New Zealanders find 17-pound potato in 'feral' vegetable garden

Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A New Zealand couple said they were cleaning out their vegetable garden when they found a massive potato that weighed more than 17 pounds and might be a new world record.

Colin and Donna Craig-Brown said they initially weren't even sure of what they had discovered under a few inches of dirt in their Waikato garden.

"I said to Donna this must be one of those white kumara that we grew," Colin Craig-Brown told Stuff.co.nz, "because some of them just grew massive here."

Craig-Brown said it only after he stabbed at it with a fork that he discovered the item was a potato.

"I said to Donna, 'It's a potato,' and she went, 'No.' I said, 'Yeah it is!'" he recalled to Newshub.

The couple said the potato, which must have been growing in their garden for a couple years before being discovered, weighed 17.4 pounds.

The couple applied to have the potato, which they dubbed "Doug," recognized as the world's largest by Guinness World Records. The current record-holder is an 11-pound spud grown by British gardener Peter Glazebrook in 2011.

Colin Craig-Brown admitted the home's "garden can sometimes get a bit feral. There are some parts of the garden you need to pack a lunch and advise your next of kin before heading in to."