Gienger, from Anoka, Minnesota, set the new record and won an annual pumpkin-weighing contest in northern California.

“Minnesota has a great mid-year, but our spring in our parts is really, really tough. So to do it in Minnesota, it just shouldn’t happen,” Mr Gienger said.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40980731.html
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Bloody hell, that’s more than a ton!
 
There's a new Guinness record holder for heaviest butternut squash.
Michigan farmer's 104.5-pound butternut squash breaks world record

A Michigan farmer earned a Guinness World Records title when his gargantuan butternut squash was officially weighed at 104.5 pounds.

Derek Ruthruff of Charlotte had his massive squash weighed at Dundee's Pumpkin Palooza in Dundee, Mich., and the gourd tipped the scales at 104.5 pounds, breaking a week-old Guinness World Record by just 1.5 pounds. ...

Ruthruff, who has been competitively growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins for four years, said his squash was planted on April 15, hand-pollinated on July 21 and harvested just prior to its Oct. 1 weighing.

The plant was grown using a seed from Christopher Brown's former world record 55.5-pound squash, which was grown in 2020. ...

"The squash is still intact and riding around with me in my truck. The plan is to find a qualified chef with a large enough oven to bake the monster," he said.
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FULL STORY (With Photo): https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/1...cords-largest-butternut-squash/7701665683637/
 
A record sunflower.

Setting a new world record is an achievement many dream of, but imagine then breaking it again!

That's exactly what's happened to the green-fingered Fortey family from Cwmbran in south Wales who have grown the world's heaviest sunflower head - twice!

Tipping the scales at nearly 6.5kg, their latest bloom weighs more than the average bowling ball.

The hefty new sunflower head is also over a kilo heavier than their previous record-breaker, which was harvested in 2021.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/64769418
 
ramonmercado said:
Experts seek key to monster veg

Experts seek key to monster veg
Crops of oversize organic vegetables grown by a Scottish couple are being studied by scientists.
Cameron and Moira Thomson have produced onions the size of footballs and strawberries the size of apples on what was a boggy hillside near Blairgowrie.

Mr Thomson said the secret of their success had been remineralising their ground with simple rock dust.

Scientists from Glasgow University have begun a three-year study of the Thomsons' pioneering work.

Viewers of BBC Scotland's Beechgrove Garden programme will see the results of the Thomsons' work on Thursday night.

The former art teachers have spent 20 years experimenting with remineralisation.


People see giant vegetables and think 'how can they be organic?'
Cameron Thomson

In 1997 they set up a charitable trust, the Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration (Seer) Centre and planted 64 trial plots of land to carry out research into organic gardening.
The plots were spread with crushed-up volcanic rock and the crops harvested in July. Experts have now started a three-year examination of their work.

Mr Thomson, 56, said that their land at Enochdhu had been transformed from "infertile, poorly-drained upland grazing".

At first, people thought they were "cranks" but the couple have spent years "ploughing on".

Microbes and worms

Last year, the Thomsons planted a trial patch of potatoes between June and July, normally too late in the season, but despite predictions there was a bumper crop.

He said: "We got massive spuds out of there, bigger than mangos.

"They had less water in them and last so much longer than anything you would ever have seen before. We were eating them until about a fortnight ago."


He added: "People see giant vegetables and think 'how can they be organic?'"
The project has received more than £150,000 in Scottish Executive funding to help trial the application of rock dust in agricultural systems and to maintain its staff and gardens.

Rock dust was spread over the crop trials and left for microbes and worms to naturally fertilise the land and replenish it with up to 75 minerals and trace mineral elements.

The Thomsons source the dust for free from the Collace quarry, with Tayside Contracts, who service roads in Perth and Kinross, Tayside and Angus, agreeing to provide them with as much as they require.

Mrs Thomson, 42, said: "Rock dust is the perfect way at getting the earth back to full health."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3679450.stm

Published: 2004/09/22 10:47:49 GMT

© BBC MMIV
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Sadly Mr Thompson passed away

Tribute to Remineralization Pioneer Cameron Thomson of the Seer Centre (1947-2019)
 
A radical radish.

Guinness World Records has officially recognized the world's heaviest radish, grown by Manda Fermentation Co. in Japan.

