Burnsie the Rhyll Gardener with his recording smashing 925g Croatian Giant tomato - the biggest of his bumper crop of tomato giant varieties this year.
Burnsie the Rhyll Gardener with his Croatian Giant tomatoes, weighing 925g (left) and 720g (right).
By Burnsie, the Rhyll gardener
Over the past eight or nine years I've grown tomatoes at Rhyll.
I have grown many and assorted variants, with a leaning towards the exotic, something not many people would know about. Some outstanding successes have been Mortgage Buster, Aunt Ruby's Green German and German Johnson, to name a few.
This year however i decided to try and grow the biggest tomato in town, setting my sights initially on a 500g or more specimen.
I bought seeds from my regular supplier, going for GIANTS.
I planted Belgium Giant, Italian Giant, Aussie Monster and last but not least, Croatian Giant.
Croatian Giant has been simply outstanding. I have two varieties; one of regular leaf, the other a "Potato Leaf" - leaves five to six inches long and three to four inches wide - massive.
Producing prolifically, one of the bushes reached over two metres high and three metres wide with dozens of large tomatoes (250-350g).
But the star of the show has been one particular bush that gave me a new record ... one tomato, the size of a small dinner plate, weighing in at 925g.
On the same bush, another tomato was 720g. These are not "mega-blooms", they are fruit produced from a single flower. These tomatoes are tasty, juicy and go well with salads or on a biscuit (a big biscuit).
If you wish to know more of how I achieved this success, or perhaps are interested in seeds, contact me on burniestomatoes@gmail.com
