MASSIVE: Peter Farrell's Monty's Surprise apple is a whopper.PHOTO/SUPPLIED 080615WCSPAPPLE1
MASSIVE: Peter Farrell's Monty's Surprise apple is a whopper.PHOTO/SUPPLIED 080615WCSPAPPLE1
It came off a two-year-old tree and wasn't even the biggest apple on it.
Peter Farrell picked up an apple that had fallen off his new Monty's Surprise tree and was surprised to find it weighed exactly 1kg.
He bought the tree from a Wanganui nursery. There will be plentyin the district, because the Heritage Food Crops Research Trust and Whanganui Regional Health Network have given away thousands.
Mr Farrell grows all his own fruit and vegetables on a 1000sq m (quarter acre) section in Marton. What he and wife Elizabeth don't eat, freeze or make into jams and pickles they give to their sons and the Wellington City Mission.
They have 12 apple trees, 100 strawberry plants, a pig, 50 hens and raised beds. Mr Farrell also hunts, and brings home venison, pheasant and rabbit.
"I'm 68 and officially retired and I've never been so busy in my life," he said.
He disbuds his apple trees to maximise fruit set, and feeds them with liquid manure. And he likes the flavour of Monty's Surprise, both cooked and raw.
"We find that they're an ideal multipurpose apple."
He eats fruit at breakfast and dinner, so it's no problem getting through a 1kg monster apple. His last apple dessert was two Monty's Surprise quartered and steamed until soft, then doused with cream and Alison Holst's recipe for caramelised rolled oats.
Mr Farrell has won prizes for his garlic at several shows, and said his father was a great Wanganui gardener too.
His son Eion trained at Whanganui Ucol and is now head chef in a Wellington restaurant. He was also one of a group that won the Monteiths Beer Wild Food Challenge in 2012.
