A tomato that looks like a pear - Aug 28, 2014

Dear Gardening Friends,

We had over 300mms of rain according to some of our garden club members. This is the best start to spring that I can remember for a long time.

I might finally get some cherries on my tree. The last 2 seasons we had a late frost and all the flowers dropped off. Another year we had so much wind the flowers blew off.

Heavy rain seems like the only thing that can stop me eating fresh cherries this year. My Almond tree is flowering this week and the bees are having a lovely time collecting pollen.

We have a Self Pollinating variety here called “All in One”. If you are looking for an easy to grow fruit tree then it is hard to beat an Almond.

If you are buying deciduous fruit or spring blossom trees now then you need to be very careful taking them out of the pot. If you disturb to roots and then we get hot weather your tree could die.

I like to cut the base away from the pot with a saw. Cut up the side of the pot too. Slide the pot along the ground then into the hole. Back fill around the pot with Greengold Planting Compost and the existing soil. Now slide the pot up the trunk of the tree and cut the last bit of plastic. Your tree has now been planted without disturbing any roots.

Water daily for a few weeks then twice weekly. There is no need to fertilise. The Planting Compost has all the goodies.

I went to Italy a couple of years ago to a mountain town called L’Aquila.

If you have ever been to Italy you will know that tomatoes just taste different over there.

Tomatoes are a fruit but in Australia they don’t taste like fruit. In Italy they are so sweet and delicious. While we were there I discovered a pear shaped tomato that just tasted sweeter than all the rest. It had hardly any seeds inside and the flesh was so sweet.

When I returned to Australia I grew this unusual looking tomato in my garden and it performed better than all the other varieties. It produced huge pear shaped tomatoes almost into winter.

I gave a plant to one of my friends, Dean Nicholls who lives in Camden South and his plant produced fruit up till July!

I collected the seeds from my fruit and our seedling suppler is now growing this fantastic tomato plant.

We have called it Tim’s Italian Tomato. This plant is very vigorous so you will need to stake it several times.

I used 3 stakes to make a tee pee. To avoid fruit fly I picked the fruit just as they started to change colour and ripened them on the window sill. They are bright red in colour and because they are pear shaped all my friends were amazed. Eat them at room temperature with a bit of olive oil and salt and you will think you are in Italy!

We have nice plants available now for just $4.50.

If you are looking for tomato stakes I have some good news. Ryan found a new supplier who is still making tomato stakes from hardwood. These last much longer and they are straight!
Tomatoes need stakes that are at least 1.8 metres high. Don’t prune out the side shoots and you will get more fruit. If you are growing tomatoes in pots use Tim’s Best Potting Mix and water your plants daily. Lack of water causes tomatoes to get a black spot on the base.

The easiest tomato to grow is our Tim’s Fruit Fly Resistant tomato.

This gets covered in hundreds of apricot sized tomatoes that are fruit fly free! It is a disease free variety that doesn’t require tomato dusts so you can grow this one without using any nasty chemicals.

My boys love eating these sweet tasting tomatoes straight from the vine. Your kids will love eating them too.

The Nursery Industry Plant of the Year is a Lavender plant called The Princess.

We love this Lavender variety and it has perfumed pink flowers in abundance. They are perfect for picking.

Lavenders grow best in hot sunny positions. Prune them every spring and autumn and they will live longer and flower more often.

Lavenders are always pot bound so dunk them in a bucket of water prior to planting and water daily until they become established.

There has never been a better time to plant trees and shrubs in your garden so come and see us if you need help.

Happy Gardening
Tim