Daniel Tomelin has some exciting news — and he hopes you can read this without giggling. He may have the longest cucumber in the world.

The slender green fruit — yes, it's a fruit — measures 44.5 inches in a straight line from tip to tail, according to the most recent reckoning by an independent gardening expert.

"If I was to try to stretch it out a little more, I'm pretty sure I could get it to 45," said Tomelin, a Kelowna gardener. He's hoping to make one last official measurement before cutting the cucumber down, but it needs to happen pretty soon.

"I am so nervous that I'm going to go out there and slugs will have torn it apart. I have it off the ground, because slugs were starting to lick at it and etch their initials into it," he said.

The current Guinness World Record holder is a Welshman whose colossal cuke was measured at 41.5 inches in 2011.

In order to literally preserve his achievement, Tomelin has built a fermentation vessel, and plans to pickle the cuke with the intention of claiming the world's longest pickle, as well.

"Maybe I'll sell it to some hotdog manufacturer that wants to make yard-long hotdogs," he said.

He credits using deep mulch for the cucumber's incredible span. But specimens of this variety, known as the painted serpent, usually coil instead of growing in a straight line.

"Just by some freak it was dangling in outer space without anything underneath it and it just decided to go straight," Tomelin said.

He added that it would likely take up to 12 weeks before he hears back from the people at Guinness.

blindsay@vancouversun.com

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