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Pat and the giant cabbage
06.02.08
Moville man's vegetable tops
two-stone mark
by Simon McGeady, Inishowen Independent
HOW does
your garden grow? Well if your name is Patrick
Harkin and you live in St. Finian’s Park, Moville,
the answer is, 'very well indeed'. After the pensioner
bought a cabbage plant from his own ‘magic bean
seller’ in Raphoe last May, he put it in the ground
and thought nothing more of it.
Yet by September, Harkin began to notice that one of
the cabbage heads that sprouted was much bigger than
the others. |
“There were about five
or six cabbages that grew from the plant, but one of
them kept getting bigger and bigger,” said Patrick,
who grew the vegetable in a friends garden, the
Ballynally resident Frank Cavanagh.
Patrick decided to let the one special cabbage head
grow and soon other people were popping their heads
over the hedge to marvel at his giant vegetable.
Last week he harvested the |
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cabbage and on Thursday
Jim McDaid, an employee of Norris’ Shop in Moville,
weighed Patrick’s cabbage. It tipped the scales as
28lbs - a whopping two stone.
“I think there must be bigger cabbages out there,
but it’s the biggest one I’ve ever grown,” said
Patrick.
The Moville vegetable grower is at a loss to
understand why he now has a giant cabbage on his
hands. He didn’t use any special plant food on the
patch and says that if the especially wet summer was
the reason, why then did only one cabbage
super-size?
Speaking from his home last Friday, Patrick said: “I
have the cabbage at the house now, it’s still intact
but I have to do something with it. I’ll probably
divide it up and share it out with my family.”
One thing is for sure, the Harkin clan wont have to
buy coleslaw for good few weeks to come. |
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