#[1]Food [2]The Salt [3]Food [4]The Salt

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  Why Vegetables Get Freakish In The Land Of The Midnight Sun : The Salt
  Long summer days in Alaska help cabbages, turnips and other vegetables
  grow to gargantuan sizes. These "giants" are celebrated at the annual
  state fair, which kicks off on Thursday.

  [64]The Salt

The Salt

  What's On Your Plate
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  [71]NPR logo [72]Why Vegetables Get Freakish In The Land Of The
  Midnight Sun

[73]Producers

Why Vegetables Get Freakish In The Land Of The Midnight Sun

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  August 20, 20142:57 PM ET

  Whitney Blair Wyckoff
  [74]Enlarge this image

  Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off 2013 winners (with placards, left to right):
  Scott Rob (92.1 pounds), Keevan Dinkel (92.3 pounds) and Brian Shunskis
  (77.4 pounds). The growers are joined by the cabbage fairies, a group
  of women who for 15 years have volunteered at the cabbage competition.
  Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair hide caption
  toggle caption
  Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair

  Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off 2013 winners (with placards, left to right):
  Scott Rob (92.1 pounds), Keevan Dinkel (92.3 pounds) and Brian Shunskis
  (77.4 pounds). The growers are joined by the cabbage fairies, a group
  of women who for 15 years have volunteered at the cabbage competition.
  Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair

  Everything in Alaska is a little bit bigger — even the produce. A
  138-pound cabbage, 65-pound cantaloupe and 35-pound broccoli are just a
  few of the monsters that have sprung forth from Alaska's soil in recent
  years.

  At the annual [75]Alaska State Fair, which opens Thursday in Palmer,
  the public will have the chance to gawk at giants like these as they're
  weighed for competition.

  It's "definitely a freak show," the fair's crop superintendent Kathy
  Liska, tells The Salt. "Some things [are so big], you can't even
  recognize what they are."

  Several state fairs have giant crop competitions, but Alaska is known
  for yielding particularly big [76]specimens that wind up setting
  Guinness World Records.
  [77]Enlarge this image

  Alaska grower Brittney Kauffman holds two zucchinis she entered in a
  giant vegetable competition in 2013. "Alaska is just a hotbed for
  gardening, believe it or not," says Alaska State Fair crops
  superintendent Kathy Liska. "Everybody thinks that we're always under
  ice — no!" Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair hide
  caption
  toggle caption
  Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair

  Alaska grower Brittney Kauffman holds two zucchinis she entered in a
  giant vegetable competition in 2013. "Alaska is just a hotbed for
  gardening, believe it or not," says Alaska State Fair crops
  superintendent Kathy Liska. "Everybody thinks that we're always under
  ice — no!"
  Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair

  It's Alaska's summer sun that gives growers an edge, says [78]Steve
  Brown, an agricultural agent at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who
  also serves on the fair's board of directors. Basking in as much as 20
  hours of sunshine per day, Alaskan crops get a photosynthesis bonus,
  allowing them to produce more plant material and grow larger.
  [79]Brassicas like cabbage do especially well, says Brown.

  The extra sunlight also makes the produce sweeter. "People often try
  our carrots here, and they think we've put sugar on them," Brown says.

  But many of the biggest ones — the real monsters — aren't flukes;
  they're a product of careful planning.

  Selecting the right seed varieties is just as important as the time
  spent in the sunlight, says Brown, who teaches a class on growing
  giants. Top Palmer growers like Scott Robb, who Brown calls a giant
  vegetables "Einstein," spend years experimenting with different
  varieties to get a prize winner.

  "Let's face it: You're not going to win the Kentucky Derby with a mule
  or a Shetland pony," says Robb, who holds five current world records
  for his large vegetables. "If you don't have the right genetic
  material, you're never going to achieve that ultimate goal."

  Indeed, it took him 20 years to break the cabbage [80]record in 2012,
  when he brought in a 138.25-pounder.
  [81]QUIZ: Which Of These State Fair Foods Are Faux?

[82]The Salt

[83]QUIZ: Which Of These State Fair Foods Are Faux?

  Hopeful giant cultivators start their seeds in January, under grow
  lights in greenhouses. For months, they transfer their plants into
  larger and larger pots until May when the ground is finally warm enough
  for them.

  Up until the fair, growers must protect their pedigreed vegetables.
  Robb said that when he started, he would stay up all night to guard his
  veggies from hungry moose; eventually he put up an electrified fence to
  keep them out. Brown also says serious growers may construct elaborate
  watering and fertilization systems for their produce to ensure they get
  exactly what they need.

  "It really reminds me of Frankenstein's laboratory," Brown says. "If
  you were to go visit somebody who was growing a giant veggie for this
  fair, I think the thing that what would impress you is how much science
  and technology goes into this."
  [84]Enlarge this image

  Ashleena Roberts holds a reindeer for scale next to a pumpkin in the
  Alaska State Fair giant pumpkin contest. Clark James Mishler/Courtesy
  of Alaska State Fair hide caption
  toggle caption
  Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair

  Ashleena Roberts holds a reindeer for scale next to a pumpkin in the
  Alaska State Fair giant pumpkin contest.
  Clark James Mishler/Courtesy of Alaska State Fair

  Giants can sprout unexpectedly, too. Such was the case with Roger
  Boshears, a state fair herbs judge and hobbyist gardener who once took
  a second-place ribbon for a large tomato he pulled from his garden.

  "It's not something that we're aiming for," Boshears says of his fellow
  amateurs. "It's something that happens."

  Not all fruits and vegetables thrive in Alaska. Watermelons and
  tomatoes, for instance, which love the heat, have a tougher time. But
  "there are Alaskans that will grow watermelons in greenhouses just to
  be able to say they did it," Brown says.

  As the vegetable hotbed of Alaska, the town of Palmer has its roots in
  a New Deal-era program to bring Midwestern farming families north to
  establish an agricultural colony.

  The fair held there has two rounds of crop competitions along with
  separate competitions for pumpkins and, the main attraction, cabbages
  (on Aug. 29). The winning specimens are donated to the animals at the
  Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center when the fair concludes.

  Robb says he has high hopes for winning the title for some rutabagas
  he's been cultivating, but he's worried that fellow Alaskan and
  friendly rival Steve Hubacek could threaten his perch as the cabbage
  record-holder.

  "I'd hate to lose it right away," Robb says of his record. "Then again,
  if Steve beats me, boy, my hat's off to him because I know how hard it
  is."

  Whitney Blair Wyckoff is a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C.
    * [85]Alaska

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  [86]The Salt

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