Noble Park resident John Morris with a hefty-sized home-grown tomato. According to John, his tomatoes have reached up to a kilogram in weight.
By Shaun Inguanzo
‘NEVER waste anything’ is Noble Park resident John Morris’ secret to growing his legendary giant tomatoes.
The 70-year-old pensioner says he gardens with a passion and uses his own special compost, resulting in two years of whopper tomatoes.
“They weigh about a kilo and are sweet, juicy and have very few seeds,” he said.
Mr Morris grows the tomatoes in his small vegetable patch along with other vegetables.
“I still love gardening,” he said, “I have been doing it for 20 years from the time I migrated to Australia (from India). My wife also helps me, and I put my own compost (on the garden).”
But the unique compost wasn’t formulated or engineered by scientific practices – it is instead the combination of the Morris’ food scraps.
“I never waste anything,” he said. “I put all vegetable cuttings in … I even put my bread in.”
The tomatoes’ size also lies within the fruit’s genes.
“I met a lady at the RSL club who gave me one tomato,” Mr Morris said. “It was huge, and I thought I would try and grow it and now I have got the biggest tomatoes.”
Mr Morris has fended hungry birds away from his prize fruits, but is more generous when it comes to neighbours and friends, who are the main recipients of the tomatoes.
And just to prove it isn’t the size alone that matters, Mr Morris said his giant tomatoes were the coup de grace of people’s standards for the popular red fruit.
“Once you taste it you will never want to taste any other tomato,” he said.
