A GREEN-fingered Trowbridge schoolboy is reaching for the sky with his giant runner bean plant - but is hoping there won’t be an ogre waiting at the top.

Five-year-old Dominic Benford has grown a 15-feet tall runner bean plant at his home in Thirsk Drive.

But Dominic’s bean plant has still got a long way to go to beat the world record achieved in 2003.

American, Staton Rorie, grew the world’s tallest bean plant at 46 feet 3 inches (14.1 metres).

In a bid to beat the record Dominic feeds the plant twice a day after being given a plant pot and seeds by his Year 1 teacher Mr Savage at Castle Mead School.

Dominic said: “I’m very surprised at how tall it has grown. It was only one feet tall when I brought it home.”

Dad Stewart Benford, 48, and mum, Sara, 43, and elder brother Joshua, 9, are also amazed at how tall the bean plant has grown.

Mr Benford said: “In the past 12 weeks it has grown and grown and grown with the daily watering he has done.

“At the current growth rate by this time next week (wind permitting) it will be as tall as our house.”

Last year, Dominic grew an sunflower that achieved a height of 18 feet.

During his first year at school he and his classmates were given a bean seed to plant and when they were a few inches tall they were allowed to bring them home from school.

But Dominic’s plant has just kept on growing - helped by the soluble plant food that he gives it twice a day.

Mr Benford, an online manager at Asda, said: “Both of my young sons have always enjoyed spending time in the garden with daddy as they have grown up.

“When Dominic got the bean home he asked if we could put it into a bigger pot and keep it put the front of the house with our other flower pot.

“When it got bigger, we put a bamboo cane in the pot to help it grow taller, but it just keeps shooting up. I had to put up a ladder for it to climb up.

“He waters it with a little watering can that we have given him. He just loves it and wants to do it every day.

“We have taken lots of beans from it. On the last day of the school term, he picked one to give to Mr Savage.”

At the end of the summer, Dominic plans to take a photo of the giant bean plant to take to school and show his teacher.