Vegetable hamper collecting muck in the middle (8)

I believe the answer is:

cucumber

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'vegetable' is the definition.
(I know that cucumber is a type of vegetable)

'hamper collecting muck in the middle' is the wordplay.
'hamper' becomes 'cumber' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'collecting' is an insertion indicator.
'in the middle' indicates the central letters.
The centre of 'muck' is 'uc'.
'cumber' going around 'uc' is 'CUCUMBER'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for cucumber that I've seen before include "Long salad vegetable" , "Oblong fruit used in salad" , "Three dn item" , "Green salad fruit" , "Cylindrical green fruit" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times and The Sunday Times.

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