{"id":761760,"date":"2026-09-06T10:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/761760\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T10:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:12:12","slug":"maldon-gardeners-giant-pumpkin-to-compete-at-rhs-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/761760\/","title":{"rendered":"Maldon gardener&#8217;s giant pumpkin to compete at RHS show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gladys was pollinated on 30 June and at her peak was growing 40lb (18kg) a day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Months of preparation, studying irrigation, and carefully controlled water and nutrition went into growing the giant vegetable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">White works as an underfloor heating designer, but grows vegetables inside a 60ft (18m) polytunnel at a local farm in his spare time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He also grows tomatoes, peppers, chillies, watermelons and sweet potatoes to avoid having to rely heavily on supermarkets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There is something incredibly satisfying about walking on to the plot and bringing home food you&#8217;ve grown yourself,&#8221; said White.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2021 he became the first grower to showcase a giant pumpkin inside the Great Pavilion at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Do you have a story suggestion for Essex? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gladys was pollinated on 30 June and at her peak was growing 40lb (18kg) a day. Months of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-761760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}