Discover the forgotten vegetable that everyone's talking about – and is coming to a veg plot near you

Published: August 26, 2026 at 11:32 am

A giant, wonky and ugly vegetable that you’ll never find at the supermarket is taking over allotments and back gardens, winning prizes at village shows and prompting social media growalongs – and now even has its own festival.

You may also like

Slug proof veg: 17 crops that slugs won't eat

Why we should all grow more turnips

The mangelwurzel, or mangold, looks like a misshapen giant beetroot on steroids – or a mandrake from Harry Potter. You may think you haven’t heard of it, but Worzel Gummidge, the book and TV scarecrow, had a mangelwurzel as one of his three interchangeable heads and the Wurzels, the ‘Scrumpy and Western’ band from Somerset, are named after the vegetable.

Somewhere between a beetroot and a sugar beet, the mangelwurzel was grown as a crop in Britain for centuries.…