This year, I’m excited to be growing an even larger selection of tomatoes than usual. The reason for this is that I wanted to conduct a growing trial, similar to the one I am doing for basil, which you can read about here. Tomatoes and basil are a perfect combination and complement each other really well, so they make a nice pair of growing trials. Tomatoes are one of our favourite summer veggies and every year we look forward to growing our favourite varieties. This year, I am excited to be growing many new varieties, some of which were given to me by Egmont Seeds and Franchi (distributed by Italian Seeds Pronto in New Zealand), for whom I am a brand ambassador. Here is a list of varieties which I am growing this year. This is not an exhaustive list. There are so many interesting and unusual varieties out there but I have had to narrow it down to encompass a variety of tomatoes, as well as our fondness for cocktail size tomatoes which are great for salads in summer. Of note is the number of container/hanging basket varieties which I will be growing this year. I hope to compare and contrast how they perform. Hopefully my suggestions will be useful to gardeners who are short of space or enjoy container gardening, as I do.
I will be following up on their progress throughout the season so keep an eye out on my blog. Varieties I am growing this season Beefsteak varieties Beefsteak (plants purchased from Kings Plant Barn) Big Beef (Egmont) Big Boy (Egmont) Better Boy (Egmont) Costoluto Fiorentino (Franchi) Red Pear (Franchi) Steakhouse (Egmont) Low acid Roma (Egmont) San Marzano (Egmont) San Marzano Redorta (Franchi) Cherry tomatoes Baxter’s Early Bush Cherry (Kings Seeds) Gold Nugget (Kings Seeds) Honeybee (Kings Seeds) Lady Bug (Kings Seeds) Orange Cherry (Kings Seeds) Rapunzel (Egmont Seeds) Red Cherry (Franchi) Sweet Hearts (Egmont) Sugar Plum (Kings Seeds) Suncherry (Kings Seeds) Sungold (Kings Seeds) Sweet 100 (Egmont) Sweet Gold (Egmont) Tommy Toe (Egmont) Yellow Pear (Egmont) Medium sized tomatoes Black Krim (McGregors) Cluster Saxon (Egmont) Dr Walters Special (Egmont) Jaune Flamme (Kings Seeds) Midnight (Kings Seeds) Moneymaker (Egmont Seeds) Mortgage Lifter (Yates) Principe Borghese (Franchi) Yellow Plum (Kings Seeds) Potentate (Plants purchased from Kings Plant Barn) Container/hanging basket tomatoes Balcony (Egmont) Birdie Canary (Egmont) Container Choice Red (Kings Seeds) Patio (Egmont Seeds) Patio Choice Yellow (Kings Seeds) Siderno (Kings Seeds) Tidy Treats (Egmont) Topsy Tom (Egmont) Tumbling Tom Red (Egmont) Tumbling Tom Yellow (Egmont) Window Box Red (Kings Seeds) Progress report I’d like to highlight a couple of varieties which have really stood out for me so far. One is the variety Steakhouse from Egmont Seeds, which was given to me by John McCullough. Apparently these beefsteak style tomatoes can grow up to 1.3 kg. As such, they need decent support so they have a wooden stake on either side of them, just like the fruit trees in our garden. As they grow I’ll tie them to the stakes with some old pantyhose. If these really do grow as large as they are said to, they would be perfect for making stuffed tomatoes. By far the most healthiest variety of all my tomato seedlings is the heirloom variety Red Pear from Franchi Seeds, which was kindly given to me by Gillian Hurley-Gordon of Italian Seeds Pronto. Note that this variety should not be confused with the cocktail tomato which shares the same name and which Egmont Seeds used to stock (now they only stock Yellow Pear). This is another beefsteak variety, perfect for sandwiches and homemade hamburgers. Another top performing variety in the garden so far is Topsy Tom from Egmont Seeds, which have been planted in twelve hanging baskets suspended from our washing line (see picture above). As always, Tumbling Tom Red, also from Egmont Seeds, has also done reliably well and is growing healthily in our hanging baskets on the concrete slab outside our front door.
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