IT’S big, it’s round and, while not worth a million pounds, is causing a stooshy in Peterculter.
The Aberdeenshire village is agog over Ford Yule’s humongous watermelon.
Ford’s tropical wonder could be Scotland’s first and is so massive that it must be supported in a sling made from a pair of old tights.
Gardeners’ Question Time listeners are clamouring for tips after he posted on the BBC Radio 4 programme’s Facebook page. And the esteemed Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has been in touch.
Ford, 29, who has previously worked at the Beachgrove Garden in Aberdeen, said: “You could say I like a challenge!
“I planted it from seed in May and it hasn’t stopped growing since.
“I am as surprised as anyone else. The watermelon normally grows in Egypt so thriving in not-so-sunny Aberdeenshire has taken us all by surprise.
“I have searched for any other watermelons grown this far north but can’t find one.
“My greenhouse is not heated and the melon is not in the least pampered.
“But the greenhouse temperature rarely falls below 25ºC.
“The melon thrives on tomato plant food and its pot rests on railway sleepers.
“That way, it can wind its roots around it. The only thing I can put its success down to is that I watered only in the morning and never in the afternoon.”
Guy Barter, the RHS’s chief horticulturist, said: “Watermelon loves heat and light and although the long summer days will deliver a good level of light in Aberdeenshire, heat must be hard to come by so this is a remarkable result.”
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