CULLMAN, Ala. – Visiting the Cullman County Fair brings around all sorts of interesting things to look at and explore. Exhibit halls burst at the seams with vendors, arts and crafts, needlepoint, 4H posters and baked goods. One fan favorite, year after year, is exhibit hall four, the Giant Vegetable Hall. Carrots measuring 1 foot in length, a 3-pound sweet potato and the belles of the ball, a massive 180-pound watermelon and an Atlantic Giant pumpkin, weighing over 200 pounds.
Growing these giants is no easy task, requiring skill, patience and a well-honed green thumb. Brad Mitchell takes his hobby very seriously, searching for the perfect seeds for planting, germinating and preparing his fields months in advance. Preparation begins months before planting season, by employing the use of cover crops and fertilizing the soil.
Said Mitchell, “I’ll plant cover crops. And then in the spring, I’ll cut them down. And what that’ll do is improve the soil, keep everything fresh…without throwing a bunch of unnatural, chemical fertilizers and things like that. Keep it naturally fertilized.”
After clearing the cover crops, the real work begins. Irrigation is just as much a necessity when producing award-winning giant crops as nutrient-rich soil; the more water available to the growing plant, the larger and juicier it will be.
Mitchell explained how tedious the process can be, “I come in and I lay down drip irrigation and it goes every 2 feet, because especially watermelons have to have a lot of water.”
The water and irrigation systems are on timers, to ensure the proper amount of water is being distributed at all times, even in times of drought. Landscape fabric goes down next, to prevent weeds from infiltrating the patch and straw to cushion the garden bed for the prize-winning produce, ending with netting on posts around the perimeter, to stop weather from moving the vines. Mitchell’s hard work doesn’t end there; he also hand-picks each one of the flowering vines, choosing which he believes have the potential to produce a record breaker.
Explaining the picking and choosing process, Mitchell elaborated, “You start with two and then at some point pretty early on, you have to say, ‘Okay, this one’s going to look better than that one,’ so you cut it. And then meanwhile, every day you go in and there will be new watermelons all over the vines. You have to go there and pick each one of them off.” Sometimes, he said, the budding fruit hides under larger leaves, begging for a chance to grow up. “If you’re not careful, they’ll hide under a leaf or something and after three or four days of growth they’ll be big. So you go through and you pick off all the ones that you don’t want, to make sure all of the good stuff goes to the big one.”
Sun damage is also a concern when it involves producing giant vegetables for competition, a concern that Mitchell is well aware of and equally well prepared for. “I build these shape structures to put over to keep the sun from bleaching it out.”
As if the science and delicacy behind these bourgeoning beasts isn’t enough, moving them to their competition zone is a feat in itself, requiring forklifts, wood pallets and a net reinforced with lifting webbing.
As a Master Gardener, Mitchell has been gardening all his life, not only for competition. Gardening began as a hobby, a way to stay true to the past while providing for the future, he said. “I mean, our forefathers ate vegetables that were in season. So what, you know, there are people in New York in December, 3 feet of snow and they’re eating strawberries from where? It’s just truly knowing where your food comes from and knowing what goes into it.”
This was the first year for the Monster Vegetable Contest at the Cullman County Fair; Mitchell came up with the idea of a contest, to entice the younger generation into gardening and growing their own food.
“This little thing right here, the Monster Vegetable Contest, it was the first year for this. I wanted to do something to kind of draw people in; as they walk by and they see that big pumpkin sitting over there, they do a double take.”
The Monster Vegetable Contest was a huge success, with Mitchell already making plans for 2024. “My goal for next year is trying to talk some people and challenge them,” he said.
Mitchell believes that seeing giant produce in person will excite children and spark an interest in food sourcing and gardening. “When you bring kids in here and they see that produce, they think, ‘You know, I could probably do something like this,’; they’re interested in it and they want to know more and then when you tell them about it, it sparks an interest in the younger generation that keeps it going. It gives kids the opportunity to ask questions about it because most of the stuff they see is already processed. The kids’ faces light up and they ask the questions. In this day and age, there’s not enough of that. There’s not enough of kids outside and in the dirt and playing and learning things like that. It doesn’t happen enough these days.”
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