“But this one stood out from the rest. It was nearly double the size of the others.”
Blair, who has been growing tomatoes for about 30 years, grows the vegetables as a hobby in his backyard garden in Bay View, north of Napier.
His secret, he believes, is a combination of homemade fertiliser and compost.
Blair mixes bio-rich compost with worm-farm compost and chicken and sheep pellets to feed the plants.
He also sprays them every fortnight with a homemade mixture of yeast, sugar and baking soda diluted in water.
Blair and his family ate the tomato for Sunday dinner, where the fruit was sliced and served on top of roasted cauliflower steaks.
“You cut the cauliflower into thick slices, cook it with olive oil, paprika and garlic powder, then put the tomato on top and cover it with cheese,” he said.
“It was very nice.”
The tomato was so big it was also used for some classic tomato-on-toast.
“The slice was bigger than the slice of toast,” he said.
Blair said the giant tomato story even sparked disbelief among two fishermen friends when he told them about it.
“They said it sounded like one of their fishing stories after a few beers,” he said.
But he is already setting his sights on a bigger catch next season.
“I’m going to grow bigger than 1kg next time,” Blair said.
“That’s the goal.”