This radical root weighs in at a staggering 101 pounds, handily dethroning the previous record of 68 pounds… also from Japan, oddly enough. Whatever they're putting in the soil over there, I want some. Imagine the size of the salad this bad boy could make!


https://boingboing.net/2023/03/14/worlds-heaviest-radish-grown-in-japan.html
 
Well, it's not a Guiness world record but it's my personal best biggest tomato weight/size I've grown so far!

A mere 581g or 1lb 4oz - a variety called 'Flame' :)

IMG_3234.jpeg
 
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hunck said:
Never seen a tomato like that - what's the taste like?
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Beautiful! The 'ugly' tomatoes are great sliced thinly and eaten as they are, in salads or sandwiches.
Any kind of home-grown tomatoes are a world away from British supermarket toms taste-wise. If you've ever been to the Mediterranean in late summer/autumn and eaten the salads on the hotel buffet, it's like having those at home here.
 
AnonyJ said:
Beautiful! The 'ugly' tomatoes are great sliced thinly and eaten as they are, in salads or sandwiches.
Any kind of home-grown tomatoes are a world away from British supermarket toms taste-wise. If you've ever been to the Mediterranean in late summer/autumn and eaten the salads on the hotel buffet, it's like having those at home here.
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I've probably said elsewhere but tomato plants are carnivorous;

https://www.neatorama.com/2009/12/05/tomatoes-as-carnivorous-plants/

Just so you feel better about eating them!
 
AnonyJ said:
Beautiful! The 'ugly' tomatoes are great sliced thinly and eaten as they are, in salads or sandwiches.
Any kind of home-grown tomatoes are a world away from British supermarket toms taste-wise. If you've ever been to the Mediterranean in late summer/autumn and eaten the salads on the hotel buffet, it's like having those at home here.
Click to expand...
Tasteless tomatoes is one of my pet peeves. Most are entirely tasteless bags of water in my experience, whether ‘ripened on the vine’, ‘finest’ or whatever.

I yearn for a tomato with flavour. Yes toms abroad around the Med are normally much tastier. Why the feck can’t we have tomatoes with tomato flavour here?
 
hunck said:
Tasteless tomatoes is one of my pet peeves. Most are entirely tasteless bags of water in my experience, whether ‘ripened on the vine’, ‘finest’ or whatever.

I yearn for a tomato with flavour. Yes toms abroad around the Med are normally much tastier. Why the feck can’t we have tomatoes with tomato flavour here?
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Cold-storage supply chains that require glasshouse tomatoes with robust skins and keeping qualities, northern Europe, wrong climate for outdoor small-scale local business growers (unlike southern France, Spain, Italy). We also tend to keep them in the fridge. Leaving them at room temperature enhances the flavour a bit.

In Britain you can find locally grown potatoes, greens and roots etc., fairly easily but tomatoes are rare as they normally require a glasshouse environment to reliably and profitably crop, and there's just not the money in it any more, in relation to costs and hassle.

The only solution is to grow some oneself, or make very good friends with someone who does, and enjoy nice tomatoes for about 6 weeks a year [If anone wants some pointers on growing a couple of plants (or more) then PM me]. Or move to Majorca.

Edited to add: The only other way to get some flavourful tomatoes is to stop buying fresh tomatoes and buy semi-dried or sun-dried tomatoes in oil, the cost per fruit isn't much more expensive, and they taste very tomatoey!
 
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AnonyJ said:
In Britain you can find locally grown potatoes, greens and roots etc., fairly easily but tomatoes are rare as they normally require a glasshouse environment to reliably and profitably crop, and there's just not the money in it any more, in relation to costs and hassle.
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My grandad had greenhouses and grew tomatoes to supply a local shop. He's long gone to the big allotment in the sky (mid 60's) but I can still recall the smell in those greenhouses .... ohhhhh bootiful! I used to love going with dad to help water them.

Of course with a large vegetable garden, chickens and a backyard pig or two he was able to make excellent compost. He was always on the go as he also had a day job and didn't have time for humouring his grandkids so I was a bit scared of him as a child.

Ah but respect for those wonderful tomatoes. None of my attempts at growing them have come anywhere near close so I have to buy them but at least I know NOT to store them in the fridge lol
 
AnonyJ said:
Beautiful! The 'ugly' tomatoes are great sliced thinly and eaten as they are, in salads or sandwiches.
Any kind of home-grown tomatoes are a world away from British supermarket toms taste-wise. If you've ever been to the Mediterranean in late summer/autumn and eaten the salads on the hotel buffet, it's like having those at home here.
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The uglier they are the better, the ribbed ones are far better tasting than any you can get in the UK, they sell them in Italian supermarkets where taste and flour overrules looks
 
Its a whopper!

