2012 tomatoes, first varieties.

Show Day has been and gone, and many Hobartians are rushing out to get their tomatoes in, but beware, frost may still strike. If you do plant now, and you live in a frost prone area, grab yourself a lace curtain from the opshop and use it, draped over some stakes to protect your plants from light frosts.

The first of our tomatoes are ready for planting, and have been hardened off exposed to all the windy, cold rainy weather we've had. These will be at Farm Gate Market with us this Sunday, the 28th of October, and there are quite a few more coming over the next couple of weeks, and chillies, capsicums and eggplants galore on the way.

We grow our tomato seedlings without any pesticides, in recycled pots, using our house made potting mix, which contains composted pine bark, Renew Biological Fertilizer, Tasmanian dolomite and blood & bone and certified organic seaweed and fish based fertilisers.


Deutsche Fleiss German heirloom, easily grown, high yielding variety. Red, 3-5cm fruit that look deceptively like a supermarket tomato but are one of the tastiest salad tomatoes I’ve grown. Fruit are firm and store well. Staking variety, tends to grow low and bushy.

Eva Purple Ball Productive German, Black Forest heirloom with mid sized, pink/red fruit. Climbing variety.

Jaune Flamme A French heirloom with small, opaque, orange fruit. Unique dense texture makes them great fresh, cooked or dried. Staking variety.

Kotlas Early, cold tolerant, Russian heirloom. Sweet, mid sized, red fruit with green shoulders. Staking variety.

Tasmanian Yellow Yellow, beefsteak type, medium/large fruit. Sweet, meaty fruit. Climbing variety.

Debaro Medium sized, red, egg shaped fruit with smooth skin, to 4cm across and great flavour. Productive.

Silver Fir Russian heirloom, bush variety with lacy, silvery foliage well suited to growing in containers. As it is a bush variety, fruit ripens all at once.

Roma Classic cooking tomato, egg-shaped fruit with few seeds. Semi bush variety, benefits from some staking.

Stupice Czechoslovakian heirloom, cold tolerant, with abundant sweet 2-3inch red fruit. Hardy, delicious and productive. *Our most productive here, early, delicious and cold tolerant.

Wapsipinicon Peach Named after a river in Iowa this American heirloom is said to yield thousands of 4-5cm, delicious, yellow, fuzzy skinned fruit. Climbing variety.

Camp Joy Hardy, productive, large, cherry type tomato. Really well balanced flavour. Climbing variety.

Stor Gul Swedish heirloom. Produces epic, 100mm, yellow/orange fruit. Vigorous plant up to 2m. Delicious and beautiful.

Tigerella Gorgeous green-red tomato with orange stripes. Small to medium fruit, tangy, firm flesh and incredibly tasty.

Tommy Toe Classic small cherry tomato. Productive and tasty. Staking variety.

Principe Borghese Classic Italian, egg shaped variety. Bred for sun drying but also great fresh or roasted. Prolific, staking variety.

Granny’s Golden Globes (pictured here with Wild Cherry) Low growing cherry tomato. This little gem comes up like magic in my Mum's garden each year. It produces masses of tiny, yellow fruit with thin skin that burst in the mouth, or can be picked in trusses and roasted. Holds fruit until late in the season, pull spent plants and hang in a dry place for continued harvest.

Harbinger English heirloom, produces well in cool weather and for a long period, green fruit is said to ripen well off of the bush. Medium sized, red fruit. Staking variety.

A little of last year's harvest

The remains of last year's tasting, if only I could find the notes....

Pickling cuke seedlings at Farm Gate
on Sunday too.

The first of three tomatillo varieties
coming to market this Sunday.