Keith Skelton, long-time supporter of Katikati A&P Show, picking flowers from his 86m of sweetpea plants. Photo / Supplied
Keith Skelton, long-time supporter of Katikati A&P Show, picking flowers from his 86m of sweetpea plants. Photo / Supplied
Behind the extraordinary annual gifting of 1000 tomato plants, many boxes of tomatoes and hundreds of sweet pea bouquets lies one man's love of growing seeds and plants.
Keith Skelton reckons his passion for growing seeds probably started at primary school in Paparoa some 65 years ago.
"We were givensweet pea, hollyhock and tree dahlia seeds to grow," he said.
He must have been smitten because over the years he has grown hectares of plants from seed.
He came to Katikati 43 years ago — "accidently", he said.
This year Keith is offering local gardeners growing for the A&P Home Industries vegetable competitions a chance to get some of those tomato plants for free.
These days his propagation base is at his Katikati home, having moved it there from behind his real estate premises.
It's not a fancy set-up and therein lies the beauty of it.
The tomato seeds are started under cover in what Keith calls 'hot boxes', created by using an old shower door sloped over a timber frame — something any handy man or woman can set up.
He also has a glass house for 'growing on' the plants.
He uses a seed-growing mix for the seeds.
Later the seedlings are planted into pots in a blend of potting mix and black magic seed mix. At about six weeks from the time the seeds push up their first leaves, the tomato plants are ready for the vegetable garden.
Before planting out the sturdy-stemmed tomato plants ("no point in planting a bad plant") he rotary hoes or thoroughly digs the beds.
Keith Skelton with a tray of his tomahto seedlings and behind him some of his sweet pea plants which stretch for some 80 metres around his section. Photo / Supplied
Each plant is bedded into its individual dose of blood and bone and home-made compost.
There are no sprays used on Keith's tomatoes but in recent years he has had to combat whitefly by liberally coating Vaseline on to bright yellow plastic containers hanging throughout the vegetable gardens.
The essentials of growing tomatoes successfully came down to four things, said Keith. They are good soil, good feeding, north facing garden and water.
In terms of what tomato varieties Keith grows — "I am a believer in heritage tomatoes which are not as resilient as hybrids but have much more flavour."
And Keith should know his tomatoes after a lifetime of eating them every day for breakfast — along with a little toast and avocado.
It is the seed saved every morning from those breakfast tomatoes that he grows. "Every day I take out the seeds before I eat the tomato.
"I make comments about each tomato so I know what I am growing.
"People who grow my tomato plants often save seed for me."
This year, as always, Keith has grown about 10 varieties of beefsteak tomato from saved seed. From local merchant Kings Seeds he has 'black krim', a giant tomato called 'delicious' which produced a 900g tomato and 'Milo's whopper' which is a Russian tomato of a deep red, almost black, colour.
Along with those varieties, Keith is growing a heritage tomato attributed to a Croatian gum digger who selected the plant some 60 years ago and which produces tomatoes around 500g. All these tomatoes are of solid, dark red flesh — that's the colour Keith prefers.
This year also he has grown for the first time the seeds of a large, solid, orange tomato which he found growing in an abandoned garden and for which he has high expectations. He always grows 'sweet 100' because he says it is wonderful for snacking on.
• Keith will be giving away tomato plants to gardeners to grow for the Home Industries competitions at the Katikati A&P show on February 2. To collect your free plant call in at Tremains Real Estate offices on Main St this Friday afternoon between 12pm and 4pm and Saturday morning 9am to 12pm. Only limited numbers are available so be in quick before supply runs out.
