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Largest marrow -world record set by Ken
Dade
LONDON, UK -- Grown by Ken Dade, from Norfolk,
the 65kg (113lbs) needed two men to carry it to a stand at
the National Amateur Gardening Show in Somerset-and set the
world record for the Largest marrow. 
Photo: Ken Dade from terrington
St Clement with the world's heaviest marrow.
The world record marrow had benefitted from the
wet conditions during the spring and summer. / Sonya
Dunca
(enlarge
photo)
The skin is craggy and dark, indicating
it might not make the best offering at dinner, but it overtook
the current world record by a whopping three kilos.
Mr Dade, 70, said he had always grown food
for his own table with his wife Sue, but honed his skill in
breeding monster marrows as a hobby after retiring as an engineer
at Masterfoods in King's Lynn 15 years ago.
"It is still sinking in, considering it is the
heaviest ever grown and it has been done by someone in Terrington,"
he said. "There is nothing else like it. It is like winning
an Olympic gold medal."
Mr Dade said there was no great secret to
his success except years of experience and the superior soil
drainage of the reclaimed marshland near The Wash.
 Photo:
Isabella Ng holds up the new world record breaker, which weighs
65k, at the Royal Bath and West Showground
(enlarge
photo)
"You need the right seed, plenty of enthusiasm
and a good dollop of luck, then you pray for the weather.
"They need nice warm, humid weather and two hours rain twice
a week. But you never get it ideal, you just have to ride
the punches."
Mr Dade said the seeds he had painstakingly
developed for 20 years were now the envy of all his rivals
in the cut-throat world of giant vegetable growing.
"I cut one of my marrows open during the show
and all the other growers flocked round - they're all after
my seed now, you can't buy it in the shops. "I don't look
back on my achievements, I look back on what I've learned.
That's how you improve."
Saturday, September 6, 2008
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