Canada: Stakes high in the competitive world of growing giant veggies
But with frost threatening, he’s not taking any chances with the behemoth he and his wife Jane have raised from babyhood.
Raised? Try helicopter parenting, garden-style.
Their 6-month-old baby’s had the benefit of round-the-clock coddling, scientifically formulated feeding schedules, fungus supplements, and soil and tissue analyses.
“I call it extreme gardening,” Hunt says. “You take care of the plant the whole year and give it whatever it needs.”
In the world of competitive giant vegetable growing, the Hunts are the cream of the crop, producing numerous prize winners at their rural home north of Lindsay. A 1,678-pound pumpkin missed the world record in 2009 by a scant 11 pounds.
But they have high hopes for this year’s weigh-offs at fall fairs around the province. While the cold summer stunted the watermelons – they produced a 222-pound whopper one year – a cabbage the size of a tub chair holds promise, notes Hunt.
It’s anyone’s guess what “monsters” lurk in competitors’ gardens, say the founding members of the 10-year-old Giant Vegetable Growers of Ontario, which has 300 members worldwide.
“They don’t want to jinx themselves” by spilling the beans, Jane, an accountant, says of horticultural heavy-hitters.
Club co-president Phil Joynson has his ear to the grapevine “about who’s taking what where.” He’ll have to dig deep to beat his 10-pound carrot that bagged top honours at the Royal last November – a record for the agricultural fair.
“I’ve had a miserable year,” he complains, rooting around a rutabaga that’s turning to mush. Only kohlrabi, cabbages and one lonely pumpkin escaped the disease, bugs and foibles of Mother Nature that ravaged his garden.
In this green-thumbed game of one-upmanship, “you have to be chemist, engineer, biologist, historian – and crazy,” laughs the retired auto worker, who lives in Enniskillen, northeast of Oshawa.
Growers follow progeny the way breeders study racehorses, he says, noting a single pumpkin seed once sold for $1,500.
Prize money is no small potatoes either, with thousands up for grabs at big events like Port Elgin’s Pumpkinfest, Oct. 4-5.
Small wonder that growers pollinate by hand and feed their veggies health-boosting concoctions of fish, seaweed, compost teas, maple syrup, worm poop and water, of course.
A 3,000-gallon tank lasts less than two weeks, says Chris Lyons, a sort of MacGyver of the garden. The Scarborough truck driver, who works a plot at the Hunts’ place, makes protective tents for his squash and pumpkins with clamps, tape, piping and massive sheets of white fabric. Long gourds are tied to a trellis with rope and special knots so they don’t break off.
But hopes often hang by a thread. Lyons was on track to break the world record of 139 inches one year when his gourd ground to a halt.
“I had a three-foot hole dug for it to grow into,” recalls the rueful reaper, who’s harvested plenty of prizes during 25 years of tending giants.
“I’m in it a bit for the glory but mostly for the fun. You always think, ‘I’ll do better next year’,” says Lyons, who devotes 10 hours to the cause every weekend.
“It’s a lotta work,” agrees London resident Fred Hain. “I’m 80 and I’m in my garden every day. The wife thinks she’s neglected.”
The farmer, who once grew 25-foot corn stalks and sunflowers, is more down-to-earth these days, focusing on gourds, pumpkins and tomatoes that could eclipse your head.
“They’re quite ugly,” says Hain. “I can’t even give them away.”
But serious growers only have eyes for size. Joynson recalls posting a picture in which he’d photo-shopped Brad Pitt’s face over his own. Club members were so transfixed by the pumpkin beside him, no one noticed.
Source: thestar.com