LONDON, October 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Little did the gardeners at online garden centre Gardening Express know that the tiny seed planted earlier this year would turn out to be what is thought to be Britain's biggest pumpkin. Expected to weigh as much as 2000lbs, it is certainly suitable to take any would be Cinderella to the ball.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161028/433888 )
Owner Chris Bonnett planted the seed in early May and told staff to expect something big, "but no one knew we could have a record breaker on our hands," as growth of the plant took off, the gargantuan gourd seemed to have Jack and the Beanstalk like properties. At one point you could see the leaves and stalks increasing in size day by day. "When the fruit set in the middle of August it was growing so fast we think it must have been packing on over 50lbs a day!"
A few weeks ago at the beginning of October there was a contest to find the biggest pumpkin grown in the UK this year, but as ours was still growing we decided not to cut its umbilical cord and let it keep going.
The UK outdoor grown record was set at around 1300lbs, but not wanting to take anything away from the great efforts of the grower, it doesn't even look like a pumpkin! Everyone knows a proper pumpkin is orange in colour, that one was kind of cream, and we think a related species known as a squash. Ours sport the traditional orange colouration, although it is not fully ripe as yet, you can see it has a proper Essex perma-tan, grown in sunny Chelmsford! "If you took it down Brentwood high street, this would not look out of place in an episode of TOWIE," joked Mr Bonnett.
We will harvest it on Halloween and take it to the local Kinder Garden for all the little ghosts and ghouls to take their pictures with - they are really excited! Once they've finished with it, we will get it weighed in to see if it has broken the weight record, if you give it a tap it sounds really dense and heavy, so we are pretty sure it's going to be a record breaker.
We have a tractor and crane ready to help lift the beast, which has been grown using organic traditional methods, so if there are any chefs out there that fancy an attempt at the most pumpkin pies produced from one pumpkin, we are ready and up for it!
Next year, we hope to give away the seeds to any one that fancies a grow themselves, and maybe we will hold our own competition - of course, you will have to have a proper orange pumpkin to enter though!
There will be plenty of photo and filming opportunities on harvest day for anyone interested.
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Gardening Express is a leading online Plant & Garden Specialist based in the UK. The business was created by founder CEO Chris Bonnett, and has grown to be a thorn in the side of traditional rivals with its dynamic approach and new thinking. The concept is simple; a dedication to quality, service and value for money, has resulted in this entrepreneur taking Gardening Express to be one of the UK's largest online businesses of its type in just a few short years.
