Let's talk about tomatoes...

What else are we going to talk about?

“I sowed my tomato seeds yesterday.” announced V as we swum about the river this morning.

Already? I thought to myself when an angry outburst came from another swimmer.

“What is it with you Tasmanians and tomatoes? This obsession with getting the seeds sown now. You’re still not going to get any fruit until March!”

He had a point.

But there’s more to it than that.

Around the start of August, hopeful gardeners around the state are carefully sowing little punnets of tomato seeds to leave by a sunny window. Perhaps sitting the precious bairns on a heated pad, or moving them around the house to follow the sun during the day. It takes commitment to nurture tiny seedlings in the middle of a Tasmanian winter.

The goal, of this early sowing, is to get a head start so we can pop advanced plants in the garden the minute the risk of frost has passed. Hopefully giving the plants enough time to fruit in an unpredictable Tassie summer.

We all dream of harvesting buckets of tomatoes. Forget the bloody football stadium, it’s the hope of a tomato glut that truly unites Tasmanians. That unanimous goal of a summer spent eating fragrant tomato salads and tomato sandwiches, and an autumn spent making tomato sauce, passata and chutney. Not only are we motivated by a love of eating tomatoes, but also a love of talking about tomatoes.

Quite frankly, what else are we going to talk about all winter, spring, summer and autumn? What other topic is universally understood, doesn’t cause offence, as benign as the weather, just more interesting and delicious. Growing tomatoes, it affects us all and is a great leveller of society. It’s not about how much money you have, or what fancy car you drive, in Tasmania, it’s can you grow a tomato?

The Tasmanian Tomato Calendar goes something like this.

Late July / August: Sow seeds, far too many that are ever going to fit in your garden. Then nurture seedlings while rationing out last season’s tomato preserves.

September: Plant out seedling in a greenhouse if you have one. Pine longingly for a fresh tomato. Pop seedlings outside on sunny days, bring inside at night.

October / November: Plant outdoors after Show Day. Noting that Show Day in Hobart is mid October, but it’s best to wait til after the Huon Show, the second weekend in November if you’re in the Huon Valley to be really safe from risk of frost.

December: Once safely sown in the garden, it’s critical to get balance of feeding and watering right to avoid too much leafy green growth, powdery mildew, blossom end rot and the host of other maladies that trouble tomatoes. Prune off side shoots, stake, watch the weather, cross fingers for long spells of dry sunny days, not a mild wet summer.

January: At any opportunity, discuss at the supermarket / library / mahjong club the state of your tomato crop, incorporate this into a general comments about the weather. e.g. “we’re having such a mild summer this year, my tomatoes will never ripen” or hopefully, “This heat is unbearable, but at least it’s doing wonders for my tomatoes.” If you’re lucky, harvest a cherry tomato or two, post on social media or it didn’t happen.

February: Remind yourself constantly of the Tasmanian Gardening Mantra ‘Tomatoes are an Autumn Fruit” when despairing at the still green tomatoes on your plants. .

March / April: Cover all kitchen and dining room surfaces with trays of ripening tomatoes. Get sick of the sight of fresh tomatoes. Mutter under your breath about the amount of chutney/passata/sauce you have still have to make with the glut. Alternatively, scan FB marketplace and roadside stalls for ads for selling boxes of sauce tomatoes. Admire your pantry shelves full of preserved tomatoes.

May: Pull out finished plants with remaining green fruit and hang upside down by the roots somewhere sheltered so they continue to ripen. Then throw on compost heap.

June: Order seeds for next season.

See? There’s topics for a tomato based discussion every month of the year.

After 18 year of living in Tasmania I was never organised to sow seeds early enough and always missed the boat, until last year, when I managed to sow them in August. All late winter and spring I watched them diligently, moved them around the house, kept them warm on the coffee machine, popped them outside for some rays on warm sunny days, set an alarm to bring them back inside lest the fragile things get too cold at dusk.

Yet despite lavishing months of care on the seedlings, indeed I did not get any tomatoes until April. In fact, they stayed leggy seedlings until February, not growing much more than five centimetres in six months.

Seems you can’t trick nature, not in my little microclimate anyway. It was late May before things started to kick off, when I had kilos of green tomatoes that never got the chance to ripen. I ended up buying 50 odd kilos from a local grower to preserve. Most of my mealy green ones ending up on the compost heap.

So this year I’m with angry swimmer, and reckon I’ll give sowing tomatoes in winter a miss.

On second thought, maybe I’ll sow a couple of seeds, just a dozen or so, if only to have something to talk about.

Thanks so much for reading, stay tuned for next month, when we’ll talk about the other beloved Tasmanian pastime, growing potatoes.