A photo of Vince Sjodin and his 30Ib cucumber

Vince's huge cucumber is his second world record-breaking marvel in two years

His family and friends call him Vince the Veg.

And green-fingered Vincent Sjodin from Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, has certainly earned that nickname, having just grown the world's heaviest cucumber.

Measuring 4ft (1.2m) long, it weighed in at a whopping 29lb 8oz (13.4kg) - equivalent to an average mountain bike - at last month's UK National Giant Vegetables Championships.

The 51-year-old smashed the previously held record by more than 14oz (0.4kg).

It was carpenter Vince's second world record-breaking marvel in two years. In 2021, he grew a mammoth marrow, weighing in at an eye-watering 256lbs 10oz (116.4kg).

"I started about six years ago after seeing the giant veg display at the Vale of Glamorgan show at Fonmon Castle," he said. "I remember telling the blokes there, 'I'm going to have a go at that, I'll be back next year' - and I was."

Indeed, from a poly-tunnel on an allotment about two miles from his home, Vince has since been turning out all manner of colossal crop. For example, at September's UK National Giant Vegetables Championships, Vince also scored another five firsts.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-66994957
 
New pumpkin world record

A Minnesota horticultural teacher set a new world record for growing the heaviest pumpkin – a gargantuan jack-o’-lantern gourd weighing 2,749lb.

Travis Gienger set the record at the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California. The plump pumpkin beat the previous record, set in 2021 by Stefano Cutrupi of Italy, by 47lb.

Gienger spent about $15,000 to feed and care for the pumpkin as it ballooned in his backyard, and he carefully drove it to California from Minnesota last weekend, according to SFGate.

The 43-year-old landscape and horticulture teacher at Anoka Technical College has been growing pumpkins since he was a teen, carrying on a family tradition.

He has won three of the last four Pumpkin Weigh-Offs. This year, he won $30,000 and the equivalent of a Super Bowl ring, designed by a local jeweler. He told SFGate he planned to reinvest the winnings in growing an even bigger pumpkin next year.

Nick Kennedy, who won second place, told local news outlets he would do it even if there were no prize money involved. “It has to be a labor of love,” he told ABC 7. “Watching these things grow – this thing grew 66lb a day at its peak so it’s like watching a balloon blow up in front of you, basically.”
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EnolaGaia said:
In case you were wondering how big blueberries can be ...



SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/1...ueberry-breaks-Guinness-record/8751601913899/

GUINNESS ENTRY: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/heaviest-blueberry
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New blueberry world record

Blueberry grown in NSW breaks Guinness World Record as world’s heaviest​

Picked on 13 November, the piece of fruit was this week officially recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world’s heaviest blueberry.
“When we put it on the scales I was a bit shocked,” said Brad Hocking, blueberry lead at Costa, a fruit and vegetable producer at Corindi in New South Wales.

Grown by Hocking, Jessica Scalzo and Marie-France Courtois, the berry weighs in at 20.4 grams and is 39.31mm wide.

The record-breaking blueberry is about 1.25 times the weight of the previous record holder, which weighed 16.2g with a diameter of 36.33mm. The past two records were set by Ozblu Western Australian growers in 2020 and 2018.
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hunck said:
New pumpkin world record

A Minnesota horticultural teacher set a new world record for growing the heaviest pumpkin – a gargantuan jack-o’-lantern gourd weighing 2,749lb.

Travis Gienger set the record at the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California. The plump pumpkin beat the previous record, set in 2021 by Stefano Cutrupi of Italy, by 47lb.


View attachment 70372
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You could get Cinderella in that.
 
AnonyJ said:
Well, it's not a Guiness world record but it's my personal best biggest tomato weight/size I've grown so far!

A mere 581g or 1lb 4oz - a variety called 'Flame' :)

View attachment 69039
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hunck said:
Tasteless tomatoes is one of my pet peeves. Most are entirely tasteless bags of water in my experience, whether ‘ripened on the vine’, ‘finest’ or whatever.

