Rare tomatoes? Take it as red

IF you love traditional tomatoes, or want to try growing a different variety this year, there will be plenty of choice at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens Tomato Sale tomorrow.

The gardens’ horticulture co-ordinator David Reid said about 90 different heirloom varieties would be for sale.

“We’ve imported quite a lot of different seed from the US . . . so we’ve got varieties that aren’t available anywhere else in Tasmania as far as I’m aware,” Mr Reid said.

“We’re growing more and more varieties that are more suited to the Tasmanian climate.” These include stupice, moskovic and olomovic tomatoes.

“They’re early season so you might have them for Christmas, and they’re really suited to this cooler climate,” Mr Reid said.

The traditional tomatoplanting time for Hobart gardeners is Show day, which is October 26 this year.

“We always say to everyone wait till the frosts have passed, and keep the seedlings in a protected spot until the soil warms up a bit,” Mr Reid said.

A prelude sale was held yesterday, but with 6000 plants for sale, Mr Reid said there were plenty still available for tomorrow’s sale, which starts at 10am.

The sale will be held at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, and horticulturalists will be available to answer questions.

Aside from the tomatoes, other vegetable and herb seedlings will also be for sale.

All proceeds go to the gardens.