Fine vines: the joy of growing your own rare tomatoes
Odd shapes, exciting flavours, new colours – why heritage toms are worth saving. By Mark Diacono
Tomatoes make nerds of many gardeners. Just the mention of names like ‘Japanese Black Trifele’ and ‘Gardener’s Delight’ will quicken the pulse. And yet, while the range of varieties we can grow is superior in every way to those in the supermarket, it is a mere sliver of the 10,000-plus varieties in existence – a hidden heritage of little-grown flavours, textures and colours.
Next Saturday, Knightshayes – a National Trust-owned country house near Tiverton, Devon, and home of one of my favourite kitchen gardens – hosts its Tomato Day. A celebration of everything tomato, with the opportunity to see and taste dozens of varieties, there will be tours, seed swaps and demonstrations.
The day is about more than this,
though. Beverley Todd, the kitchen garden supervisor, explains: “Although we are unusual in growing 150 varieties of tomato, this is just the tip of the iceberg: many varieties are under threat simply from not being grown. So we grow heritage varieties to showcase their qualities, and in the hope that we might help save some. If no one grows them, they’re gone for good.”
A variety can become endangered for a number of reasons: we gardeners like familiar varieties, major seed suppliers dominate, and for seed to be sold for food production it has to be registered as such, a prohibitive cost for small suppliers. The result is that we grow from an ever-shrinking range. But, by growing heritage varieties, gardeners help to maintain the genetic diversity of tomatoes: the wider that is, the broader the range of flavours, textures, colours, sizes and degrees of resistance to disease and adaptability to different conditions.
The best way to be part of this is to join the Heritage Seed Library (garden organic.org.uk/hsl) and get involved with a seed swap group; by exchanging seed of endangered varieties of vegetables, you keep them alive.
Growing heritage varieties isn’t just about trying to save them. Todd says: “We are also trying to create a wide range of tomatoes that work well for us here, in the warm, wet Devon climate.
“The best become regulars for us, and it is usually flavour that convinces people. ‘White Beauty’, for instance, is one of the least attractive tomatoes you’ll ever see: grey-white and squished like a doughnut peach, but the pineapple flavour is incredible, my favourite of all. Anyone can develop a delicious collection that does well where they live.
“It’s a great feeling to reintroduce a tomato that captures people’s imagination. ‘Ildi’, a yellow grape, is one of my favourite ‘saved’ tomatoes, with huge trusses of delicious cherry tomatoes. It was only available through seed saving groups, yet it developed a following, became registered and now seed is easy to find. One day we hope to find ‘Dedham’s Favourite’, one grown here in the late Victorian era when the kitchen garden won many prizes.”
Of course, Tomato Day will include advice on growing tomatoes. Todd says: “The way we do it is pretty straightforward but each step is crucial. We sow indoor tomatoes in early March on a heated mat, pricking them out into 9cm pots when large enough, before moving them into an unheated but frost-free greenhouse. We then plant them into 35-litre pots in the polytunnels in early May.”
Care is regimented: as it grows, each plant is wound around a thin rope hung from the ceiling for support. As trusses form, a handful of organic fertiliser pellets is applied monthly; plants are watered at the same time every morning, directly at the root zone, to help prevent blossom end rot, greenback and split skins.
The tunnel is kept as dry as possible, as low humidity discourages late blight. Side shoots are pinched out weekly, first thing in the morning to allow the small wounds to heal before dampness descends in the evening. Lower leaves are removed once the fruit trusses at that height are well formed, maximising light and air.
Another way to be part of this gently subversive reclaiming of rare varieties is to save your own seed. For those who can’t make the demonstration on Terrific Tomato Day, see the guide below.