The Orchestra That’s Really Vegging Out

Move over, traditional symphonies—there’s a new band in town, and their instruments are fresh from the produce aisle.

Meet The Vegetable Orchestra, the world’s first (and only?) musical group dedicated to making sweet, sweet tunes using nothing but fresh veggies.

And guess what? They just earned themselves a Guinness World Record for performing the most concerts as a vegetable orchestra—344 to be exact!

This 11-piece group, which sprouted in Vienna, Austria, in 1998, is known for crafting instruments out of carrots, cucumbers, radishes, leeks, and even eggplants. Yes, that’s right—a cucumberphone and a radish bass flute are real things.

If you thought you had to be a master woodworker to make an instrument, turns out, all you need is a good knife and a trip to the farmer’s market.

Now, playing on perishable instruments comes with its fair share of challenges. Vegetables can break, dry out, or just get a little too floppy mid-performance. That means improvisation is key. But the payoff? A sound unlike anything you’ve ever heard—sometimes resembling animal calls, sometimes just bizarrely beautiful abstract notes.

And because these musicians know how to make the most of their ingredients, they don’t let their instruments go to waste. After every concert, the leftover veggie bits are turned into a delicious soup, which they actually serve to their audience. Dinner and a show? That’s a concept we can all get behind.

These artists come from all kinds of musical backgrounds—punk, classical, electronic—but they all share a love of exploring new sounds and proving that music can be made from just about anything. Just don’t ask if they’re all vegetarians—they’re kind of tired of that question.