Sascha Wil­son

Just over a year af­ter he grew a mon­ster pump­kin in his home gar­den, Princes Town re­tiree Sha­heed Ali has now har­vest­ed a 94-pound wa­ter­mel­on.

 Beam­ing with pride dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at his home, Ali said the Car­oli­na Cross Wa­ter­mel­on seeds were sent to him by a friend who lives in Flori­da. It took 94 days to grow to that size. 

“I was hop­ing to get a big­ger one. I was hop­ing to get at least a 125 pound,” he said with a chuck­le.

 Al­though ed­i­ble, he said, this va­ri­ety of wa­ter­mel­on is usu­al­ly grown for recre­ation and the largest on record is 350 pounds.

“It is juicy, it is fi­brous. It’s not red in­side it is pink, but not as sweet.”

Last year, he grew a 500-pound for­eign pump­kin be­lieved to be the largest grown in the coun­try.

 “I like to grow strange things, big things, dif­fer­ent colours, dif­fer­ent shapes, dif­fer­ent sizes. Last year I grew the 500-pound pump­kin. This year I was try­ing to grow a big­ger one but weath­er con­di­tions did not per­mit.”  

Dur­ing a va­ca­tion last year, he went to a U-Pick farm in Louisville, Ken­tucky, where he got white sweet pep­per seeds which he plant­ed, and re­cent­ly har­vest­ed. “I’ve nev­er seen that grown in Trinidad,” he added. 

Ali has al­so grown a 24-inch ochro and a 43-inch bo­di.

“I’ve grown pur­ple ochro, the pur­ple seim, pur­ple bo­di, pur­ple sweet pep­per. I’ve grown black toma­toes, yel­low toma­toes, white toma­toes, green toma­toes and things like that.” 

The 66-year-old Petrotrin re­tiree has been gar­den­ing as a hob­by for the past 16 years from knowl­edge he gained from YouTube videos and the In­ter­net.  

“I would say you need to have a pas­sion to do this thing and then you need to have knowl­edge. I like to read.

“Go on the In­ter­net, the In­ter­net is the li­brary. Long time we used to have to go to the li­brary to get a hard copy now you can stay home and go on the In­ter­net and you have all the in­for­ma­tion there.”

Ali said he al­so us­es a mix­ture of fer­tilis­ers for the best re­sults. “Fer­tilis­er for root­ing, which is im­por­tant at the ear­ly stage and then dur­ing the grow­ing stage ap­ply more fer­tilis­ers.”   

How­ev­er, he be­lieves his crops thrive be­cause he gives them love and at­ten­tion.