IT'S THE star attraction that's given a new meaning to playing gooseberry - and it is all done naturally.

Gardener Peter Lofthouse's monster gooseberry, lovingly grown using organic methods, is a winner that's almost too good to end up in that old favourite, gooseberry pie.

Peter, 48, who has been growing gooseberries for eight years behind his cottage at Chelford and is employed as a full-time gardener at the National Trust's Tatton Park, won a bundle of trophies at Parkgate gooseberry show, held at Over Peover.

His egg-sized woodpecker berry weighs 34 pennyweights one grain - gardening shows still use those old terms - which is just under two ounces.

It scooped the top cup for the heaviest in the show and the rest of his entries collected four trophies.

Peter, pictured with his giant berry, who works in the formal gardens at the Tatton Park estate, is known among fellow growers as "Organic Pete" because of his insistence on natural products to feed his crop and fight disease.

No-one believed he could produce a gooseberry big enough to challenge veterans who use a variety of commercial products and secret recipes to help their berries put on weight.

Peter, whose family have lived in the same cottage in Pepper Street since 1895, was apprenticed as a gardener in the village when he left school and joined Tatton Park 19 years ago.

He said: "As far as I am aware, I am the only person who grows gooseberries organically. The others were astonished when it weighed in as heavy as it did. I only use organic fertilisers and soap to keep off the greenfly."