The Pumpkins and Prizes exhibition from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) explores competitive fruit and vegetable growing.
Opening on 18th October in RHS Garden Wisley’s Old Laboratory, the display covers competitive growing from the Victorian era to the modern day.
In the 1700s, workers in Yorkshire and the Northwest would gather in pubs to weigh their homegrown gooseberries, with prizes such as copper kettles or cutlery sets on offer.
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Later more formal horticultural societies were set up to run competitive shows covering flowers, fruits and vegetables.
The exhibit features images and items from the RHS Lindley Library, including illustrations by botanist Ernst Benary.
From specially bred seed to feeding pumpkins beer, it reveals the skill, dedication and occasional mischief – such as disguising blemishes with marker pens – that goes into growing prize fruit and vegetables.
Trophies, medals, photographs, posters and art depicting magnificent vegetables are on display, as well as some of the more unusual prizes, from a chemical sprayer to an elaborate ashtray. Visitors can also measure themselves against life-size depictions of world record winning vegetables.
The new exhibit opens as the charity predicts that the changing climate could affect the future of this long standing tradition.
With increasingly dry summers, fruit and vegetables – which are mostly water – will struggle to reach giant size unless irrigated. Some edible crops also suspend growth above 30C, making record-breaking sizes harder to achieve, especially for growers in the south.
Fiona Davison, RHS Head of Libraries, said: “Whether it’s giant pumpkins or carrots longer than a double decker bus, there is something about competitive fruit and vegetable growing that appeals to the imagination. This exhibition looks at the extraordinary lengths that growers go to in the pursuit of perfection and charts the victories and rivalries of years gone by. We hope visitors will feel inspired by the passion and ingenuity behind these oversized or perfect specimen vegetables, and perhaps even intrigued to try their hand at a champion cabbage.”
The exhibition runs until 11 January 2026.
