Looking to plant ONE veggie as a show piece.... meaning HUGE

[Gardener123]

Just for fun, I want to plant something - a veggie - that gets HUGE!

Today I got a piece of email that showed 50 pound cabbages. It was about a 3rd grade project to grow those cabbages.

I was pretty impressed by the photos. I never grew cabbage before, but I may go that way..... anybody know of a variety that gets that large? Or do you know of another vegetable that gets huge, like that?

Really, all I want to do here is have the neighbors go "Ooooh" and "Ahhhh"..... when they see it. I may not even eat it.... might just take it deep into the trees and leave it for the deer come harvest time.

Thing is, it needs to be simple to grow. I don't mind watering and fertilizing it, but I don't want to make a full time job of it.

[rainbowgardener]

Atlantic giant pumpkins get HUGE:



but the vines also get huge and crawl all over your yard and they consume vast amounts of water and fertilizer.

Giant goliath silo corn gets really really tall, 12-15 ft tall.



Lots of other veggies have huge varieties, including onions, carrots, etc., but many of them are root crops, so not very impressive until harvested.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/ ... plants.htm

[applestar]

Allotment Diary : Harrogate Giant Vegetable Competition : World Record Carrot & Onion - YouTube




These are typically selected over many generations and direct descendant seeds are limited in availability and for $$$$. I think sometimes they or next close approximation are sometimes sold on eBay? There are a number of giant veg forums and groups where they sometimes have private sales.

A couple of commercially available (so not the exhibition quality) seed sources I can think of right off are Reimer seeds online and R.h.Shumway catalog always has a giant section.

Biggest veg I've been able to grow that was immediately noticeable to the neighbors were mostly due to extra TALL height and the way they TOWERED over the fence -- a tiny patch of Bloody Butcher corn and Mammoth Grey Striped sunflowers. SVB's took down my Atlantic Giant pumpkin vines and my Bushel gourds were only about basketball size.

I want to try growing Long of Naples squash which is a moschata and should be SVB resistant.

[Vanisle_BC]

I wouldn't personally want to grow any edible so big that I'd finish up discarding much of it, either because it was too big or just tasteless. But carrot comes to mind as a possibly all-edible candidate. I recall seeing an article about people growing them isolated in lengths of pipe. Don't know what they fed the plants to get max growth but the idea has always intrigued me.

[Gardener123]

Well, I might eat some if it was good tasting... but the thing is, it won't be a waste. It will either feed wildlife or be great compost, so I am OK with not eating it.

[imafan26]

If you lived in Alaska, growing giant vegetables are easier with 24 hours of sun. Giant pumpkins, watermelons, squash, and tomatoes (Big Zach is the current winner at 8.41 lbs.) would all be fun to grow. I hope you have a lot of space. The vines of pumpkins, squash and watermelon woudl eat up half my yard.

[ButterflyLady29]

What about yard long beans, those armenian cucumbers or neck pumpkins (look like butternut squash on steroids).

[Gardener123]

I grew those beans last year. They only went to about 18", and really didn't give much of a harvest.

I wanted to do corn last year, but never did.... that 15' corn looks interesting.

[imafan26]

Yard long beans grow well in the tropics and produce better than regular string beans because they have fewer diseases. Most are 18 inches but some can actually get close to three feet. You have to get the long variety. Some asparagus beens have been bred to be shorter and softer.

[jal_ut]

Scarlet Runner Beans make quite a show on a bean pole teepee.

[imafan26]

Remember if you want a giant pumpkin you will have to cull all of the other fruit so the energy goes to that one fruit. Feeding it milk helps too, or so I have heard.

[Gardener123]

Remember if you want a giant pumpkin you will have to cull all of the other fruit so the energy goes to that one fruit. Feeding it milk helps too, or so I have heard.

That is the one thing I know I don't want to try..... my buddy has done it, and it is a lot of work, according to him...

[Vanisle_BC]

Remember if you want a giant pumpkin ..... Feeding it milk helps

Oh, my; The mind boggles!

[rainbowgardener]

So, Gardener123, did you pick something to try? What did you go with?

We'd love for you to keep us updated (with pics! ) on how your giant show piece veggie grows.

[Gardener123]

So, Gardener123, did you pick something to try? What did you go with?

We'd love for you to keep us updated (with pics! ) on how your giant show piece veggie grows.

Well, yes, I was going with the corn. But then my wife hit me with a HUGE surprise.... she wants to move. So now I am playing wait and see.

[applestar]

Oh wow that throws a monkey wrench in the planning!

But this would also be an opportunity to upgrade your gardening location

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, could be fun, but it is a huge deal. We spent much of last year fixing up our house to sell and house hunting in a new city six hours drive away. So I missed a lot of last year's garden season. We moved in to the new place right around the first of Sept. Then we spent a lot of time getting all unpacked and organized, dealing with things needing to be fixed, completely re-doing the huge wood deck, etc. Then we started working on making raised bed gardens. Had to start all over making myself a place to do seed starting, which is not completed yet. There are seedlings on one level, but now before I can up-pot, I have to get the lights, etc for the next level. Haven't finished building the raised beds yet and even the four that are done are not filled.

It is spring here (forsythias, flowering trees, and daffodils are blooming). If this were an ordinary year, I would be planting, but my garden is going to be very behind this year and I may miss some of the spring cool season crops. Oh well, it's all a work in progress and NEXT year all I will need to do is plant! But parts of two gardening seasons were missed in the process.

[Gary350]

I grew a sweet potato once totally by accident, it was about the size of a basket ball.

If you can get your hands on a certain type DeKalb field corn it grows 14 feet tall the corn seed is the size of a nickel.