Bothwell's Rob Van Middlekoop is the proud owner of one of the world's biggest edible mushrooms.
"I went out to our garden Monday night. The wife and I were going to go on a bike ride when she said 'what's that under our cedar tree?'" says Van Middlekoop. "We went and investigated, I picked up the bottom branch and said 'wow that's big!'"
Van Middlekoop claims his puffball mushroom weighs 20.8 lbs and measures approximately 22 inches across.
If that's the case, the puffball flirts with the Guinness World Record for "Longest Edible Mushroom." The current record holder was grown in Japan and measured 23.28 inches long.
Another website, World Record Academy, claims the largest puffball mushroom was found in the UK in October 2010, and measured 66.5 inches (circumference). Van Middlekop says his puffball measures approximately 72 inches (circumference).
Despite this puffball being technically edible, Van Middlekoop says he won't be serving it up anytime soon.
"It's too old for eating now. Once they get to a certain point they get bugs in them," says Van Middlekoop. "I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, I might just throw it out. But I might have to make sure I get lots of pictures."
A puffball mushroom found in Bothwell, August 29, 2016 (Photo courtesy of Rob Van Middlekoop)
