Dreams squashed
Canada: Massive zucchini disappears from Grow Calgary farm
The courgette was the largest green ever produced at Grow Calgary, an urban farm that grows pallets of produce on a 4.5-hectare swath of land near Canada Olympic Park and donates the goods to the Calgary Food Bank.
Mac was flabbergasted by the zucchini’s immense size and he set to work regularly watering the surprise vegetable, which was growing in clay near the farm’s zucchini patch.
The summer squash weighed more than 40 pounds when it was recently picked by farm volunteers.
It was decided the dense plant would be incorporated into a Grow Calgary display planned for REAP Calgary’s Food For Thought event, an annual affair that celebrates local, sustainable food and farmers. Volunteers thought the jaw-dropper of a veggie was exactly what was needed to help Grow Calgary’s booth stand out at the well-attended event, held on Sunday.
But then, the vegetable vanished.
When Mac realized the zucchini had gone missing from the farm’s office on Friday, the teenager was devastated. Volunteers believe the produce was stolen.
Mac’s father Paul Hughes, the founder of Grow Calgary, expressed surprise that someone would take a vegetable, and he said police were notified about the stolen summer squash. “The officer who came out asked me about the value and I said, ‘I don’t know the retail value … but it means so much more to everyone here,’ ” he said.
Source: calgaryherald.com