growing large / giant vegetables

[crichmond]

Hi

I am going to be growing some large/giant veg this year to enter them in a village show in the open section as I live 5 miles away I cant enter as a local.
I will be growing yard long cucumbers, a beetroot that grows upto 20lb, a cabbage that grows upto 15lb and mammoth onions both white and red and also some large tomatoes 2 - 3lb.
Has anyone else grown stuff like this?

I also fancy entering the most unusual category with exploding cucumbers, oca and ulluco.

Cheers Chris

[carlseawolf]

look up robinsons mammoth onions in your search engine and look at the home page for the cultivation section as it covers a whole list of mammoth veg and how to grow them, sorry can't put up a link as computer has just been wiped and reinstalled with a diffrent program.

[bluemoon]

I'm having a go at giant onions this year too - not for show, but because I have this giant onion 'thing'. (I have this dream where I have a family barbie and only need the one ) I bought my seeds from Robinson's - the serious ones in the little test-tubes - and started them off on Boxing day, pricked them out a while back and am now waiting for April when I can put them on the plot. Robinson's have fairly comprehensive (and complex) growing instructions and I would imagine that if you follow them they'd be more than adequate. Personally I'm just going to put them in the bed with the 'normal' onions and see what happens, but I can see that three years from now I'm going to have developed a full blown obsession. Let me know how you get on, we'll compare notes.

[Flummery]

As someone who often has half an onion in the fridge I can't see the point of giant ones. Except to win prizes maybe, but that's not why I grow. Do they compromise on flavour for giant veg? Genuine question as I've never grown them.

[bluemoon]

I don't think the flavour of onions is compromised. I'm basing this on our own experience as when we took over our first allotment many years ago the original tenant had passed away so we 'inherited' a perfect plot and all his crops - we sadly had to give it up after about five years due to work commitments and only took on another one three years ago which was a complete mess. Oh how I missed that first one for the first year or two - Anyway along with everything else there was a row of mega onions. They tasted fine, we enjoyed them (and so did all the neighbours ) and I think that somewhere in my subconscious I'll never feel like a 'real' gardener until I can equal these. It didn't help that for the whole of those five years we were told by someone or other EVERY SINGLE DAY what a great gardener the previous chap had been (this usually accompanied by a disapproving glance at the current state of the plot). So, for me at least, when it comes to the big onions it's not something entirely rational.

[Seahorse]

Hi

I am going to be growing some large/giant veg this year to enter them in a village show in the open section as I live 5 miles away I cant enter as a local.
I will be growing yard long cucumbers, a beetroot that grows upto 20lb, a cabbage that grows upto 15lb and mammoth onions both white and red and also some large tomatoes 2 - 3lb.
Has anyone else grown stuff like this?

I also fancy entering the most unusual category with exploding cucumbers, oca and ulluco.

Cheers Chris

I've got seeds for yard long cukes, yard long beans, giant pumpkins and caulis that can grow curds two feet wide. I also coincidentally spotted this book at the library last week:

Amazon.co.uk: How to Grow Giant Vegetables: Amazon.co.uk:: Bernard Lavery

A lot of his techniques rely on chemical spraying but even if that's not your thing (it's not mine) there are some really interesting tips and the pics are

I'm not planning to grow anything for competetion but I'm hoping it's something that will entertain the kids and make them happy at the lottie.

[Snadger]

As someone who often has half an onion in the fridge I can't see the point of giant ones. Except to win prizes maybe, but that's not why I grow. Do they compromise on flavour for giant veg? Genuine question as I've never grown them.

I rather like the mild taste of raw Kelsae onions particularily in a cheese sarnie!
I will always grow some of these, but because they don't store particularily well and require a lot of space ( up to 18" between plants) I am growing fewer than usual this year!

[Flummery]

Ah now, raw onion in a cheese butty is seriously up my street!

[crichmond]

my street also, especially if you put on some home made green tomato chutney made from those last few end of season toms.

Cheers Chris

[jeannine]

You're making my tummy rumble...

[GardenFan]

For the record the link is here

[tattieman]

I get my veg from Medwyn Williams of Anglesey. Top quality stuff.

[magz.mccarthy]

I'm not planning to grow anything for competetion but I'm hoping it's something that will entertain the kids and make them happy at the lottie.

Ha ha, that put a great big smile on my face. I'm trying to get my brother into gardening as he and his girlfriend are both primary school teachers with lots of time over the summer, and my plan is the exact same - introduce them to the carnival giant/fast growing veg first, then gradually back to the normal things like potatoes. Just like your kids!

[snakeshack]

what is an exploding cucumber?

[magz.mccarthy]

These are cucumbers which burst when they are ripe. They were selling seeds for these on the realseeds website this year. Apparently they can be quite dangerous to harvest a they shoot hard little seeds out all over the place.