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Growing Record Breaking Giant Vegetables · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily and today we're talking about giant vegetables.
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  I'm trying to intersperse all the doom and gloom of a podcast about pest diseases,
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  weeds, problems with a podcast that's fun and interesting and is about the things
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  that we really like about horticulture and hydroponics and that's growing really
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  interesting plants and giant vegetables is certainly one of those.
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  So giant vegetable growing is a
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  hobby it's not a commercial enterprise it's
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  very popular in america and in
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  the uk so great because that's
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  the countries where we sell gold leaf or liquid gold as it's
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  called in the uk and it's main it's mainly
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  a popular enterprise in america in
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  the midwest when it comes to pumpkins i believe and then
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  in alaska they get a lot of really large
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  giant vegetables being grown there because of
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  the the long days during the summer and equally in
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  the uk we even though it's fairly warm
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  in the summer and mild in the winter we are very high
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  up in latitude i think you know if you the latitude is
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  the same as you know almost middle to
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  north of canada so where i am currently so it's
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  those long days in the summer help with the
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  photosynthesis and producing bumper
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  giant vegetables so i've had
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  a couple of goes at growing giant vegetables over the year
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  at home not at work I just thought I'd go through my experiences so one year
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  about probably about 10 9 or 10 years ago I decided I was going to grow the
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  world's largest potato and I decided to grow the world's largest potato because.
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  I looked at the records and the world's largest potato was like 5.5 kilos at
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  the time and this compares to like the world's largest cabbage let's have a
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  look at the data for like cabbage yeah cabbage here world record 62.7 kilos
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  cauliflower 28 kilos these are massive.
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  Plants and I didn't have the space I was growing it in
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  my greenhouse that's attached to my house
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  at the time and I didn't want a massive plant so
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  I started growing this potato and my idea was I would
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  get it going early on in the
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  winter as a young plant and then keep it
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  going through until the summer and with such an extended
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  growing season it would just keep on producing this tuber would just keep on
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  getting bigger and bigger and I grew it in really good grow media I used i used
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  gold leaf and seaweed and i was putting all sorts of additives in there and
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  i had a big sodium lamp and all my neighbors were wondering what i was doing
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  with this big sodium lamp in
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  my greenhouse and i had fans going and i had heating on and things like this
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  and i was going to grow in this largest and all i had my niece and nephew at
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  the time and they were saying oh my my uncle's growing the world's largest potato
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  and i came around to harvesting it and i didn't want
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  to look at it too much i didn't want to disturb the soil because like no i don't
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  want to see what it is because it'll it'll it'll break the roots so it's like
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  you know kept it under wraps and then the time came to harvest it we were a
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  couple of weeks away from the show the big giant.
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  Vegetable show and i pulled it
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  out and it was just 600 tiny little
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  potatoes that had grown i was so disappointed and you
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  know you could get bigger potatoes in the supermarket any supermarket it and
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  was really upset and that taught me a valuable lesson and that was when it comes
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  to potatoes any stress on the plant and it's the tubers stop growing and they
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  start generating a new tuber from that point onwards so what was happening was.
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  The plants were running out of walls so they're getting stressed just
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  one day and then then they produce
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  a new tuber so what you actually have to do if you want to go the world's largest potato is
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  not start it in early winter but actually
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  just make sure you have one month of
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  absolutely perfect conditions for growing that tuber
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  where it's not stressed and it doesn't need anything so that was that and then
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  about two years later i decided i'd have another go at growing a giant vegetable
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  but this time I was going to do a carrot because a carrot can't just produce
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  another carrot on the side it has to keep on growing a carrot so again I had
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  a ebb and flood hydroponic system.
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  And I thought I would grow it in perlite and
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  it was just 100% perlite with gold leaf and I
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  thought this is going to be brilliant this is going to be the
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  biggest carrot ever and I didn't do too bad
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  with this one i got to about five kilos
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  with this and it completely deformed carrot it
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  was it wasn't a carrot in any you know
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  that you would want it was all forked and horrible and the
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  problem there was and the learning i
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  took from it was that we think of vermiculite this
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  inert media where you just
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  add the nutrients and nothing comes out but in actual fact and
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  i found this with growing the wasabi as well is that i
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  think a lot of aluminium is coming out of the vermiculite
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  as well and so that's impeding the growth of the plant so
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  if i was going to do it again and grow a giant carrot or
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  a potato i would just use cocoa fiber there i feel no reason to mess around
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  with anything other than just pure cocoa fiber when it comes to growing in pots
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  and the other reason i chose these two plants is because the seeds that you
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  needed were just normal seeds.
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  Varieties that were available from bog standards situations so
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  the carrot seeds that were that already had
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  the world record were off the shelf carrot a carrot variety and
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  the potato was just a normal potato you would get in
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  a supermarket now if you contrast that with giant pumpkins
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  you there you need your your genetics are
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  very important you need to use the pumpkin
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  seeds from the varieties that produce gigantic pumpkins
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  and the same for tallest sunflowers so
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  tallest sunflowers longest leeks they all come under the giant vegetable
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  category and there you need a specific variety
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  for pumpkins and sunflowers so as.
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  Well as growing the world's largest vegetable it
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  needs to be proven that you've grown the world's largest vegetable
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  and therefore you need to take it to a show and there are a number of
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  shows in the uk and in america where there
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  may be representatives from the guinness world records to
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  adjudicate on your your vegetable
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  make sure that it's correct and there might be rules around that so
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  for certain vegetables it has to be undamaged so if
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  it was a tomato I think it would have to be an unsplit
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  tomato so that's very careful you have to be really careful with
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  defoliating your plants because as soon as you start defoliating tomatoes
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  the amount of water going from the roots
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  to the shoots suddenly it all goes into
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  the tomato and it can split easily so you
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  have to be careful with that if that's one of the rules and then the
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  competitions are not often sponsored and this.
