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We all know what a tomato is. It is relatively small or maybe a bit bigger. It is round and red. It has soft flesh and there are large cavities inside which are filled with juice and lots and lots of seeds which squirt all over the place when you bite a whole fruit. We grow them in the garden or buy them at the greengrocers, and you get eight or so to a pound. Recently the so called cherry tomatoes have arrived - cherry because that is just about how big they are. But go to America and you will find that a tomato is something different. Yes, it's still round and red. Yes, it still has soft flesh but the internal cavities are small and there are only a few seeds. Yes, they are still grown in the garden or bought from the greengrocers. But you don't get eight to a pound. You don't even get four to a pound. You could possibly get one to a pound, and a two-pounder is far from rare. The record, I believe, is a tomato of the Beefsteak variety which weighed in at over 6½lb. Some tomato. Beefsteak tomatoes are getting more popular in England, and they are being grown more and more in Holland. If you want a tasty, juicy tomato you can't beat an English one. If you want a sandwich, just cut a slice from a Beefsteak and slap it between two slices of bread. If you take your tomatoes fried it doesn't really matter which you have, because cooking tomatoes changes their texture and their flavour. And if you are fashion conscious you don't have to be content with a choice of red or yellow. You can get white ones and, believe it or not, pink ones. If you want to grow some of these large tomatoes, now is a good time to sow the seeds as the days are getting longer and the sun stronger. You will have to give them some warmth, because they need a temperature of 60ºF. to germinate. That's 15ºC. if you are too young to remember what Fahrenheit temperatures are. And because they take so long to mature they will have to have protection. Grow them in the greenhouse in the same way as the ordinary tomatoes - water, feed, deleaf as normal. But because the resulting fruit is so heavy the plants do need some special treatment. Don't go for more than four trusses, and keep the trusses down to two or three fruit, and even this small number can cause a serious strain on the flower stalk, which means they will have to be supported by tying to a stake. Use a piece of cloth (old nylon tights are very good, but remember to take them off first) and not string which could cut into the stalk under the weight of the fruit. Beefsteaks are not very good pollinators, so it's a case of going round with the rabbit's foot or giving the stems a tap to shake the pollen about. A warm day is the best for this activity. Some of the new Dutch varieties set fruit better than the old American varieties, so it could be an advantage to try some of those.
There are two other types of large tomato apart from the Beefsteak variety. One is the Marmande, which is the type which grows so well in Spain and Italy. They will never win any prizes in a beauty contest. Although the fruits are fairly large - about 8 ounces each - and taste better than the Beefsteaks (I think so, anyway), they tend to be mis-shapen and not pretty to look at. The Marmande has two very useful attributes. It stops growing after about five trusses, so it will never get too tall, and they mature early enough for them to be grown outdoors. The other type of large tomato goes under the somewhat romantic name of 'Large F1 Hybrids'. The fruits of these vary in size depending on the variety grown. Some will grow tomatoes getting on for a pound each, while others have a struggle to get to half that weight. But what of the history of the tomato. It originally came from Central America, from where it was sent back to Italy by missionaries way back in 1544. They must have been yellow tomatoes, else why were they given the name 'pomodoro' (golden apple), a word which remains to this day the Italian word for 'tomato'. By the way, the word 'tomato' comes from the South American Indian name - 'tomatl'. The Italians were very trusting and ate them, but other Europeans weren't so sure. When they arrived in England in 1580 they were viewed with grave suspicion. They looked like Deadly Nightshade for a start. Not surprising really. The tomato and the Nightshades (Deadly, Woody and Black) all belong to the Solanaceae family, as does the potato. It took a long time for the English to trust this plant. At one time it was used in love philtres. It also became known as the Love Apple. And this poses a conundrum. Was it called 'Love Apple' because it was used in love philtres or because its botanical name is solanum amoris'. Or did it get its botanical name because of its common name and its use. I give up on that one. For 250 years it was grown as a tender ornamental climber which bore colourful fruits. In 1820, one distinguished gardening authority described the different colours and shapes of the fruit, and then stated that only the red ones were suitable for the kitchen. In 1870 seed catalogues were still placing tomatoes in the Ornamental Flower section. It still had a bitter, insipid taste, and it wasn't until plant breeders improved the flavour that any doubts about its safety as food disappeared. And today the tomato is the most popular vegetable eaten raw anywhere in the world. Happy Gardening, Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 1 APRIL 2000 |
