Posted on 09/01/2009 2:36:33 PM PDT by Steelfish
Passions run high in the vegetable beds
A gardener in Torquay has let his competitive instincts get the better of him – no surprise to Clive Aslet.
By Clive Aslet 01 Sep 2009
In Wallace and Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, it was the depredations of an oversized bunny that threatened to disrupt the vegetable show. Now police are seeking another saboteur, thought also to move on two legs but with smaller ears.
Pumpkins have been punctured, cabbages are kaput, dahlias desecrated. This dirty work has been perpetrated at, of all places, Torquay, the soporific Queen of the Riviera, where nothing usually ruffles the deckchairs beyond a postprandial snore. But that's gardening.
Like Torquay, it may look outwardly genteel, but passions seethe.
They always have. P G Wodehouse's Lord Emsworth would have known what the Torquay allotment holders are going through. His giant pumpkin, the Hope of Blandings, did eventually take gold at the Shrewsbury Show, but it had been a close thing – he had to bend the knee to his head gardener Angus McAllister (and double his salary) to pull it off.
By the time The Custody of the Pumpkin was written in 1924, giant vegetables had been cultivated for decades.
A gargantuan cabbage, raised at Swalwell outside Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1865, weighed 123lb (55kg). These are Wagnerian proportions, worthy of the year that, elsewhere in Europe, Tristan und Isolde received its premier.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Is this a gardening thread, a psychology thread, a music appreciation thread, a criminology thread, or a literature thread? I thought it was going to be about spurious goings on at the Whte house in Michelle’s garden. In any case, it’s a delightful read. Thanks.
Is Feathers McGraw still incarcerated?
"Torquay is really lovely this time of year."
This is unbelievably funny! Passion in a vegetable garden
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