Britain's largest carrot grown by Welsh gardner, who shares tips with Snoop Dogg

[video]

Ian Neale grows huge vegetables.

Last year, the 70-year-old pensioner grew two record-breaking vegetables in his Langstone, south Wales, garden.

A swede (also known as a rutabaga, Swedish turnip or yellow turnip) weighed in at 54kg, making it the largest in the world, and a carrot weight 8.35kg, the largest ever grown in Britain.

Over the last 30 years, Neale has been perfecting his homemade fertilizer. He believes his award-winning veggies had the chance to be even larger than last year, had the weather cooperated.

"If the weather hadn’t been so strange this year with the wet spring and the hot summer I think they could have been even bigger," Neale told the Daily Mail. “You don’t set out going for the record, that’s an added bonus, and it’s better than sitting in a corner until you die.”

In the video above, Neale holds a carrot heavier than last year’s which he was planning to enter into competition at the UK National Giant Vegetable Championship at the Malvern Autumn Show this past weekend.

Sure enough, the carrot took first place in the “heaviest carrot” category. Neale’s celery was also the heaviest of its kind in the competition.

When asked to share his gardening secrets, all he offered was this boring dose of reality: “Don’t bother to go on holiday.”

We’re assuming he shared a few more secrets with one famous fan. Last year, Snoop Dogg congratulated Neale on his success — and asked for some vegetation tips in exchange for free tickets to his show.

[Snoop Dogg video]

"We gave him some tips. There’s a chemical on the market that’s natural and encourages a better root system," said Neale, who took him up on the offer and went to Snoop Dogg’s show.

"He’s just interested in how we grow the stuff and how we could improve his. We gave him a website number of a friend and we left it at that."