Imagine, on a beautiful sunrise you wake up, going to have a cup of coffee in the garden, and see an enormous, gigantic pumpkin bumped over the soil!
This is what happens daily in Alaska. How do 138-pound cabbage, 35-pound broccoli, and 65-pound cantaloupe pop up from the soil in Alaska?
Are there any more enormous vegetables or fruits? Why these are only in Alaska and not in your garden? Are they nutritious and taste similar to ours? How does it even happen? What are the magical elements leading this wonderful miracle? Well, all your answers are here.
Nature’s Grace Over Alaska
Alaska is one of those countries which is situated near the north pole. Hence, it is extremely vulnerable to continuous climatic changes. The country possesses only 105 sunny days and an extremely short season for growing and agriculture.
But every change has both adverse and beneficial effects. While it has a very short duration to encourage agriculture, it also receives 20 hours of cheerful sunshine daily. Hence, veggies get more and more sunlight leading to better metabolic rates and time to grow bigger and bigger every day. More sunlight means more photosynthesis, hence, more growth. Thus, day by day, they become vast and attains their maximum size at maturity.
Taste and Texture
Its quite simple to understand that if more photosynthesis occurs, more sugar will develop. Hence while eating an Alaskan carrot, the texture feels to be similar to other carrots however it tastes more sugary. It seems that someone has injected a sugar syrup into it. Carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, potato, radish, spinach, and lettuce here are huge.
Sometimes I wonder about Mahatma Gandhi’s statement that we have enough for everyone to feed but nothing for greed. Who says that there is not enough food for the world? This single Alaskan pumpkin can feed a whole army dying of hunger.
How They Cultivate?
Well, excellent production requires excellent innovation. As many obstacles hinder a path, that many alternatives man creates. This experiment of agriculture here flashbacks straight to the 1930s. To overcome the great depression of that era, people decided to cultivate and merged lands to work together.
However rapid climatic changes and soil texture didn’t support their efforts and up to the 1940s most of the families went by. Now remained only 20 families who had cattle to survive and feed themselves.
They started to sow seeds in January and started to transfer saplings from one pot to another and waited until May. As soon as the sun started to shower its golden rays, they transferred saplings into the soil. The warmth and long days nourished saplings to turn them into gigantic vegetables. And here they are; winning most years at biggest vegetable fairs, attracting every other country towards its unique, delicious, enormous vegetables.
Here are some Gigantic Vegetables of Alaska
Pumpkins
The most prodigious, attractive vegetable of Alaska is the Pumpkin. The maximum weight recorded of Alaskan pumpkin is 2051 pounds! They need 89 days to grow, thus growing an average of 25 pounds per day. It needs an incredible amount of 75 gallons of water per day!
Cabbages
A hefty 125.9 pounds of cabbage can be easily seen growing in the valleys of Alaska. Their head may extend approximately to 21 inches. Meanwhile, don’t underestimate its massive leaves having lengths up to 5 feet.
Cucumber
What is the maximum length of any cucumber you have seen till now? I bet you haven’t seen any cucumber of 26″ length! It weighs even more than you can imagine, a whopping 20.20 pounds.
The right thing achieves its right value only at its right place. These incredible vegetables taste betters than other vegetables in various countries. Hence, these are more nutritious too. To grow such huge agricultural products, farming requires elaborate irrigation and fertiliser mechanisms. Also, the selection of the correct variety of seeds decides the future of upcoming crops.
Every time after winning at the heaviest and biggest vegetable fair in the world, these delicious vegetables are given to the wildlife animals where these contests are held. High tunnels, low tunnels greenhouses, and many other technologies have made these vegetables grow in an appropriate period of growth time.
Along with vegetables, Matanuska- Susitna valley of Alaska also serves delicious fruits like berries, cherries, apples, huge watermelons, and many more. However, the cabbages and pumpkins of Alaska have always captivated everyone’s sight over them.
So at least once in our lifetime, each one of us must enjoy the incredible innovation of Nature, where nature puts all its elements together with humans to arise a glorious, unpredictable, and unbelievable miracle!
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