Ever see a massive, six-pound cabbage?

Now you have.

Cabbages are a staple crop for many gardeners in Newfoundland and Labrador, but tricky to grow with pests like slugs and moths happy to gorge on their leaves.

Keith O'Rielly grows vegetables in his backyard in Paradise and has the whole process figured out.

"When I picked it up, it was literally three or four feet in diameter across from outside leaf to outside leaf," he said Friday.

"It's abnormally large for what we grow."

A photo of the gigantic cabbage grown by O'Rielly has been making the rounds on social media and he's not afraid to share his secrets.

Kelp fertilizer is just one aspect. Protecting the crop is the other.

"This success is born out of a lot of failures," O'Rielly said. "We've been backyard farming for five or six years."

O'Rielly said the first few years didn't produce the best yield. Pests were a major problem.

So he built his own planter's box, added a protective roof that allows air and water through — while keeping pests out — and the rest is massive cabbage history.

"There's a half-dozen lettuce plants in there, too, but that particular cabbage just grew so large that the big leaves took over and smothered the lettuce plants and destroyed them," said O'Rielly.

"You take the good with the bad."

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador