 Growing Gardens
with Julia Hancock
Terrific Tomatoes
Did you know that tomatoes are one of the oldest food crops known to humankind? However, the fruits eaten by our forebears would have been more akin to yellow or orange cherry tomatoes as it's only in the last couple of hundred years that hybridists have developed big red fruits.
Tomatoes have been in the top three of favourite vegetables for nearly a century, despite modern agricultural, transport, storage and marketing practices which often rob the commercially-grown types of flavour and freshness.
If you want a really, really good tomato you just have to grow it yourself. In theory, this should be easy, but in practice there are a few things that can go wrong with tomatoes, causing heartbreak to the unwary grower.
Some local soils are contaminated with viruses and diseases, which prompt sudden death to certain strains of tomato. These can be combatted to some extent by growing resistant varieties or those grafted onto resistant rootstock, but a more flexible method of safe cultivation is to grow the variety of your choice in a container.
Pot culture is gaining in popularity, not only for the dwarf ‘patio' strains of tomato, but also for the large sprawling types which can be trained up verandah posts like grapevines. Pots have the advantage over garden beds in terms of watering and fertilising – tomatoes are greedy for both and it's much easier to maintain optimum conditions in a controlled microenvironment.
If you've got the room for them, straw bales make ideal growing sites, a cultivation method which will be demonstrated by Kerry Ochtman at Lismore Home Hardware & Garden Centre's Big Tomato & Herb Day on Saturday, August 11, from 9am to 4pm. Kerry will also be talking about other important aspects of tomato growing, such as pruning, staking, pest and disease control and seed saving throughout the day. Do your tastebuds a favour and check it out.
Lismore Garden Club
 Judging day for the Spring Garden competition is now only a few weeks away.
If you have gaps in your mixed flowerbeds, I'd suggest buying some potted colour from local nurseries, unless big numbers are required.
If you have a space in your vegetable garden, for a quick cover-up, sprinkle a row of radish seeds, which will look good by judging day – the judges don't like to see bare dirt.
Another alternative is mulch. A light cover of it on the soil will also help hold the moisture. For citrus trees, a spray of white oil mixed with water according to the manufacturer's instructions. It makes the leaves nice and shiny and look a lot better.
Happy gardening.
Enquiries Don 6624 3855.
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