LONNIE’S SET TO BLOOM

Blooming Tasmania Flower & Garden Festival is on at Albert Hall and in City Park, Launceston (corner of Tamar and Cimitiere streets) this weekend from 9am to 4pm.

Entry is $10 ($8 concession, children under 16 free). For a program or more information, see bloomingtasmania.com.au.

A tomato growing and fruiting on top of a piling in New York’s East River has become a worldwide media sensation, with reports even in The New York Times. The tomato now has its own Twitter account (@east_tomato).

It is growing not far from the Brooklyn Bridge. After first finding one plant with a small fruit on it, kayaker Matthew Frey also found a second tomato plant thriving on top of another river piling — this one with a reported 15 or so unripe fruit. While it is a mystery how the plants found their way to the top of a post in the river in the city that never sleeps, bird droppings are suspected.

The tomato seeds probably lodged into small holes in the top of the pilings and grew through the northern hemisphere summer.

In this case a bird is the most likely explanation for the appearance of the tomato plants, but other oddly positioned plants are often the work of guerilla gardeners who have been responsible for the greening of many inhospitable places, from pavements to wasteland, neglected parks or roundabouts.

Quiz answers: 1. Holly Hunter 2. Red 3. Lebanon 4. Durian 5. Mediterranean Sea 6. 1970s, 1980s 7. Giacomo Puccini 8. Maine Collingwood Magpies 12. China 13. Cricket 14. Bangkok 15. Roseanne 16. Eight 17. Warcraft 18. Africa 19. Guitar 20. Tom Cruise

Channel 23. 1840s 24. Italy 25. United States 26. 30 Rock 27. Spanish 28. Melbourne 29. Michael Connelly 30. Eris

Target word answers: cede, censed, cestode, code, condense, coned, conned, CONSENTED, contend, costed, decent, dene, denote, dense, dent, descent, docent, done, donee, dose, dost, dote, encode, need, nested, node, nosed, noted, scend, scented, second, seed, send, sonde, steed, stoned, teed, tend, tendon, tensed, toed, toned.

10. 29 11.

22. Mozambique