THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509180262
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOAN C. STANUS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
The first-place winner got $20. Second place got $15, and third took home $10.
But what about the Better Boy that weighed in as the fourth largest contestant in the annual tomato-growing contest at Davenport Barber Shop in Ocean View?
``It's now a BLT,'' barber shop regular John Bell quipped, referring to the favorite sandwich of tomato lovers.
For 15 years, shop owner Hubert Davenport has sponsored a contest among his customers to find the largest tomato of the season. He started it 15 years ago, after endless summers of listening to customers brag about their gardening prowess.
``Gardeners are like fishermen,'' this white-haired barber professed. ``They will really stretch the truth. So finally one day, I said, `Bring 'em in and prove it.' ''
They did. Davenport set up scales alongside his barber chairs, and customers began hauling in tomatoes that looked more like watermelons than their vined cousins. When he ends the contest each year on Sept. 1, dozens of bulging Beefsteaks, Better Boys and other varieties of tomatoes have been bellied up to the scales to be weighed in.
Most winners have been more than two pounds. The largest tomato ever to win topped the scales at three pounds, four ounces.
Irving Dixon won this year with a tomato that weighed two pounds, 14 ounces.
``It was a biggie,'' said Dixon, a 75-year-old Ocean View retiree who spends an average of seven hours a day in his garden during growing season.
Dixon and several friends garden a one-acre plot together a few blocks from his home. The men have even equipped a small garage on the site with air conditioning and a television so they can take breaks from minding the cucumbers, melons, zucchinis and squash.
``It's a lot of fun,'' Dixon said. ``Some people golf; I garden.''
Dixon says he has no secret formula for growing prize-winners.
``I don't try to raise big ones,'' he said. ``They just come up on the vine. But I do have good soil out there.''
A regular at Davenport's for some eight years, Dixon was determined to win this year. He had grown a prize winner a few years ago, and wanted to repeat the accomplishment.
``He even brought in a cantaloupe and tried to pass it off as a yellow tomato,'' Davenport said with a laugh.
Although the contest has dispelled the fish tales about tomatoes, the Granby Street barber shop owner says plenty of other gardening whoppers dominate customers' talk during the summer.
But now, instead of just yarning, customers haul all sorts of ``weird'' veggies into the barber shop, with the hopes of enticing Davenport to start more contests. They bring in oversized cukes, squash with ``faces'' and out-of-shape eggplants. One woman this year even hauled in a 26 1/2-pound cabbage.
``I'm stopping at tomatoes,'' the contest master said with finality. ``I mean, after all, I'm still looking for that five-pound one.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON
Irving Dixon won this year with a two-pound, 14-ounce tomato.
by CNB