Family’s home-grown cucumber is a whopper

The Segee family in Leimert Park has discovered a simple way to get daughters Jai’Neil, left, Dee’Anna and Jai’Lynn excited about growing their own food: cultivate a 28-pound cucumber.

Although the vegetable they grew and recently harvested may not land in the Guinness World Records book -- they say they’ve been beaten by a 59-pounder grown in Australia -- mom Tiffany and dad Vernon are content knowing that Dee’Anna, 10, and Jai’Neil and Jai’Lynn, both 5, are now interested in gardening.

The family planted an albino cucumber plant given to them by a neighbor in October. They gave it no fertilizer, only water. Then they watched the vegetable grow while it hung from a vine on their gate. “The vines were like lily pads,” Tiffany Segee says.

This cucumber isn’t even their largest. One harvested earlier in the season weighed in at 30 pounds.

“We shared it with people,” Tiffany Segee says. “There was just too much for us to eat.”

The Segees’ recommendation: Enjoy it with lemon and seasoning salt.

-- Lisa Boone