Well, we'll get it out and set it right on the ground.
Okay. Let's go like this, so we don't block the road off. Just put it down.
My name is Brian Shunskis, I'm on a quest to grow
a big cabbage; hopefully a world record someday. Ladies and Gentlemen,
welcome to the giant cabbage weigh-off!
(crowd cheers)
It's a good competition, um, with a lot of money involved.
$2000 for first, $1000 for second, and I've gotten the $500 third place
prize the last three years.
Just take it right off, put it right here.
I think this could be a very, very competitive cabbage. Not just for today's competition but
perhaps for a record. This
perhaps for a record. This is gotta be your year.
I mean, it's got the head. It's got, it's got a decent...
I'm trying to grow bigger and bigger cabbages each year and, um, working as hard as I can
to, uh, make it happen.
Near Fairbanks, Salcha, Alaska. We're up to twenty and a half, almost 21 hours
of sunlight now. The more sun there is, the faster they grow.
Probably the biggest mistake people make is starting to early.
Because cabbages, once they start growing, they need to keep growing
fast and you don't want to slow their growth down because it inhibits their
potential. I grew a 94.5 pounder a couple years ago
from a seed to when I cut it was
was less than... no more than 90 days old.
And, you know, when they first start growing, they're not putting on a pound
a day. So somewhere along the line, that cabbage was putting on a couple
pounds a day. This way I don't have to grab a hold of
them with my hands, see? It's no secret that fish
is a good fertilizer. And in Alaska, we have
so much available. I enjoy eating red salmon everyday and so do
my cabbages. (laughs) So, everything
kind of works together. I not just trying to grow the biggest cabbage
totally naturally with fish. And, um,
that's what I've done so far and it's been working good and I'm not going to give up on it.
That's pure food right there. From my house
here, it's over 300 miles, 330 miles maybe
anyway, I put it in my van and, um, we drive down
and, uh, I'm the only one from outside of Palmer-Wasilla area that
brings a cabbage. Let me know if you get tired and you want to take a break.
Being so far from the contest, um, you know,
my cabbages are going to lose quite a bit of weight from what they weigh in my yard to
they get weighed-in, because it's usually ten, eleven hours later.
This was the experiment so it wouldn't lose weight. Leave the root-ball on and then take it off.
I may have a little advantage with the more sunlight north of the Alaska Range
than they do down there. I'm hoping that makes a difference, but
I don't... we'll find out. That's definitely a contender. Oh yeah.
And when I dug it out, it just went... (laughs).
We got weight here. (laughs) It's pretty competitive.
between, uh, Steve Hubacek, Scott Robb
and, uh, the Dinkles and me, and there's some other
guys too it's very competitive.
What's going to happen is the, uh, growers are going to bring their cabbages forward.
They're going to be placed on the scale and we're going to
get an official weight. That official weight will not be publicly known
until it is announced from this microphone.
In second place
we have Brian Shunskis of
weighing in at 83.85 pounds.
This year's winner, Steve Hubacek.
weighing, his cabbage today is 92.15 pounds.
The weights were down for everybody a little bit
this year, but I moved up from third to second this year so I'm happy with it
so I'm gonna try different cabbages and continue my seed program and
hope someday to win.
I've even heard the cabbages grow, I mean,
I was out looking at one of my cabbages one morning
and I heard a noise and I turned around and the whole plant was shaking.