I yearn for a tomato with flavour. Yes toms abroad around the Med are normally much tastier. Why the feck can’t we have tomatoes with tomato flavour here?
Click to expand...
Oh, we used to dream about tasteless bags of water! Here in the U.S., tomatoes in the supermarket are often tasteless dry things that seem to be 3D prints of the real thing.

The problem with supermarket tomatoes is that they are bred to be sturdy and pretty - i.e. perfect orange-red globes - but not necessarily tasty. If only they could make tender, flavorful ones that would just survive impact - or jump out of the way. (That's a Four Yorkshiremen AND a Cycling Tour reference in the same post!)

You can get what are referred to as "heirloom" tomatoes around here: pretty much anything that isn't a perfect orange-red globe - all colors and shapes. They all taste as good as home-grown. They are occasionally in grocery stores, but are more plentiful at pop-up farmer's markets that are scheduled in parks and other public spaces. They cost much more than the supermarket kinds.
 
ChasFink said:
Oh, we used to dream about tasteless bags of water! Here in the U.S., tomatoes in the supermarket are often tasteless dry things that seem to be 3D prints of the real thing.
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Tasteless & wet is one thing, tasteless & dry another….. that’s a double no!
 
I tried some tomatoes from the farmers market - sadly not much more tasty than supermarket ones. Oh for a tasty tomato… Gonna try leaving them out on a windowsill, see if they develop any more flavour. I suspect not but what the heck.
 
When I was young fruits and vegetables particularly tomatoes tasted with good flavor.

Now you see “ grown in Chile “ on the packaging and lacking in flavor.

This must be becoming a universal problem.
 
hunck said:
Oh for a tasty tomato
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I know! I've not had a really tasty tomato for years. Some of them are not quite so bad as others but that's the best I can say. Even the ones I grew myself weren't any better.

In the fifties my grandad, who had a small holding, used to grow them in his greenhouse for sale in the local shops and oh the smell in those greenhouses was so lovely and the fruit was so tasty!Sometimes those I buy have at least an echo of that smell when I open the packet but it proves to be a false promise on eating them.

What puzzles me is why so many of them get sold? I'd even begun to wonder if it was my taste buds that were at fault. you know something that happens in old age? Perhaps though it's because not everybody has a memory of those greenhouses and so have low expectations. dunno
 
Sollywos said:
I know! I've not had a really tasty tomato for years. Some of them are not quite so bad as others but that's the best I can say. Even the ones I grew myself weren't any better.

In the fifties my grandad, who had a small holding, used to grow them in his greenhouse for sale in the local shops and oh the smell in those greenhouses was so lovely and the fruit was so tasty!Sometimes those I buy have at least an echo of that smell when I open the packet but it proves to be a false promise on eating them.

What puzzles me is why so many of them get sold? I'd even begun to wonder if it was my taste buds that were at fault. you know something that happens in old age? Perhaps though it's because not everybody has a memory of those greenhouses and so have low expectations. dunno
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When I was a kid we used to occasionally raid the local allotment and I can still remember the incredible taste of the tomatoes. I say incredible but at the time it was the normal taste for a tomato. It's only incredible when compared to todays tasteless offerings.

Also the plums and greengages. Delicious. We never took much and once we got caught. The allotment holder made us weed a whole section as a punishment. Sigh..... happy days.
 
The tomatoes I get in Italy are normally very tasty but that's in summer when I am there, they are grown in a hot climate and ripen naturally, plus they have lots of different types depending on your needs, the ribbed type ones are great on a sandwich

I have also grown my own in the UK and much does depend on the Varity
 
Unique in a number of ways...

Bloke paddles mate’s giant pumpkin down NSW river in suspected world first​

An Australian larrikin has sailed the Australia’s largest pumpkin down a local river – and he suspects, perhaps obviously, that he’s the first ever to do so.

pumpkin.jpg


Mr Farquharson, Tumut Canoe Club commodore, inspired by the idea of some lighthearted fun, saw an opportunity for an unconventional adventure when Peacock mentioned the pumpkin’s fate.

Sporting a sailor hat and pipe, he navigated the hollowed-out pumpkin, dubbed ‘Cinderella’, down the Tumut River in New South Wales’ Riverina region, much to the amusement of bystanders.
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https://www.news.com.au/technology/...t/news-story/4ed12cfa8d6b9e14753bcfa464f530c8
 
I wonder how it stayed upright in the water?
 
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