A GARDENER is delighted after his massive pumpkin weighed in at an astonishing 1,333lb - breaking a UK record.

Matthew Oliver, 29, of Rettendon, first made headlines last year when he managed to grow a huge 540lb - or 37.8st - pumpkin at RHS Hyde Hall Gardens.

This year he was chosen to nurture the most expensive pumpkin seed in the world. The seed, which was priced at £1,250, came from the existing largest pumpkin in the world and was bought by gardening experts Thompson & Morgan.

Matthew, a horticulturalist at RHS Hyde Hall, said: “The 540lb pumpkin got a lot of attention last year and I wanted to improve on that this year so set myself a challenge.

“Thompson & Morgan put out a call for applications to grow the seed and I applied and was chosen to give it a go.

“It was quite a lot of pressure as you don’t want to end up with a tiny little pumpkin at the end of it!”

As nearly all of the largest pumpkins in the UK are grown in glass houses Matthew’s pumpkin stood out as it was grown completely outside.

He said: “Nearly all of the top growers in this country use glass houses or tunnels which gives them control of the temperature and makes it slightly easier to grow them as they like warm conditions.

“Back in May we have very cold weather and cold nights while June was ridiculously wet so we got off to a slow start and were about three weeks behind.”

Happily the fine weather over the rest of the summer gave the pumpkin a boost so Matthew had high hopes when he took the pumpkin to the Southampton Autumn Pumpkin Festival to be weighed.

The enormous fruit had to be lifted by a forklift truck and was even given its own security guard.

Matthew said: “We had to move the pumpkin to Southampton which involved cutting it free and using a special lifting ring and truck to get it into the van - you can’t get anything wrong as it could ruin the fruit.

“We stayed in a hotel overnight and the pumpkin even had its own security guard so it couldn’t be vandalised.”

The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth team ran the weigh-in at the festival and Matthew was thrilled to break the UK record for the heaviest pumpkin grown outside at a staggering 95 stone.

He said: “It’s slightly better than I had hoped for - as far as I can tell growing one outside in this country over 1,000lbs has happened only once before and that was ten years ago, so it’s fantastic.”

The pumpkin will be part of the garden’s Halloween-themed display which will run from October 22.