YOUR OWN

with Bill O’Sullivan

Tullamore Farm

VISIT OUR WEBSITE: tullamorefarm.com.au

Tomatoes

One of the easiest and most popular vegetables (actually a fruit) to grow is tomatoes.

We grow tomatoes 12 months of the year and at the current prices are pleased to do so. We always have three or four beds of Tomatoes at varying stages of growth to ensure continued supply.

They can be grown from seed or you can purchase a small punnet of seedlings.

If you would like to grow from seed, either purchase some heirloom seeds or just select a healthy looking tomato and break it up and pot in some good soil or compost.

Water and wait for the small seedlings to emerge and when large enough, transplant them to their long term home. Try to start with excellent quality seeds or seedlings and then you can grow from your own seeds indefinitely.

We stake our tomatoes and help them climb to ensure a healthy crop.

They are not heavy feeders and in fact high nitrogen fertilizers will often give excessive leaf growth at the expense of fruit quantity and quality. Like other members of the Nightshade family they require less water than most other salad vegetables.

We mulch ours well with sugarcane mulch to help retain water. When watering, where possible avoid wetting the leaves as this can increase the chances of mildew. Water the ground around the base of the plant.

They can be a little patchy during the warmer months being particularly susceptible to mildew. For this reason it is import- ant to ensure they are pruned regularly. We remove the lower leaves branches plus all the leaves and branches that grow down or face inwards. This allows more air circulation. The plant will have more energy for fruiting with less going into growing green inedible leaves.

Tomatoes are high in antioxidants and like all things home grown provide so many benefits. There’s nothing nicer than harvesting your own home grown vegetables and ripe red juicy tomatoes are amongst the leaders of the pack.