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A courgette from Templin weighed 56.75 kilograms.
Photo:
Monika Skolimowska / dpa
Beetroot, as huge as a medicine ball, tomatoes as big as pumpkins - and a gigantic zucchini: the heaviest specimens of cultivated vegetables were selected on Sunday at the Brandenburger asparagus farm in Klaistow. The German giant vegetable weighing championship took place there for the ninth time. Marcus Schläfke from Templin broke a German record with his 56.75 kg zucchini. So far, Helmut Mahr from Hesse has held 53.5 kilos in this category.
Schläfke bred the giant in his parents' garden. "I didn't do anything special with the vegetables," the 31-year-old hobby gardener told the dpa. He also had little time. A well-prepared soil with compost or manure is ideal. A good, crossed core, space in the garden and sufficient irrigation are also prerequisites. Now and then he pruned the plant to keep it strong. The zucchini was grown purely organically, emphasized the new record holder.
Around 50 participants had to compete with their garden giants in seven categories.
Their breeds were weighed in because they were about the heaviest zucchini, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, beetroot, kohlrabi and onions.
The largest cabbage weighed over 15 kilos, the beetroot weighed around 10 kilos.
This year the hobby gardeners came from a radius of around 150 kilometers, the furthest a breeder traveled from the Baltic Sea.
sol / dpa
