Page 36 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2021/22

Pumpkin Off
Those growers who properly know me realise that whilst I’m serious about growing exhibition veg, having a laugh along the way is even more important. I have four passions in life, Manchester United, growing vegetables for show, my grandkids and beer! Least said the better on
the first but the other three fit nicely into this story. For the last few years I’ve been spending way too much time and money in a local micropub in Loughborough called The Needle and Pin and my wife Leesa and I have become friends with the landlord and his wife as well as many of the regular customers. Being Facebook friends with most of them my veg showing antics are often a topic of late night, booze-fuelled conversation.
I’ve never seen the point of growing giant veg but last Spring Leesa asked if I could grow a big pumpkin for Hallowe’en for the
large garden and Bernie had started growing vegetables with increasing enthusiasm, so she readily accepted
the offer of a free plant with a vague agreement to have a ‘pumpkin-off’ in the pub later in the year.
My plant (the weaker of the 2 as I was being fair!) was duly planted in a patch of ground behind my polytunnel and
more or less ignored all Summer whilst I tended
to my far more important show veg. Around early July I got a fruit to ‘take’ after a couple of aborted ones, and this swelled pretty quickly but was never going to beat my 262 pounder as the plant was much smaller. After holidays
and the National and Midlands NVS shows were out of the way I found myself back in
The Needle & Pin one Saturday afternoon having had way too many strong stouts, always a dangerous situation as
I invariably agree to all manner of things such as having my chest waxed online for charity during lockdown. I’m still coming to terms with
how much my wife enjoyed inflicting all that pain on me! Anyway, I digress, there I was hanging onto a table to
maintain an upright state of affairs, when Bernie appeared and asked when we were having our pumpkin-off because (and I quote!) she had ‘grown a monster and she was going to wup my ass!’ Before long the pub’s events manager Persephone (great name,
we call her Percy) had announced it would be the following Saturday and it was all over their social media pages. No backing out now!
Next morning, I took my raging hangover down the garden to see
how the pumpkin was doing and
was gratified to discover it was
really difficult to lift. The title of pub pumpkin kingpin would surely be mine, and I even enlisted the help of my daughter’s builder partner Danny to transport the fruit in his van, purely for effect, telling him to turn up 10 minutes after my arrival so I could enjoy some pre-weigh-in banter!
At the appointed hour we arrived at the pub, and as Leesa went in first I got a tape measure out of my pocket
to measure the door-opening, tutting and shaking my head at the same time, which caused plenty of laughter from those within. It was then that I clapped eyes for the first time on Bernie’s pumpkin, proudly mounted on one the high bar tables and I immediately thought ‘Oh s***!’ It was a cracker,
and I knew things were going to be close. Pretty much everyone there (including my wife, it has to be said!) were eagerly anticipating the National parsnip champion being spanked by
grandkids (she really
goes to town decorating
the house for the
grandkids and any
visiting trick or treaters!).
I’d grown a 119kg (262lb)
monster back in 2009
(seed from Mark Baggs’s
European record of
2008), and once carved
out and ‘eating’ a smaller
pumpkin positioned at the front of our house it had attracted the local press and many passers-by taking photos. Whilst it was a lot of fun it took four
of us to lift the damned thing in and out of my mate’s 4x4 and won me the princely sum of £1.50
at my local show! So,
whilst I hadn’t planned
to grow one in 2021 a
quick order to DT Brown
meant I soon had a
packet of Atlantic Giant
and sowed a pair of seeds
so that I had a back-
up. Both plants came
up and looked healthy
so one was going to be
binned until a chance
conversation with a
couple of pub regulars,
Darren and Bernadette (Bernie). They had recently moved into a lovely cottage in Charnwood Forest with a
...she had ‘grown a monster and she was going to wup my ass!’
I took my raging hangover down the garden to see how the pumpkin was doing
36 Simply Vegetables
SIMON SMITH