6st cabbage that took a year to grow
Oops! Chef takes knife to
GARDENER Dale Toten spent a year growing his giant cabbage from seed to six-stone monster – and was ready to compete in a horticultural show.
Carefully nurturing his specimen in the grounds of the luxury hotel where he worked, the prized vegetable was strictly off the menu. At least that was the idea. Unfortunately the message failed to reach one chef, who hacked off most of the brassica and prepared it for guests.
Mr Toten was apoplectic when he discovered all that was left of his pride and joy was a few outer leaves and stormed into the kitchen at Ston Easton Park country house hotel, near Bath, to find the culprit.
A large portion of confit of cabbage in the fridge was all the proof he needed.
Mr Toten, 34, said he was ‘near tears’ when he spotted the decapitated vegetable.
‘I went out to water it and I spotted a huge part had been hacked off,’ he added. ‘I had hoped to enter it in the competition, but it probably won’t happen now. It’s a bit of a mess.’
He said the chefs were ‘very sorry’ but he had not yet forgiven them. ‘They will be banned from the garden. They should all know not to touch them, really it’s just common sense.
‘The staff who have been here a while know how things work but some are new and obviously don’t know,’ he added.
Mr Toten grows most of the vegetables that supply the restaurant at the four-star hotel and has one or two giant varieties in each patch.
The cabbage, planted last October, was hacked apart just ten days before it was due to compete at the Malvern Autumn Show this weekend.
The gardener had not yet weighed the cabbage but estimated it to be almost six stone, or 84lb. The hotel’s operations director, Nick Romano, 50, said: ‘Dale nearly throttled the chef responsible. He was very upset that morning. He has nurtured it the whole year – it’s like having a child as it’s gone from seed to this giant monster.
‘The chef concerned has apologised. He didn’t mean it, he just didn’t understand. But he won’t be doing it again.’
The incident has become known as ‘cabbage-gate’ at the hotel. Fortunately Mr Toten has other impressive specimens in the garden and still hopes to scoop a prize at the show.
The gardener, who keeps his methods of growing giant veg a secret, said: ‘I have never grown a giant cabbage before, this year was the first one. Thankfully I have a giant marrow that probably weighs 11 stone or more.’