THIS year's sunflower champion has revealed the unlikely secret behind his blooming success - beer.

But it wasn’t just any old beer that helped gardener Jim Williams grow a towering plant almost as tall as his house, at 16ft2ins (4.85m).

Having never grown a sunflower in his life, the 73-year-old sidestepped the efforts of more experienced competitors when he started watering his plants with beer from his local pub, the aptly named Rising Sun in East Malling.

It was an inspired move, but Mr Williams was still as shocked as his neighbours when his towering plants, grown from seeds given away free by the Kent Messenger, began to dominate the skyline around his house in Mill Street, East Malling.

The experimental gardener was even more shocked to learn that he’d won the Kent Messenger Group's tallest sunflower competition.

"I’ve never grown sunflowers before," said Mr Williams, who will receive £500 in gardening vouchers. "I put them in the ground and they started to shoot up - I was more shocked than surprised but I was well pleased.

"The rate of growth was phenomenal; sometimes I would go out in the morning and they had grown a foot."

On his use of beer, Mr Williams added: "I used different things on them - beer from the pub and tea leaves.

"A bottle of beer is supposed to keep the slugs off, but I think it was the tea leaves that did it. Beer usually lays you on your back!"