A green-fingered pensioner is celebrating after harvesting a world record-breaking 1,355 tomatoes – from just ONE seed.
Keen gardener Surjit Kainth, 68, planted the tiny seedling in April last year and was stunned when his plant sprouted a seemingly never-ending supply of tomatoes.
The father-of-three revealed his secret is giving his five-and-a-half-foot plant “a lot of care” and also PRAYING beside it.
He received official confirmation from Guinness World Records yesterday that he has broken the record for ‘most tomatoes grown on a single truss’.
He smashed the current record held by Graham Tranter, from Bridgnorth, Shrops., who boasted 488 tomatoes in 2009.
Surjit, a retired bus driver from Coventry, said: “I am so pleased to have the record, it was quite a relief to get the certificate through. It was a nervous wait.
“We were pretty sure it would beat the current record but I was concerned about the variety of tomatoes.
“I planted the seed at the end of April, my daughter got it from a gardening centre for me, it wasn’t a special seed or anything and I doubt it cost very much.
“By the end of July I really started to notice its phenomenal growth, I couldn’t believe it, I wasn’t feeding it anything strange, just standard vegetable feed and water.
“I have given the plant a lot of care and I also pray beside it, which I guess may help and may be a reason why it has grown to be probably the biggest in the world ever from one seed.
“I kept it cool with splashes of water during the hot days this summer which helped.
“It became a full time job because I was having to water it so much.
“Since I have been growing it I have had to keep pruning it so to be honest I could have probably had a couple of hundred more if I hadn’t done that.
“We also picked 122 tomatoes from the plant before the count was done so I think in total we could have had another 300 to add to the record.
“I didn’t start growing the tomato plant in order to break any sort of record, but to think I have broken a world record is amazing, it is great, brilliant, fantastic.
“My children and my wife are also really excited, they are overjoyed actually, I don’t think they can believe what has happened.
“I do like gardening, I have grown cherry tomatoes and potatoes, but I have never done anything like this before.
“We had so many tomatoes from August to October that we were giving them away to family and friends.
“We were making constant salads, chutneys, soup and salsas. The taste is just brilliant.
“As I said, I didn’t really mean to break this record but it is a great feeling for me and I think it just proves that nothing is impossible.
“My plant is beautiful and I am very proud of myself. It has become such a part of the family we have called it Fateh which means ultimate victory.”
