YOUNG gardeners from Minehead Middle School have unearthed a monster in their vegetable patch.

Members of the school's gardening club have grown their largest ever parsnip, weighing in at a whopping 1.5 kilos.

The club was set up four years ago and meets three lunchtimes every week with help from year six teacher Matt Horrobin and teaching assistant Laura Tasker.

The two allotments have produced everything from leeks, artichokes, potatoes and beetroot to peas, rhubarb, shallots and raspberries.

Such has been the success of the plot that the children have even been able to sell surplus produce to raise money for the club, as well as supplying their own school.

Mr Horrobin said: "We have grown so much produce we have been able to supply our own kitchens, staff, pupils and recently the newly set-up Reading Room in Friday Street, which has used our vegetables to make delicious homemade soup."

Over the years the club has been helped along the way by parents and friends who have donated plants, seeds, tools and even a water butt to conserve water during the summer months.

"It is a great way of encouraging children to try fruit and vegetables that they have grown themselves and for them to take home with them," Mr Horrobin added. "They quite rightly feel very proud of their hard work."

Gardening club members are pictured with their bumper parsnip.