Graham Barratt with a giant vegetable. (Emma Trimble via SWNS)
By Lauren Beavis
A world champion “big veg” grower says he’s had his best year ever – beating four global records alone in 2025.
Graham Barratt, 66, from Abbeydale, Gloucester, has been growing veg “on and off” for most of his life.
But just over a decade ago, he started growing his produce on a communal farm with access to a commercial polytunnel – which is what sparked his competitive edge for growing big veg.
Since then he has gone on to beat world records for giant greens seven times, including four this year, his best year ever.
Graham won a Guinness World Record on 2 June with a huge mangetout, which measured in at 180mm (7 in) – bigger than an iPhone 16.
Just a month later Graham won another GWR for heaviest tomatillo, weighing 140g – and coming in four times bigger than a typical tomatillo.
It was recorded as 35 times heavier than the previous holder, a 104g tomatillo grown by Patrick Teichmann, in Germany, who was assessed on 31 August 2024.
He also took home a double-whammy of luffa records: the GWR for the longest luffa, measuring 1.396m (four foot seven inches), and the GWR for the heaviest luffa, measuring 2.82kg.
He’s now set to appear at the Malvern Autumn Show 2025 where he hopes to take more records.
(Emma Trimble via SWNS)
By Talker
Graham said: “Certainly this year has been my proudest year and my best success.
“It makes all the last nine years worthwhile!
“I said to myself at one stage, I would love to have a world record – and now I have seven, and have broken a few myself.
“It’s getting that recognition for it, it’s truly special!”
Inside his magnificent green polytunnel lives a giant cucumber vine that measures around 6.5m long, with a huge cucumber on it, and a long luffa plant that measures around 13m in length – with hanging giant luffas.
The retired grandfather-of-five said: “This year I was lucky enough to get the world record for the longest luffa and for the heaviest.
“I managed to grow nine that were in excess of the previous world record.
“So I had a really good year – I think possibly because of the weather, we had a mild spring, an extended warm summer and of course, these are exotic fruits, so you wouldn’t normally expect to see them growing so well in the UK but we’ve done well this year.
“The cucumber vine at the moment is probably around 6.5m, and the world record at the moment is 6.47m – so that’ll be going to Malvern on the back of a low loader.
“However, I’ve not had such a good year with my giant cucumbers. Not quite sure why, but hopefully they’ll have good seeds in them so next year I can have another crack at growing something big.
“But hopefully I’ll have a long cucumber and a heavy cucumber to show at Malvern!”
Graham also has a giant pumpkin – weighing around 900 pounds.
(Emma Trimble via SWNS)
By Talker
He said: “Anything around 900 pounds is a good figure – it would probably be my personal best I think.
“This was started off in April this year and pollinated as a flower on 15 June.
“So, it’s made all this growth since the 15 June! I can’t even fit the tape measure around it.”
Graham is currently preparing to take his luffas, long chilli (measuring at around 17inches), long cucumber, heavy cucumber and cucumber vine, pumpkin, green cabbage and red cabbage – all hopefully in one piece – off to the Malvern Autumn Show 2025 this week, which features the unique CANNA UK National Giant Vegetables Championship.
This is where an exclusive community of growers who tend to their produce all year congregate to show their fruit and veg with pride – and hopefully win a Guinness World Record.
The successful horticulturalist has won countless prizes at shows – and often has to transport his vegetables with a forklift and trucks.
Whilst he accounts the weather as a contributing factor to his success, Graham said the secret to growing big fruit and veggies is his industrial polytunnel, provided by owner of the Primrose Vale Fruit farm Paul Keene.
Graham said: “The industrial polytunnel has transformed my growing and has enabled me to do so much.
“It has its own microclimate, which is great for growing – but it needs to be controlled when it gets too hot. I’ve even installed vents to help with specific conditions.”
The keen grower also said he is also always studying and learning – and he writes a paper on everything that he grows, to enable others to learn from his mistakes and successes.
(Emma Trimble via SWNS)
By Talker
Graham explained: “I always study the reasons why things fail too: sometimes a plant will die in two days! But I am starting to get on top of how plants behave now and why.
“Everything I grow, all the world records, I write a paper on it as a grow guide for other people to learn.”
Graham says he loves gardening because of all of the different variables that affect his growing.
He said: “I can’t think of anything that has so many variables and so much chance!
“So much can go wrong.
“There are the pathogens, the nutrients, weather, bad luck, animals, vandalism – the list goes on, you don’t know until the day how everything is going to turn out.
“It’s what keeps it exciting and interesting!”
He also shares the seeds from his fruits and veggies – something that many other big growers tend not to do.
He added: “A lot of gardeners won’t give their seeds away – some are quite protective.
“But I will share my seeds because if you don’t, firstly you won’t have any competition!
“There is no point in being first if you are the only entry.
“And secondly, you’ve got to help people, because people helped me when I started out.”
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