Zucchini dream squashed
It’s big, it’s green and it’s gone missing.
A 20- kilogram zucchini that landed in 13- year- old Mac Hughes’ life rather mysteriously has disappeared just as suddenly.
The courgette was the largest ever produced at Grow Calgary, an urban farm that grows pallets of produce on a 4.5- hectare swath of land near Canada Olympic Park and donates the goods to the Calgary Food Bank.
“It was our prized zucchini,” said Mac, who spent much of the summer tending to plants at the urban farm. “Why would you take a zucchini from a non- profit farm? It’s not right.”
A few weeks ago, volunteers at Canada’s largest urban farm stumbled upon a rogue zucchini that had spent most of the summer hidden by weeds and bushes.
Mac was flabbergasted by the zucchini’s immense size and he set to work regularly watering the vegetable, which was growing in clay near the farm’s zucchini patch. “It was crazy big,” he said. The summer squash weighed more than 40 pounds when it was recently picked by farm volunteers.
It was safely stored in the Grow Calgary office — an ATCO trailer on site — and volunteers had big plans for the cherished courgette.
It was decided it would be incorporated into a Grow Calgary display planned for an annual event that celebrates local, sustainable food and farmers.
Volunteers thought the jawdropper veggie was exactly what was needed to help Grow Calgary’s booth stand out. But then, the vegetable vanished. When Mac realized the zucchini was missing from the farm’s office on Friday, he was devastated. Volunteers believe it was stolen.
Mac’s father Paul Hughes, the founder of Grow Calgary, expressed surprise that someone would take a vegetable. He said police were notified.
“The officer who came out asked me about the value and I said, ‘ I don’t know the retail value ... but it means so much more to everyone here,’” he said. “That’s the biggest thing we’ve ever grown on our property ... whoever did this is incredibly audacious.”
GROW CALGARY BY THE NUMBERS
50 Number of truckloads of fresh produce that have been delivered to the Calgary Food Bank so far this season. Harvesting isn’t finished yet and that number is expected to climb.
4,000 Number of volunteers Grow Calgary has hosted since the urban farm began operating in 2013. Volunteers this year have included everyone from corporate groups to sports teams, Girl Guides and faith- based groups.