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  Is where the hydroponics comes in because obviously you can grow most of
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  the giant vegetables are grown in either hydroponics or semi-hydroponics
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  in a growing media with hydroponic feeds very rare
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  they use a granular feed an arable agricultural feed
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  and very rarely grow in just soil but the
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  way it melds with hydroponics is that
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  lots of hydroponic suppliers and manufacturers
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  sponsor giant vegetable growers and
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  sponsor the giant vegetable competitions because
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  that's that sort of idea they say look you could grow the world's
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  largest vegetable with our with our super fertilizer and
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  and that sort of gives kudos to the brand
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  and then the giant vegetable growers love it
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  because they get free product or you know ideally get
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  paid for it i've tried this in the
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  past i've tried phoning the the guy who
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  grew the largest potato and said here would you like some
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  far fabulous seaweed extract and fertilizer
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  and he was really rude on the phone i won't name him
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  but he was proper rude horrible man and he's
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  like why would i want that i've got my own da da da da da and i
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  was like all right mate you know don't look a gift horse
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  in the mouth you know but other people in the giant vegetable community are
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  lovely i guess he might have just had too much insecticide that day or something
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  you know been spraying and spraying too much insecticide and had you know gone
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  to his head and so as i say the competitions are often sponsored by hydroponic companies.
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  Canna is a company that make a lot of.
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  Hydroponic fertilizers in the uk and in europe they're dutch based and they're very very,
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  reticent to get on social media and sponsor
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  things like this but the giant vegetables gives them
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  a good excuse to sponsor an event that's in the
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  conventional horticultural sector so they
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  sponsor things like the malvin show the malvin autumn show here
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  in the uk where a lot of the giant vegetables are the harrigate
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  autumn show in the uk is another good one where
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  you get lots of giant vegetables and i think those two shows they vie
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  for superiority in the the giant
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  vegetable show of the year but even other shows
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  will have them the there's a certain quirk
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  as i say in the northeast of england that's around
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  newcastle sunderland there the obsession
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  is longest leak and who can grow
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  the longest leak and they get drain pipes they grow their
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  leaks in in giant drain pipes i don't know why that has become a hobby in the
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  northeast of england but in their allotment sort of culture that's that's where
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  it's come from and then so yeah and then another thing i could talk about about
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  giant vegetables is that once i came across the.
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  Secret greenhouse where they grow the giant
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  the largest pumpkins certainly in the uk i'm not sure
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  in the world but certainly the uk record holders and that's
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  because in my day job making fertilizers and
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  bio fungicides organic fungicides i decided i
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  decided that i travel around certain areas where there's
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  lots of greenhouses and i give away free product to
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  commercial greenhouses i'll have lots of five liter bottles in
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  the back of my car and i'm always on the lookout for greenhouses and
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  my kids know to scan the sat nav
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  so we've got a tesla and we've got the big sat nav in the middle with google
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  earth and we're on the lookout for either arable farms or greenhouses and they
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  can spot them then they win a prize and so i've spot greenhouses and give them
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  a five liter polycanum of arcytosan biofungicide and then i went to one which
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  was growing poinsettias.
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  And those people packing poinsettias and then i was driving away i
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  just saw in the distance in this massive greenhouse all
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  alone on two giant pumpkin plants with
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  two giant pumpkins and this was the place this secret
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  place where these guys had been these brothers growing these
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  pumpkins and there was loads of founds around the plants and
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  that's you know stimulating transpiration and the lights
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  were on as well and so this was clearly the the
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  epicenter of giant vegetable growing that was down in hampshire in the
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  uk so on the south coast of england where the weather's a lot nicer than it
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  is up north and so that came across
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  that's how i came across the giant vegetables i've also come across some
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  some more interesting and high greenhouses on the way with high fences and things
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  like that but what these growers tend not to realize is if you stick your faring
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  above the fence you can often see what's inside them so that's what i tend to
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  do luckily we don't have guns in the uk so otherwise i think i would have been
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  shot i was doing this in the,
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  us um looking into people's greenhouses with my phone up on above the fence.
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  So that's Giant Vegetables. There is a great resource online for Giant Vegetables
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  and that's giantveg.co.uk.
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  And I think it's run by Gareth Forte, who's a giant vegetable grower and his
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  son, but I could be wrong.
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  And there they've got guides on how to grow giant vegetables.
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  You can buy giant vegetable seeds from them.
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  And they've got the list of all the giant vegetables that have been grown and
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  the world records for them and the UK records for them.
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  So they've got like, you know, Chris Qualey, 2017, heaviest carrot, that was 9.09 kilos.
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  And I'm sorry, that's the UK record. The world record was 10 kilos.
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  The tallest corn plant, 10.5 meters. That's the United States.
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  Celery, United Kingdom. So it's literally the UK versus the United States for most of these.
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  I'm trying to find somewhere that's not US or UK.
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  Yeah, longest gourd goes to Goran, lasik
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  from serbia there you go 2019 his gourd
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  what was nearly four
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  meters long that's 12 feet 11 inches oh
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  yeah there's a dutch one here bradley worston grew the world
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  record marrow at 94 kilos that's
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  206 pounds that is that's
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  that's bringing it in on a crate on a port lift truck level isn't
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  it onion that's uh that's a respectable eight and
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  a half kilos and so yeah it goes goes on
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  and on and on the list so check out that that website giantveg.co.uk
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  and there's international growers guides there's there's guides for kids there's
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  loads of information so definitely recommend that and these guys have been in
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  it for decades so they know a lot more than i do perhaps get them on the podcast
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  talk about it then all right so that's been hydroponics daily for today giant vegetables.