terrific
tomatoes
Harvesting your very own tasty tomatoes is one of life’s joys. They can be picked at their sun-ripened and sweetest best and go from garden to plate in a matter of minutes.
It’s time to sow tomato seed and get your tomato patch or pot off to a flying start. There are lots of delicious tomato varieties to choose from, including flavour packed bite sized cherry tomatoes, large juicy beefsteak tomatoes and Italian tomatoes that are perfect for cooking and sun-drying.
HERE ARE SOME TERRIFIC TOMATOES FOR YOU TO GROW AT YOUR PLACE: »
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Yates® Tomato ‘Tommy Toe Heirloom’ is an old favourite with a reputation for delightful tasting tomatoes. It sets a heavy crop of glossy bright red apricot sized fruit. Superb in salads, bruschetta or just pick and enjoy straight from the truss. It’s a tall grower that must be staked and is best grown in a vegie patch in full sun. Yates Tomato ‘Patio Mini’ is a compact dwarf hybrid, tailor-made for pots on the deck or tiny gardens. It’s a vigorous cropper that produces red medium-sized fruit on deep green bushy plants. Staking is optional as Patio Mini only grows to 70cm tall. Yates Tomato ‘Roma’ are Italian heirloom tomatoes which produce deep red pear-shaped fruit. They have drier and thicker flesh than slicing tomatoes and are famous for hearty sauces, rich tomato paste and soups and are also perfect for sun drying.
Tomato seeds can be sown direct where they are to grow, or seedlings raised in punnets of Yates Black Magic® Seed Raising Mix and transplanted when they’re around 5cm high. Only transplant seedlings into the vegie patch once the risk of frost has passed.
For best results, dig some Yates Thrive® Natural Blood & Bone into the soil before sowing seed or transplanting seedlings. This adds valuable organic matter to the soil, improves soil structure and attracts earthworms and beneficial soil microorganisms. Once the seedlings are established, apply a tomato specific plant food, like Yates Thrive® Tomato Granular Plant Food, to help promote healthy leaf growth as well as lots of flowers that will turn into delicious, juicy tomatoes.
Green thumb tip: Indeterminate tomatoes, such as Tommy Toe, are tall growers (versus determinate tomatoes which are ‘bush’ type tomatoes) and will continue to grow and produce fruit throughout the growing season. To help improve tomato yields and reduce the incidence of disease, ‘suckers’ along the stems of indeterminate tomatoes can be removed. Suckers are the small shoots that develop between the main stem and side branches. Pinching these off reduces excess leafy growth and allows more sunlight into the plant. G R O W I N G W I T H Y O U - YA T E S
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