Gardener shatters world record by growing 839 tomatoes on a single stem

A GARDENER has grown a record 839 tomatoes on a single stem — shattering the previous world best.

Douglas Smith’s haul is almost double the existing record of 488 from 2010.

It took an hour to harvest all the pound coin-sized fruit, which weighed more than 9lb.

Douglas, 43, filmed the count and called in a priest and a policeman as witnesses so it can be verified as a new Guinness World Record.

The IT manager, of Stanstead Abbotts, Herts, prepared meticulously for the challenge — poring over scientific papers and sending soil samples to a lab for analysis.

His tomatoes were grown from seeds planted in March, with just two retained for the attempt for most tomatoes on a single stem, or truss.

He said: “I spent three or four hours a week tending to them in a greenhouse.”

Dad-of-one Douglas has also grown the largest tomato in Britain — a 6lb-plus monster harvested last year.